By Anu Koskivirta

"This work explores the quantitative and qualitative development of homicide in eastern Finland in the second half of the eighteenth century and the early years of the nineteenth. The area studied comprised northern Savo and northern Karelia in eastern Finland. At that time, these were completely agricultural regions on the periphery of the kingdom of Sweden. Indeed the majority of the population still got their living from burn-beating agriculture. The analysis of homicide there reveals characteristics that were exceptional by Western European standards: the large proportion of premeditated homicides (murders) and those within the family is more reminiscent of modern cities in the West than of a pre-modern rural society. However, there also existed some archaic forms of Western crime there. Most of the homicides within the family were killings of brothers or brothers-in law, connected with the family structure (the extended family) that prevailed in the region. This study uses case analysis to explore the causes for the increase in both familial homicide and murder in the area. One of the explanatory factors that is dealt with is the interaction between the faltering penal practice that then existed and the increase in certain types of homicide."

Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society / SKS, 2003. 217p.

Edited by Roy Krøvel and Mona Thowsen  

"Each year local and national economies throughout the world lose billions of dollars through so-called illicit financial flows. Conservative estimates indicate that over a billion dollars are diverted illegitimately out of countries in the Southern Hemisphere every year. This diversion of revenue reinforces poverty while facilitating the concentration of authority in the hands a select few through corruption and abuse of power. The authors’ objective with this book is to increase transparency in finance and global financial transactions. Understanding the phenomenon of illicit financial flows requires input from several disciplines including law, finance and economics, and much of what is known about illicit financial flows is thanks to whistleblowers and investigative journalists. This anthology highlights journalism about illicit, global financial activity from an interdisciplinary perspective. In conveying the experiences of whistleblowers and investigative journalists who have been involved with the Panama Papers, Paradise Papers, Lux Leaks and Swiss Leaks, the contributing authors underscore the need for journalism students to also learn the basics of economics, finance and law if they are to be able to carry out investigative projects in an increasingly more globalized economy. In the first part of the book, investigative journalists describe their work to expose corruption and capital flight, and whistleblowers in some of the most significant cases tell their stories, while lawyers and accountants explain what needs to be done at the legislative level. In the second half of the book, analyses of revelations of corruption and illegitimate financial flows are presented. The authors explore themes including the value of investigative journalism, new journalistic methods, inadequate protections for whistleblowers and the education of investigative journalists. This book will be of interest to anyone concerned about illicit financial flows, but especially to journalists, journalism students and journalism instructors seeking an understanding of what it takes to reveal the mechanisms behind illicit, global flows of wealth."

Oslo:  Cappelen Damm Akademisk/NOASP. 2019. 323p.

By Hannah R. Johnson

The ritual murder accusation is one of a series of myths that fall under the label blood libel, and describes the medieval legend that Jews require Christian blood for obscure religious purposes and are capable of committing murder to obtain it. This malicious myth continues to have an explosive afterlife in the public sphere, where Sarah Palin's 2011 gaffe is only the latest reminder of its power to excite controversy. Blood Libel is the first book-length study to analyze the recent historiography of the ritual murder accusation and to consider these debates in the context of intellectual and cultural history as well as methodology. Hannah R. Johnson articulates how ethics shapes methodological decisions in the study of the accusation and how questions about methodology, in turn, pose ethical problems of interpretation and understanding.

Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2012. 250p

By Marcela Bittar Araujo Lima andMauricio Yonamine

Counterfeiting of medicines, also known as “falsification” or “adulteration”, is the process in which the identity, origin, or history of genuine medicines are intentionally modified. Currently, counterfeit medicines are a global crisis that affects and is mostly caused by developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. These countries lack strict law enforcement against this practice and have low-income populations with medicinal needs. Lately, the crisis has escalated, impacting developed countries as well, e.g., the US and the EU, mainly via the Internet. Despite this extension, some current laws aim to control and minimize the crisis’ magnitude. Falsification of medicines maintains an illegitimate supply chain that is connected to the legitimate one, both of which are extremely complex, making such falsification difficult to control. Furthermore, political and economic causes are related to the crisis’ hasty growth, causing serious consequences for individuals and public health, as well as for the economy of different countries. Recently, organizations, technologies and initiatives have been created to overcome the situation. Nevertheless, the development of more effective measures that could aggregate all the existing strategies into a large functioning network could help prevent the acquisition of counterfeit medicines and create awareness among the general population.

  Brazilian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, vol. 59, 2023.

By TRAFFIC

  This highly lucrative illicit business is managed by organised criminal groups through a variety of payment mechanisms. These mechanisms, including cash transactions and bulk cash smuggling, trade-based money-laundering, international bank transfers through legal businesses and nominee bank account holders, are key to advancing the objectives of criminal organisations. Organised criminal groups3 engage in corruption to accomplish their aims by bribing public officials to obtain information on the movement of animals or patrols, to acquire illegitimate licences or permits to give illegal wildlife products the veneer of legitimacy and to allow illegal specimens to pass through checkpoints or avoid seizure. Further, offenders may attempt to pay law enforcement officials to disrupt or close criminal investigations to circumvent any consequences associated with their illegal activities. Currently, there is a noticeable lack of financial investigations related to wildlife and forest crime cases. As such, the information about how criminals extract the profits from wildlife and forest crimes, and the identities of the main financial beneficiaries of those crimes, remains limited. The result of this is that low-level criminals, such as poachers, are caught and prosecuted, leaving the more senior members of criminal groups and actual beneficiaries of these crimes free to continue their illicit activities. A greater understanding of the financial aspects will allow for more effective prosecutions that target those that use corruption to facilitate wildlife and forest crime, and thereby disrupt organised criminal groups.

This Case Digest was created to fill this information gap by providing data on actual cases from Africa, Asia and Latin America and thereby generate more knowledge of financial flows associated with the illegal wildlife trade and what payment mechanisms are used by those perpetrating the crime .  

Cambridge, UK: TRAFFIC International, 2020. 120p.

By  Ruggero Scaturro

This report applies the ‘hotspots’ approach that has been used by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime’s (GI-TOC) Observatory of Illicit Economies in South Eastern Europe to analyze organized crime in the Western Balkans as well as the activities of criminal groups from the region in other parts of the world, as exposed in the earlier ‘Transnational tentacles’ report.

As in the context of the risk assessment conducted on Western Balkan ports last year, this approach examines places that are associated with organized crime (hotspots), rather than people or markets. The objective is to focus on the factors that make these locations vulnerable or attractive to organized crime; assess the internal dynamics and players; plot the locations on a map and connect the dots between them to get a clearer overview of the geography of crime in the region.

When researching hotspots of criminal activity in the Western Balkans and the activities of Balkan criminal groups abroad, it became evident that there were a growing number of police and customs operations in major international airports, particularly in Tirana (Albania), Skopje (North Macedonia) and Belgrade (Serbia). These operations merited a closer look, so it was decided that an organized crime-based security threat assessment of airports in the Western Balkans should be undertaken. Although illicit activities are also being conducted using private jets that land at minor airports and airstrips, it was beyond the scope of this study to analyze every aviation site in the Western Balkans. Rather, the focus is limited to two major airports, which are presented as case studies: Belgrade and Skopje’s international airports. These seem to be the hubs for illicit activities related to human trafficking, smuggling of migrants and goods, as well as main entry points for shipments of drugs and precursors.

Using a similar model to the research conducted for the report ‘Portholes: Exploring the maritime Balkan routes’, we developed a methodology for carrying out a risk assessment, together with airport security experts. Among the issues covered by this methodology are airport ownership; trade and passenger volumes; security measures; major illicit markets; criminal actors involved; law enforcement operations; and enabling factors of illicit activity, such as infrastructure, governance and corruption. These assessments were done at the airports of Belgrade and Skopje between November 2022 and January 2023, and involved semi-structured interviews with more than 20 airport experts, including security providers (i.e. representatives of customs, border police, state police, prosecutors’ offices and private security companies), representatives of logistics companies operating in the Western Balkans, international experts on aviation security, academics, and journalists reporting on illicit trade through airports. The findings, outlined in the two case studies, are set out in the report.

The report also provides an analytical overview of security at airports, factors of vulnerability in aviation departing from and arriving in the Western Balkans, and how these vulnerabilities are exploited for criminal purposes. In addition, the report considers how airports are part of a wider regional infrastructure that feeds into a network of trade and travel corridors, and particularly how they serve as nodes connecting Western Europe and Asia. Recommendations to help mitigate the risk of illicit flows through these aviation hotspots are given in the final section of the report.

Geneva. Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2023 . 47p.

By S. Elsayed

Cryptocurrency is becoming an increasingly popular tool for organised crime groups (OCGs) to conduct illicit activities. OCGs can exploit the inherent pseudonymity and decentralised nature of cryptocurrencies to conduct money laundering and other crimes related to corruption. Criminals can use cryptocurrencies instead of the formal banking system to move large sums of money which entails a potentially lower risk of being detected by law enforcement or the traditional financial institutions which are required to submit suspicious transaction reports. The development sector can play an important role in mitigating the risks associated with the criminal use of cryptocurrency. Relevant actions include coordinating the development and implementation of regulatory and legislative frameworks, educating the public about the risks of cryptocurrency use and strengthening law enforcement agencies’ capacity to dismantle criminal networks.

 Bergen: U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Chr. Michelsen Institute (U4 Issue 2023:8)

By S. Lemaitre and A. Visser

‘Enablers’ are those people and professions who make illicit financial flows possible. They include lawyers, accountants, bankers, real estate agents and others – and the firms they represent. Whether they know it or not, they play an essential role in helping kleptocrats to move, launder and spend the proceeds of their illicit wealth, while also helping them to ‘whitewash’ their reputation. Many enablers are based in countries that are significant providers of official development assistance. We therefore make some important recommendations to help address the ‘enablers’ problem’.

Bergen: U4 Anti-Corruption Resource Centre, Chr. Michelsen Institute (U4 Issue 2023:3)

European Parliament

In July 2021, the European Commission tabled a proposal to establish a new EU authority to counter money laundering and the financing of terrorism (AMLA). This was part of a legislative package aimed at implementing the 2020 action plan for a comprehensive Union policy on preventing money laundering and the financing of terrorism. The AMLA would be the centre of an integrated system composed of the authority itself and the national authorities with an AML/CFT supervisory mandate. It would also support EU financial intelligence units (FIUs) and establish a cooperation mechanism among them. The Council achieved a partial political agreement on the proposal on 29 June 2022. In the European Parliament, the file was referred to the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE). The co-rapporteurs issued their joint report in May 2022. The joint committee report was voted on 28 March 2023 and the mandate to enter trilogues was granted by the plenary on 17 April 2023. Third edition. The 'EU Legislation in Progress' briefings are updated at key stages throughout the legislative procedure. The first edition was written by Carla Stamegna.

Brussels: European Parliament, 2020. 10p.

By Saša Đorđević

  Organized crime and corruption in the Western Balkans have been on the rise since the 1990s, following the war in former Yugoslavia in 1995 and the political-economic crisis triggered by the collapse of pyramid schemes in Albania in 1997. Accordingly, popular, journalistic and academic research on organized crime in these states – namely, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia – has also increased. In 1996, for example, the head of Belgrade’s criminal police, Marko Nicović, published the book Droga: Carstvo zla (Drugs: Evil Empire) about the history of organized drug trade and the current fight to curtail it. In 2001, the Serbian Interior Ministry mapped and systematically identified 118 organized criminal groups for the first time in the White Book.  In 2002, journalist Jelena Bjelica wrote a study on human trafficking in Europe and the Balkans. In 2005, journalist Miloš Vasić published an in-depth profile of the Zemun Clan, which he described as one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the Balkans during their heyday between 1999 and 2003. One of the first regional projects on the impact of organized crime on peace-building in the region was launched in 2006. Organized crime in the region also sparked interest among international scholars, such as Misha Glenny, who, in 2018, published McMafia, about the global rise in organized crime since the 1980s. Despite the surge in research on organized crime in the Western Balkans, the findings are still insufficient and lacking in certain respects. These works reflect three main trends of illicit economies in the Western Balkans. First, the geography of organized crime has advanced from heroin smuggling through the Balkan route to cocaine trafficking from Latin America to Western Europe, and to the region being a source of particular illicit goods such as weapons and cannabis.6 Second, the politics of illicit economies in the region has evolved from being an ecosystem of political protection for crime facilitators to organized corruption that enriches and shields those with power. Third, following the end of communism and regional wars, the lack of institutional capacity to provide tangible societal improvements resulted in only partial reforms in criminal justice systems across the region. This is despite the 1999 reforms in justice and home affairs fostered by the EU through the Stabilization and Association Process. The objective of this study prepared by the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) is to systematically and strategically identify gaps in the current understanding of organized crime in the Western Balkans, and to suggest future areas of work that could help close these gaps and better understand illicit practices. This gap analysis maps existing knowledge, identifies  trends and emerging issues, and reveals the under-researched aspects of illicit economies in the region. With this approach, this study aims to better understand areas of uncertainty and initiate new studies more quickly. Identifying blind spots in the existing literature is a necessary step for creating a new research agenda, establishing strategic and funding priorities and designing research projects that can build the knowledge base, enhance analysis and contribute to evidence-based policymaking.10 Ultimately, this research agenda should aid in the prevention and disruption of organized crime both in the Western Balkans or perpetrated by criminals from the region. After first describing the methodology and data collection techniques of the gap analysis, the paper explains the scale, scope and impact of organized crime and corruption research in the Western Balkans. It then examines the main thematic focus of research on organized crime in the region – namely, criminal markets, criminal actors, and the resilience of state and non-state actors to organized crime and corruption. The third part lays out recommendations and further steps to better understand and increase knowledge of the illicit economies in the Western Balkans.   

 Geneva:  The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. 2023. 38p. 

By Stephanie G. Stahlberg

Brazilian prison gangs have spilled out to the outside world and become criminal enterprises. The expansion of São Paulo’s Primeiro Comando da Capital (PCC) and Rio de Janeiro’s Comando Vermelho into all regions and most states in Brazil signifies a major security concern for the country. A third player, Família do Norte (FDN), poses a challenge to the other organized criminal groups (OCGs), especially in the North region, where the FDN fights to retain control of the lucrative drug trading route through the Amazon. Although organized crime is believed to play a significant role in the violence level in Brazil, no study has been able to measure their presence and activity levels beyond one city or state. This dissertation develops a novel methodology for tracking criminal groups, by using the number of Google searches about each OCG in a given state and year. This method creates a proxy for the OCGs' presence and activity level, which is also used to generate a competition index. The analysis shows that OCG presence by itself does not explain homicide rates well; in fact, some states with high levels of OCG activity have relatively low homicide rates. However, in combination with a highly competitive scenario, the strong presence of these groups can translate into high levels of violence. When all three OCGs are present, the homicide rate is on average five points higher than when there are fewer OCGs present. In places where there is dominance of a single OCG, violence levels are lower. Findings from the data analysis and expert interviews reveal that the homicide reduction occurs because of higher levels of criminal market monopolization and criminal governance. Powerful OCGs replace the state and regulate violence in these communities, and are strong and threatening enough to prevent the state from challenging them directly. This study shows that a decrease in the homicide rate in the presence of OCGs should not be seen as a clear success, but rather as a warning sign that criminality may be more united and stronger.

Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University, 2021. 176p.

By L. Musing

This report investigates the domestic legislation, and policies regarding the keeping and captive breeding of tigers and disposal of their parts in the EU, and the enforcement of these regulations. Six target countries were selected as a focus for this study: Belgium, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, and the UK, based on preliminary trade data analysis and suspected or known links to the captive tiger population and tiger trade nexus. Between February and July 2020, interviews and consultations were conducted through written questionnaires and video-calls with stakeholders, including the CITES Management and/or Enforcement Authorities of the six target countries, European and national zoo associations, and relevant NGOs. CITES trade data for the period 2013 through 2017 were used to analyse reported legal trade patterns involving tigers to and from the EU, and data for the same time period from two seizures databases: EU-TWIX and TRAFFIC’s Wildlife Trade Information System (WiTIS), were used to assess the EU’s involvement in the illegal trade of tigers and their parts and derivatives.

Cambridge, UK: TRAFFIC, and World Wildlife Fund, 2020. 53p.

By E.Y. Sy and K. Krishnassamy 

Over 90 percent of the Philippine Pangolins documented to have been seized from illegal trade over the last two decades have been seized in the last two years of the period, says a new TRAFFIC study. The estimated equivalent of 740 Critically Endangered Philippine Pangolins were seized from illegal trade in the country between 2000 and 2017. However, between 2018 and 2019, an estimated 6,894 pangolins were seized suggesting a stunning nine-fold increase in pangolins seized between the two periods

TRAFFIC, Southeast Asia Regional Office, Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Malaysia.2020. 28p.

By GlobeScan

  The research questions and results reported herein are provided on a confidential basis to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). WWF is free to use the findings in whatever manner it chooses, including releasing them to the public or media, after consultation with GlobeScan on the use and dissemination of the data. GlobeScan Incorporated subscribes to the standards of the World Association of Opinion and Marketing Research Professionals (ESOMAR). ESOMAR sets minimum disclosure standards for studies that are released to the public or the media. The purpose is to maintain the integrity of market research by avoiding misleading interpretations. If you are considering the dissemination of the findings, please consult with us regarding the form and content of publication. ESOMAR standards require us to correct any misinterpretation.  

World Wildlife Fund, 2020. 83p.

By Education for Nature

Vietnam's Revised d Penal Code came into effect in January 2018. The revised law is much tougher on wildlife crime and, in general, is sufficiently effective in deterring crime if applied universally. By some accounts, the revised Criminal Code is the “ideal law” as it closes loopholes, increases punishment for serious offenses, and incorporates a foundation on which the criminal justice system can effectively deter wildlife crime. According to the new Penal Code, activities including hunting, catching, killing, rearing, caging, transporting, and/or trading of endangered, precious, and rare species or their parts and derivatives shall be deemed criminal offenses, depending on the number of animals involved. The revised Penal Code has also added “possession” as a criminal offense, closing a critical loophole that previously allowed criminals to escape with mere fines for keeping frozen tigers, rhino horn, and other endangered species and their products.   

  Species fully protected under the new Penal Code include endangered species listed under Decree 160 [2013] and its subsequently updated list of protected species under Decree 64 [2019], species listed under Group I of Decree 06, and species listed under Appendix I of CITES. The Penal Code also affords greater protection to species that are not listed on the aforementioned Decree 64, Decree 06, or Appendix I of CITES, permitting authorities to criminally charge offenders if they are engaged in illegal activities involving large quantities of animals. This new aspect of the Penal Code strengthens the hand of law enforcement dealing with criminal networks that smuggle large quantities of animals such as snakes or freshwater turtles that may not be specifically protected under endangered species laws.  

Hanoi: Education for Nature, 2021. 12p.

By Chloe Hooper

London. Hamish Hamilton. 2018. 254p.

On the scorching February day in 2009, a man lit two fires in the Australian state of Victoria, then sat on the roof of his house to watch the inferno. What came to be known as the Black Saturday bushfires killed 173 people and injured hundreds more, making them among the deadliest and most destructive wildfires in Australian history. As communities reeling from unspeakable loss demanded answers, detectives scrambled to piece together what really happened. They soon began to suspect the fires had been deliverately set by an arsonist.

The Arsonist takes readers on the hunt for this man, and inside the puzzle of his mind. But this book is also the story of fire in the Anthropocene. The command of fire has defined and sustained us as a species, and now, as climate change normalizes devastating wildfires worldwide, we must contend with the forces of inequality, and desperate yearning for power, that can lead to such destruction.

Written with Chloe Hooper’s trademark lyric detail and nuance, The Arsonist is a reminder that in the age of fire, all of us are gatekeepers.

The Economics of Extortion: Theory and Evidence on the Sicilian Mafia

By Luigi Balletta and Andrea Lavezzi 

This paper studies extortion of firms operating in legal sectors by a profit-maximizing criminal organization. We develop a simple principal-agent model under asymmetric information to find the Mafia-optimal extortion as a function of firms' observable characteristics, namely size and sector. We test the predictions of the model on a unique dataset on extortion in Sicily, the Italian region where the most powerful criminal organization, the Mafia, operates. In line with our theoretical model, our empirical findings show that extortion is strongly concave in firm's size and highly regressive. The percentage of profits appropriated by Mafia ranges from 40% for small firms to 2% for large firms. We derive some implications of these findings on market structure and economic development.

Pisa, Italy: Dipartimento di Economia e Management – Università di Pisa, 2019. 47p.

By Yvon Dandurand, Lucia Bird Ruiz Benitez de Lugo, Kingsley Madueke and Oumar Zombre  

  State-centric approaches to building resilience to organised crime must be complemented with community-based, context-specific responses that challenge organised crime and violence at a local level. Local communities are key elements of the necessary response to the destabilising impacts of organised crime in conflict as well as post-conflict settings. There remains a gap in stakeholder understanding of the elements of community resilience to organised crime, particularly in unstable settings. This report starts to address this gap, by analysing key drivers of community resilience – identified as social capital, community capacity, the role of women, economic capital and infrastructure – in four communities in Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau and Burkina Faso.   

Institute for Security Studies,  2022. 44p.

By Deborah Manzi

Criminal organizations operate in complex changing environments. Being flexible and dynamic allows criminal networks not only to exploit new illicit opportunities but also to react to law enforcement attempts at disruption, enhancing the persistence of these networks over time. Most studies investigating network disruption have examined organizational structures before and after the arrests of some actors but have disregarded groups’ adaptation strategies. The present study investigated the resilience of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) to law enforcement attempts at disruption, focusing on three main aspects: the ability to endure disruption, react quickly and efficiently to threats, and keep primary functions unaltered. The analysis relied on an agent-based model (ABM) that simulates drug trafficking and dealing activities by organized criminal groups and their reactions to law enforcement attempts at disruption. The simulation relied on information retrieved from a detailed court order against a large-scale Italian DTO and from the literature. The results demonstrated that law enforcement interventions are often critical events for DTOs, with high rates of disruption. However, surviving DTOs always displayed a high level of resilience, with effective strategies in place to react to threatening events and to continue drug trafficking and dealing.

Milan: Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, 2023. 297p.

By Tomáš Diviák 

Objectives: Criminal networks tend to recover after a disruption, and this recovery may trigger negative unintended consequences by strengthening network cohesion. This study uses a real-world street gang network as a basis for simulating the effect of disruption and subsequent recovery on network structure.

Methods: This study utilises cohesion and centrality measures to describe the network and to simulate nine network disruptions. Stationary stochastic actor-oriented models are used to identify relational mechanisms in this network and subsequently to simulate network recovery in five scenarios.

Results: Removing the most central and the highest-ranking actors have the largest immediate impact on the network. In the long-term recovery simulation, networks become more compact (substantially so when increasing triadic closure), while the structure disintegrates when preferential attachment decreases.

Conclusion: These results indicate that the mechanisms driving network recovery are more important than the immediate impact of disruption due to network recovery.

Journal of Experimental Criminology (2023)