Edited by Corinna Elsenbroich, David Anzola and Nigel Gilbert

This book presents a multi-disciplinary investigation into extortion rackets with a particular focus on the structures of criminal organisations and their collapse, societal processes in which extortion rackets strive and fail and the impacts of bottom-up and top-down ways of fighting extortion racketeering. Through integrating a range of disciplines and methods the book provides an extensive case study of empirically based computational social science. It is based on a wealth of qualitative data regarding multiple extortion rackets, such as the Sicilian Mafia, an international money laundering organisation and a predatory extortion case in Germany. Computational methods are used for data analysis, to help in operationalising data for use in agent-based models and to explore structures and dynamics of extortion racketeering through simulations. In addition to textual data sources, stakeholders and experts are extensively involved, providing narratives for analysis and qualitative validation of models. The book presents a systematic application of computational social science methods to the substantive area of extortion racketeering. The reader will gain a deep understanding of extortion rackets, in particular their entrenchment in society and processes supporting and undermining extortion rackets. Also covered are computational social science methods, in particular computationally assisted text analysis and agent-based modelling, and the integration of empirical, theoretical and computational social science.

Cham, SWIT: Springer, 2016. 250p.

By Louise I. Shelley Dr.; John T. Picarelli; Allison Irby; Douglas M. Hart; Patricia A. Craig-Hart; Phil Williams Dr.; Steven Simon; Nabi Abdullaev; Bartosz Stanislawski; Laura Covill

The report presents three case studies of regions that are hospitable to transnational crime-terrorism interactions: Chechnya; the Black Sea region; and the tri-border area of Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina. The analysis of links between criminal and terrorist groups in these areas used a military intelligence method called "intelligence preparation of the battlefield," which involves the identification of areas where terrorism and organized crime are most likely to interact. Such areas are expressed not only in geographic terms but also conceptual terms; for example, the analysis identifies the way groups organize themselves, communicate, use technology, deploy their members, and share cultural affinities. Within each of these areas, investigators can identify indicators that suggest whether or not cooperation between specific terrorist and criminal groups are likely to occur. The general principle that previous research in this domain has developed is that terrorist and criminal groups have links via methods but not motives. This report concludes that although the motives of terrorists and organized criminals are most often different, the links that separate such groups are growing increasingly complex, such that the separation of motives is no longer unequivocal. This study identifies an evolutionary pattern whereby the sharing of methods leads to more intimate connections within a short time. Factors that influence this evolution are failed states, war-torn regions, and alliances developed in penal institutions and urban neighborhoods. The central recommendation is to incorporate crime analysis in the intelligence analysis of terrorism.

Washington, DC: U.S. National Institute of Justice, 2005. 115p.

By Eduardo Sáenz Rovner and Russ Davidson

A comprehensive history of crime and corruption in Cuba, The Cuban Connection challenges the common view that widespread poverty and geographic proximity to the United States were the prime reasons for soaring rates of drug trafficking, smuggling, gambling, and prostitution in the tumultuous decades preceding the Cuban revolution. Eduardo S?enz Rovner argues that Cuba's historically well-established integration into international migration, commerce, and transportation networks combined with political instability and rampant official corruption to help lay the foundation for the development of organized crime structures powerful enough to affect Cuba's domestic and foreign politics and its very identity as a nation.S?enz traces the routes taken around the world by traffickers and smugglers. After Cuba, the most important player in this story is the United States. The involvement of gangsters and corrupt U.S. officials and businessmen enabled prohibited substances to reach a strong market in the United States, from rum running during Prohibition to increased demand for narcotics during the Cold War.

Chapel Hill, NC:University of North Carolina Press, 2008. 247p.

By Marc Mauer

For more than a quarter century the “war on drugs” has exerted a profound impact on the structure and scale of the criminal justice system. The inception of the “war” in the 1980s has been a major contributing factor to the historic rise in the prison population during this period. From a figure of about 40,000 people incarcerated in prison or jail for a drug offense in 1980, there has since been an 1100% increase to a total of 500,000 today. To place some perspective on that change, the number of people incarcerated for a drug offense is now greater than the number incarcerated for all offenses in 1980. The increase in incarceration for drug offenses has been fueled by sharply escalated law enforcement targeting of drug law violations, often accompanied by enhanced penalties for such offenses. Many of the mandatory sentencing provisions adopted in both state and federal law have been focused on drug offenses. At the federal level, the most notorious of these are the penalties for crack cocaine violations, whereby crack offenses are punished far more severely than powder cocaine offenses, even though the two substances are pharmacologically identical. Despite changes in federal sentencing guidelines, the mandatory provisions still in place require that anyone convicted of possessing as little as five grams of crack cocaine (the weight of two sugar packets) receive a five-year prison term for a first-time offense

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2009. 23p.

By Nazgol Ghandnoosh and Casey Anderson

More people died from opioid-related deaths in 2015 than in any previous year. This record number quadrupled the level of such deaths in 1999. Unlike the heroin and crack crises of the past, the current opioid emergency has disproportionately affected white Americans—poor and rural, but also middle class or affluent and suburban. This association has boosted support for preventative and treatment-based policy solutions. But the pace of the response has been slow, critical components of the solution—such as health insurance coverage expansion and improved access to medication assisted treatment—face resistance, and there are growing efforts to revamp the failed and costly War on Drugs.

This report examines the sources of the opioid crisis, surveys health and justice policy responses at the federal and state levels, and draws on lessons from past drug crises to provide guidance on how to proceed.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2017. 35p.

By Dennis Earl Hoffman

According to the Elliot Ness myth, which has been widely disseminated through books, television shows, and movies, Ness and the Untouchables defeated Al Capone by marshaling superior firepower. In Scarface Al and the Crime Crusaders, Dennis Hoffman presents a fresh new perspective on the downfall of Al Capone. To debunk the Eliot Ness myth, he shows how a handful of private citizens brought Capone to justice by outsmarting him rather than by outgunning him.

Drawing on previously untapped sources, Hoffman dissects what he terms a “private war” against Capone. He traces the behind-the-scenes work of a few prominent Chicago businessmen from their successful lobbying of presidents Coolidge and Hoover on behalf of federal intervention to the trial, sentencing, and punishment of Al Capone. Hoffman also reconstructs in detail a number of privately sponsored citizen initiatives directed at stopping Capone. These private ventures included prosecuting the gangsters responsible for election crimes; establishing a crime lab to assist in gangbusting; underwriting the costs of the investigation of the Jake Lingle murder; stigmatizing Capone; and protecting the star witnesses for the prosecution in Al Capone’s income tax evasion case.

Hoffman suggests that as American society continues to be threatened by illegal drugs, gangs, and widespread violence, it is important to remember that the organized crime and political corruption of Prohibition-era Chicago were checked through the efforts of private citizens.

Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1993. 205p.

By Mariana Viollaz and Jeni Klugman

In this note, we experiment with potential improvements on the measurement of violence in the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Index to better reflect the reality on the ground in countries experiencing high levels of gang violence. First, we propose an extension to the measure of conflict from the Uppsala Conflict Data Program—currently the most comprehensive measure of organized violence—by including a more accurate number of deaths associated with gang violence alongside “battle deaths.” We show what difference this would make to WPS Index rankings for a set of four Central American countries and Mexico.

Washington, DC: Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security, 2018. 12p.

Edited by Cynthia J. Arnson and Eric L. Olson

In early May 2011, dozens of gunmen entered a farm in Guatemala’s Petén region, murdering and decapitating 27 people. Guatemalan authorities as well as speculation in the press have blamed the Zetas, a violent Mexican drug trafficking cartel increasingly active in Guatemala and other parts of Central America . Whether a vengeance killing following the murder of a presumed drug lord, or a struggle amongst the Zetas and Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel for the control of territory and smuggling routes, the massacre underscores the vulnerability of the civilian population in unsecured border areas between Mexico and Guatemala, where narcotics and human trafficking flourish. In response, the government of President Álvaro Colom declared a state of siege similar to the one declared from December 2010-February 2011 in the department of Alta Verapaz. This incident and others like it underscore the serious threat to democratic governance, human rights, and the rule of law posed by organized crime in Central America. The international community has begun to address the burgeoning crisis and commit significant resources to the fight against crime and violence; indeed, not since the Central American wars of the 1980s-1980s has the region commanded so much attention in the international arena. To better understand the nature, origins, and evolution of organized crime in Central America, and thereby contribute to the efforts of policymakers and civil society to address it, the Latin American Program commissioned a series of case studies that looked at the countries of the so-called Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras— and at the broader regional context affecting national dynamics. Our interest was to understand more fully how organized crime has evolved in Central America, and to examine the links between organized crime and traffickers in Central America, Mexico and Colombia. What role does Central America play in the supply chain for illegal goods between the Andes and the United States, and how have trafficking organizations from these areas related to one another over time? The growing presence and activities of organized crime groups in Central America has worsened an already alarming crisis of citizen security. In mid- 2010, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights reported that Latin America had the highest levels of youth violence in the world . UN figures indicate that the rate of youth homicide in Latin America is more than double that of Africa, and 36 times the rate of developed countries . An oft-referenced study by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) noted in 2009 that the seven countries of Central America—Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama—register the highest levels of non-political violence in the world; this observation has been echoed in statements by the U.S. Department of Defense . The situation is most acute in the countries of the Northern Triangle6 . In El Salvador alone, sixty-eight percent of homicide victims are between the ages of fifteen and thirty-four, and nine out of ten victims are male7 . Countries such as Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Belize are also witnessing rising rates of insecurity associated with the increased presence of organized crime.

Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Latin American Program, 2011. 254p.

By Kimberly Heinle, Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira, and David A. Shirk

This is one of a series of special reports that have been published on a semi-annual by Justice in Mexico since 2010, each of which examines issues related to crime and violence, judicial sector reform, and human rights in Mexico. The Drug Violence in Mexico report series examines patterns of crime and violence attributable to organized crime, and particularly drug trafficking organizations in Mexico. This report was authored by Kimberly Heinle, Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira, and David A. Shirk, and builds on the work of past reports in this series. The report was formally released on April 10, 2014 and was made possible by the generous support of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. This report does not represent the views or opinions of the University of San Diego or Justice in Mexico’s sponsoring organizations.

San Diego: Justice in Mexico, University of San Diego, 2016. 58p.

By Celina Realuyo

The illicit drug trade in the Americas has been evolving and expanding from plant-based narcotics like cocaine, heroin and marijuana to potent synthetic substances like fentanyl and methamphetamine. Since the 1980’s, the U.S. war on drugs focused on countering cocaine trafficking that made the Colombian and Mexican cartels immensely wealthy and powerful. Over the past decade, U.S. narcotic consumption has shifted significantly from cocaine to opioids and methamphetamine, resulting in an unprecedented opioid epidemic with 72,037 drug overdose deaths recorded in 2017 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Meanwhile, Mexican cartels are increasingly trafficking opioids and synthetics to respond to market changes in the U.S. The atomization of large cartels and increased competition to dominate trafficking routes resulted in record levels of violence in Mexico with 29,111 homicides registered in 2018. The October 17, 2019 failed Mexican government operation to capture one of El Chapo Guzman’s sons demonstrated how the Sinaloa cartel outgunned Mexican security forces and terrorized the city of Culiacan for hours. This paper will examine the evolving drug trade across the Americas from plant-based to synthetic drugs, the role of the Darknet as a force multiplier for the narcotics market, and U.S. and Mexican national and international efforts to address the dynamic drug trade and associated violence. Narcotics trafficking continues to be the most lucrative illicit activity in the world and is increasingly adapting and leveraging cyberspace. Drug demand changes are impacting the U.S. and Mexican security in different but equally concerning ways. As cocaine production in Colombia reaches its highest levels in history consumption in the U.S. is falling. As a result, cocaine traffickers are seeking new markets as far as Asia and Europe. Meanwhile, heroin use in the U.S. has spread across suburban and rural communities and socioeconomic classes with over 90% of heroin in the U.S. originating from Mexico. Potent synthetic opioids like fentanyl have become more prevalent and popular in the U.S. resulting in the tragic opioid crisis. Mexican cartels are increasingly involved in heroin, fentanyl and methamphetamine trafficking into the U.S. and becoming more formidable. The U.S. and Mexico need to better understand this shift in narcotics demand and the corresponding modifications in the production, marketing, distribution and consumption aspects of drug trafficking. As narcotic offerings diversify and the Internet plays a more critical role in drug trafficking, these changes are affecting public health and security in the U.S. and Mexico. Both governments must strive to design timely responses to reduce demand, increase treatment, and improve supply reduction strategies through increased interagency and international cooperation as narcotics trafficking has increasingly adapted to new trends and enforcement efforts.

Washington, DC: Wilson Center, Mexico Institute, 2020. 16p.

By Steven S. Dudley

The U.S. Government estimates that 90 percent of the illicit drugs entering its borders passes through the Central American Isthmus and Mexico. Of this, close to half goes through Central America.1 Functioning as a transshipment point has had devastating consequences for Central America, including spikes in violent crime, drug use and the corroding of government institutions. Mexico receives most of the media attention and the bulk of U.S. aid, but the Northern Triangle – Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras – have combined murder rates roughly double that of Mexico. While Mexico is having some limited success dealing with its spiraling conflict, vulnerable States in Central America are struggling to keep the organized criminal groups at bay, even while they face other challenges such as widespread gang activity. U.S. and Mexican efforts to combat the drug cartels in Mexico seem to have exacerbated the problems for Central America, evidenced by ever increasing homicide rates. 2 “As Mexico and Colombia continue to apply pressure on drug traffickers, the countries of Central America are increasingly targeted for trafficking, which is creating serious challenges for the region,” the State Department says in its recently released narcotics control strategy report.3 Problems are particularly acute in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras, three States with vast coastlines, large ungoverned spaces and the greatest proximity to Mexico. However, geography is only part of the problem. Armed conflicts in Guatemala, El Salvador and parts of Honduras between 1960 and the mid-1990s laid the foundations for the weapons trafficking, money laundering and contraband traffic that we are witnessing today. Peace accords in Guatemala and El Salvador, and police and military reform, only partially resolved deep-seeded socio-economic and security issues, and, in some cases, may have accelerated a process by which drug traffickers could penetrate relatively new, untested government institutions. Despite the gravity of the problem, Central America has had little regional or international cooperation to combat it. Examples of cross-border investigations are few. Communication between law enforcement is still mostly done on an ad-hoc basis. Efforts to create a centralized crime database have failed. Local officials are equally frustrated by the lack of international engagement and policies that often undermine their ability to control crime, especially as it relates to alleged gang members.

Washington DC: Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars; Trans-Border Institute, San Diego: University of San Diego; 2010. 30p.

By Daniel Mejía Pascual Restrepo

This paper proposes a new identification strategy to estimate the causal impact of illicit drug markets on violence using a panel of Colombian municipalities covering the period 1994-2008. Using a UNODC survey of Colombian rural households involved in coca cultivation, we estimate the determinants of land suitability for coca cultivation. With these results we create a suitability index that depends on the altitude, erosion, soil aptitude, and precipitation of a municipality. Our exogenous suitability index predicts the presence of coca crops cross sectionally and its expansion between 1994-2000. We show that following an increase in the demand for Colombian cocaine, coca cultivation increases disproportionately in municipalities with a high suitability index. This provides an exogenous source of variation in the extent of coca cultivation within municipalities that we use as an instrument to uncover the causal effect of illegal cocaine markets on violence. We find that a 10% increase in the value of coca cultivation in a municipality increases homicides by about 1.25%, forced displacement by about 3%, attacks by insurgent groups by about 2%, and incidents involving the explosion of land mines by about 1%. Our evidence is consistent with the view suggesting that prohibition creates rents for suppliers in illegal markets, and these rents cause violence as different armed groups fight each other, the government and the civil population for their control and extraction.

Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes–Facultad de Economía–CEDE , 2012. 56p.

By Chile Eboe-Osuji

Sexual violence is a particular brand of evil that women have endured—more than men—during armed conflicts, through the ages. It is a menace that has continued to challenge the conscience of humanity—especially in our times. At the international level, basic laws aimed at preventing it are not in short supply. What is needed is a more conscious determination to enforce existing laws. This book explores ways of doing just that; thereby shoring up international legal protection of women from sexual violence in armed conflicts.

Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2012. 374p.

By Mark Berry

Illegal drug trafficking and retail drug sales constitute the most common activity of organised crime groups in the UK and draw the largest share of resources from the police and prison services, whilst also generating considerable social costs. There are few contemporary studies in the UK on the supply of drugs, its organisation, culture and risk management practices, and even fewer on active dealers themselves. There remains limited ethnographic research into the drug trade, missing important insights that can be gained from observing distributors in a natural setting. A key absence in criminological literature is the voice of offenders who commit serious crimes and how they perceive and mitigate problems related to their activities. This research aims to fill gaps in the knowledge base by investigating the nature of the drug market, the crime risk management practices of drug dealers, and possible reasons for their involvement and patterns of activity. The study examines the criminal careers of offenders who operate in one of Britain’s largest cities, termed here anonymously as Red City. The participants in this study distribute and manufacture a range of illicit substances, both offline and online. They distribute drugs on local, national and international levels (retail, wholesale, import and export). To complement the fieldwork, interviews were conducted with official actors from the criminal justice system, the private sector and the third sector. The thesis seeks to provide a more nuanced and grounded picture of illicit drug dealing and ‘organised crime’, that provides an account that corrects popular stereotypes.

Cardiff, Wales: Cardiff University, 2020. 195p.

By Letizia Paoli

The main aim of this book is to reconstruct the culture, structure, and action of the Sicilian Cosa Nostra and the Calabrian ’Ndrangheta. Not only are these Italy’s most dangerous criminal organizations, but they have also profoundly influenced the mafia phenomenon in North America. It was from the Sicilian Cosa Nostra’s nineteenth-century forerunners that the Italian American mafia developed, as millions of Italian immigrants settled in the United States, most of them coming from southern Italy. Significantly, the largest and most influential Italian American mafia confederation is called Cosa Nostra as well. The Calabrian ’Ndrangheta also has offshoots in the Anglo-Saxon world. In the early twentieth century, ’Ndrangheta groups were established in both Canada and Australia, and these are still active now, maintaining close contacts with their Calabrian counterparts. In order to depict the culture, structure, and action of these organized crime groups, I consulted numerous sources, ranging from criminal cases to parliamentary hearings, from archival and other standard secondary sources to interviews with law enforcement officials, local politicians, and anti-mafia activists. The portrait given in this book, however, relies most heavily on the confessions and testimonies of former mafia members now cooperating with judicial authorities. As my introduction explains, these statements have not been accepted uncritically but have been taken seriously even when they seem to contradict the evil activities in which most mafiosi engage. Cooperating mafia witnesses are, in fact, the most direct source of information about the mafia, describing the mafia world not only from the outside but also—as one defector put it—from within.

Oxford, UK; New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

By Francesco Calderoni

Just a few months after the entry into force of the EU Framework Decision on the fight against organized crime, this book provides an unprecedented analysis of the national and European legislation on organized crime. The book provides a critical examination of the European policies and legal instruments to promote the harmonization and approximation of criminal law in this field (including the United Nations Convention on Transnational Organized Crime). The current level of harmonization among EU Member States and the approximation to the standards of the new Framework Decision are discussed in detail, with the help of tables, graphs and maps.The results highlight the problems surrounding the international legal instruments and the inconsistencies of the national approaches to combating organized crime.

Heidelberg; Dordrecht; London' New York: Springer, 2010. 201p.

Edited by Giovanni Fiandaca

The insightful essays in this book shine a new light on the roles of women within criminal networks, roles that in reality are often less traditional than researchers used to think. The book seeks to answer questions from a wide range of academic disciplines and traces the portrait of women tied to organized crime in Italy and around the world. The book offers up accounts of mafia women, and also tales of severe abuse and violence against women.

New York: Springer Science+Business Media, 2007. 307p.

By Paula Miraglia, Rolando Ochoa, Ivan Briscoe

Transnational organised crime (TOC) refers to a fluid and diversified industry that engages in illicit activities ranging from drug and human trafficking to drug smuggling, piracy and money laundering. Although it may affect strong states, conflict-affected and fragile states are especially vulnerable to the dynamics of TOC and may provide more favourable conditions for its development. The implications for those states are many and serious. This paper outlines the ways in which TOC has evolved in recent years and how policy might be adapted to take account of this evolution. It emphasises that TOC today is less a matter of organised cartels established in producer or end-user states, but increasingly characterised by fluid, opportunistic networks that may for example specialise in transport and logistics. The paper recommends tackling the problem through a comprehensive approach that considers TOC as but one element within a greater complex of cause and effect. This would entail a re-evaluation of many current assumptions about TOC and a reformulation of current policies.

Paris: OECD, 2012. 37p.

By June S. Beittel

Mexican transnational criminal organizations (TCOs) significantly influence drug trafficking in the United States and pose the greatest drug trafficking threat, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA’s) annual National Drug Threat Assessment. These organizations control the market and movement of a wide range of illicit drugs destined for the United States; for this reason, they are commonly referred to as drug cartels and drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). These poly-criminal organizations also participate in extortion, human smuggling, arms trafficking, and oil theft, among other crimes. Homicide rate increases in Mexico are widely attributed to heightened DTO-related violence, often tied to territorial control over drug routes and criminal influence. Congress has tracked how Mexican TCOs affect security on the U.S.-Mexico border, perpetrate violence, and contribute to the U.S. opioid crisis. A major concern is the organizations’ trafficking of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, marijuana, and synthetic opioids, such as fentanyl. Many analysts assess that Mexican TCOs’ role in the production and trafficking of synthetic opioids into the United States has significantly expanded since 2018. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 106,000 overdose deaths occurred in the United States in 2021, more than 70% of which involved opioids, including fentanyl.

Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2022. 43p.

By Center for the Study of Democracy

Extortion racketeering has been long pointed out as the defining activity of organised crime. Although in recent years this crime has not been among the top listed organised crime threats in the strategic EU policy documents, it still remains ever present in European countries. The seriousness of the phenomenon has been recognised at the EU level and the crime has been listed in a number of EU legal acts in the field of police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters.

The report Extortion Racketeering in the EU: A six country study of vulnerability factors analyses extortion racketeering forms and practices in six EU member states. The analysis disentangles the risk and the vulnerability factors for enterprises in two business sectors – agriculture and hospitality – as well as in the Chinese communities. Drawing on the results of the analysis, the report suggests new policies for tackling extortion racketeering in the EU.

Sofia, Bulgaria: Center for the Study of Democracy, 2016. 351p.