Globalisation and Criminal Networks

The main trading routes for heroin and cocaine are shown in the following map (courtesy of the CIA),

Main heroin routes

Thus the vast majority of heroin that gets to Europe comes from Afghanistan. The so-called 'Golden Triangle' of Myanmar (formerly Burma) supplies the markets of Australia and the US. Remember we said last week that the Chinese and Vietnamese traffickers bringing it in by this route were a factor in undermining the power of the old American Mafia to dominate the heroin trade. Another factor was the reduced importance of Sicily as a place where heroin refineries were established to create the finished product for onward shipment. Nowadays, the raw opium, purchased in small markets from farmers, with a tax paid to the local warlord (we shall mention warlords again presently) moves out to remote areas of Iran. Eastern Turkey and to the 'failed states' of the former USSR where, with the demise of the Soviet police apparatus, law enforcement is very lax and heroin refineries can operate with impunity. These areas are now much more important than Sicily. From the refineries it is shipped north to Russia and West to Europe. Amsterdam is a major staging post.

The trafficker groups involved in this stage of the process are diverse. As the drugs move from Afghanistan westwards, different groups of traffickers are involved. Turkish groups, based in Turkey, and north Cyprus are prominent. Russian and also Balkan criminal groups (Albanians, Kosovans, Russians, Romanians, Bosnians, Serbs all participate) play an important role in the onward shipment of the drug to the European Union. Pakistani groups import small amounts via air couriers from Pakistan Other groups, such as West African traffickers have a more minor role. Africa is a good staging post due to the weakness of law enforcement, Some of it may come in by air in the stomachs of 'drug mules' usually young women whose air ticket is paid for by the traffickers and who either have to return to make the trip again (if they want their families to survive assassination) or end up in forced prostitution in the city of destination

Most of the heroin coming into the UK enters the South East of England through the busy ports of Dover, Felixstowe and Harwich. According to the UK National Criminal Intelligence Service around 25-35 metric tonnes of heroin are consumed annually. Prices in London are estimated as between £16,000 and 19,000 a kilo. There are an estimated 260,000 heroin users in the UK. Distribution within the UK is handled by a diversity of criminal groups Turkish groups, based in North London, are key traffickers handling much of the distribution in other British cities such as Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow. But British and South Asian (particularly Pakistani) gangs have become more involved in recent years. White British groups are based especially in Merseyside, East London and Scotland. They are believed to be getting into direct import from contacts in the Netherlands who buy from Turkey.

Main cocaine routes

Cocaine is produced overwhelmingly in South America. Raw coca leaves are produced in a number of countries but the finished product is exported predominantly from Colombia. The bulk of the export market is to the United States. At present the main shipment routes are up through Mexico. Mexican growers and traffickers are also important in marihuana production. Europe now accounts for about 25 percent of cocaine use with highest use per head of the population being Spain, UK and the Netherlands. Colombian traffickers made a determined push into the European market as prices began to fall in North America during the mid 1980s. The main route to Europe is by sea. At one time large shipments were unloaded into small boats off the coast of Spain and Portugal but an increasing amount enters Europe hidden in containers of legitimate merchandise shipped directly to ports such as Rotterdam. Africa and Eastern Europe are also becoming important transhipment points (there is generally lax law enforcement in these areas). Spain and Netherlands are key transhipment points for smaller amounts to particular European markets including the UK.

Colombian traffickers have established themselves in the major cities where cocaine is consumed. The ease of global travel facilitates this. During the 1980s in the United States Colombians initially traded through the Cuban exile community in Florida but then increasingly set up on their own. These are businessmen pure and simple, they have no aspirations to local power and prestige. They are small groups of highly mobile and flexible entrepreneurs. In Europe cocaine is distributed by a fluid network of ethnically diverse groups of traffickers. There are Colombian traffickers in the Netherlands (see the book by Damian Zaitch referenced at the end of the lecture. If you are clever you will find this book in http://scholar.google.com)

These groups network with British, Dutch and Spanish groups. Russian, East European, and Italian groups. Sicilian Mafia and other Italian crime groups entered into arrangements with South Americans for cocaine distribution in Europe. This came to the attention of law enforcement agencies during the 1990s.  In 1992 operation 'Green Ice' involved 200 arrests of traffickers included Colombians from the Cali cartel and members of the Sicilian mafia. According to the US Drugs Enforcement Administration, the two groups were working on an agreement by which Colombian traffickers sold cocaine to the Sicilians for distribution in Europe and in return received help in laundering their profits in Europe through Mafia controlled companies. The following year another big law enforcement operation involving British, US, Colombian and Italian police seized a large amount of cocaine at Felixstowe which was believed to be part of an attempt by Sicilian groups to sell cocaine into the British market.

Most cocaine enters Britain through networks of British criminals based across Europe, many resident in Spain, some of whom directly import from South America. Another route is through couriers, 'drug mules' on air flights from the Caribbean in a similar manner to heroin from West Africa. The main distribution point for cocaine in the UK is London but Merseyside and Bristol are also important. The main groups involved in selling and distribution in the UK are Afro-Caribbean and White British. West African groups are becoming increasingly important. Consumption of cocaine in the UK is estimated at 35-45 tonnes a year.

Ecstasy

Ecstasy is manufactured mainly in Belgium and Holland but also in Germany, Poland and Eastern Europe. The UK is one of the largest markets with annual consumption being estimated in the region of between 26 and 100 million tablets. Importing and distribution is predominantly in the hands of British criminal groups based in South Eastern England.

Even this brief survey of the drugs trade, particularly as far as distribution is concerned, is sufficient to give an impression of modern organised crime as largely a matter of small to medium groups of criminal entrepreneurs, ethnically diverse, with the ability to communicate and negotiate and strike deals among themselves regarding the purchase and sale of the product. It might be worth re-reading the concluding section of lecture 3 on British organised crime groups in which the emphasis was on the relative decline of the old 'family firm' rooted in a particular community and locality, to the modern, flexible, highly mobile groups that dominate the European drug scene today.

(Go back and read the section on globalisation and flexibility in lecture 3)

We shall return to the question of organisation below. First we shall look, briefly  at a second example of organised criminal activity, very much in the news at the present time the smuggling of people.

People

The essential point about criminal trafficking is that no profitable activity is ruled out.  The important thing for traffickers is establishing routes and connections. For example, once a group of traffickers in Afghanistan has established connections with, Turkish or Balkan groups to buy the heroin, refine it, and sell it on to other groups who will distribute and sell it in Western Europe, then these routes and connections can be used for other types of smuggling. One of the most important is people. As we noted above, globalisation has enabled finance and capital to move around the world almost at will. It is much harder for labour to do the same thing. The global mobility of capital has left large areas of the globe relatively impoverished with few sources of income and employment. The difficulty which the agricultural economies of the global South are able to sell their produce in the prosperous countries of is a factor in this. Hence there is a tendency for labour to wish to move to areas of high employment and high wages. The obstacle is the stringent immigration and entry controls imposed by the countries of North America and Western Europe. This is the opportunity for the criminal entrepreneur. Many people, mainly young, in poor countries will hand over their savings to traffickers who may (or may not) succeed in smuggling them from Africa or South Asia into Western Europe and from the poor areas of Latin America across the Mexican border into the United States.  As far as illegal migration to the European Union is concerned there are five main trafficking routes (1) Moscow via Baltic states, Poland and Czech Republic to Austria or Germany; (2) Ukraine, Poland, Slovakia, Czech Republic, to Austria or Germany (3) Balkans, Middle East or Turkey to Greece or Italy (4) North Africa to Spain or Italy (5) Turkey, Balkans, to Italy or Austria. Particular sections of these routes are divided up between different groups of traffickers. Pakistani, Turkish, Albanian and Chinese smugglers are known to be active in the trade. But it is likely that most of the groups involved in drugs trading also participate. Little is currently known about how they co-ordinate their activities. The main method of clandestine entry to the UK is hiding in vehicles or containers. From time to time horrifying stories reach the press of migrants suffocated in air-tight container trucks. Migrants who purchase the service of traffickers to smuggle them across borders are only one side of the coin. There are at least two other more exploitative forms of people smuggling.

Forced labour

Traffickers may well be part of a forced labour system whereby migrants, who may just think they are paying for transit and will then be set free once they reach their destination, are handed over to labour contractors and forced to work illegally for very low wages in their country of destination. The Traffickers and labour contractors (sometimes known as 'gangmasters') confiscate migrants travel documents, force them to live in appalling conditions and threaten them with violence if they try and go to the police. Of course as illegal immigrants they are reluctant to report to the police and face possible deportation or imprisonment so the criminals are in a powerful position. It is very important to understand that this form of forced labour organised by criminal smugglers is one example of the linkages between organised crime and perfectly legal sectors of the economy. Perfectly legal companies benefit from the low wages paid to forced migrant workers in sectors of food processing, catering, construction and agricultural industries. We shall have more to say about the relationship between organised crime and legitimate business in a subsequent lecture.
 

Sexual trafficking

Finally, one of the most exploitative forms of trafficking concerns the sex trade. Adverts luring young women with takes of good opportunities and pay in the rich cities of Western Europe or North America will be found in newspapers throughout the poor countries of the world. Once in the hands of traffickers promising transit to the West and good employment, the young women may find all their documents confiscated and never returned so that when they reach their country of destination their status is illegal and they remain under the control of traffickers and pimps. The criminal groups organising this trade may also be active in the drugs trade. So the young women will find themselves forced into drug addiction as a form of control over them by trafficker pimps. In all or part of their journey the young women may find themselves being deployed as drug mules.

It is important to understand that the activities of organised crime are constantly modernising and changing as new opportunities arise and old ones dry up. Thus drugs like ecstacy and other synthetic drugs are less vulnerable to interruptions of supply than cocaine and heroin which relay on massive operations of transport and smuggling from the growing areas to the consumption areas. Drugs like Ecstasy are therefore gaining ground. Other activities characteristic of organised crime are also modernising. The most important form of illegal gambling is now on internet websites with the servers located outside the jurisdiction of the law enforcement agencies of the most powerful and efficient states. Internet pornography and sexual trafficking are outpacing traditional 'back-street' pornography and local street prostitution. Protection rackets are being applied to larger businesses and corporations not just local small firms and entertainment premises and so on. Organised crime is modernising alongside the legal activities of the global economy.

The forms of criminal organisation

We now turn to the question of organisation. In previous lectures we looked at various forms of what might be called traditional organised crime as illustrated by the Sicilian and American Mafias and, on a much lesser scale, by the old criminal gangs of the East End of London. We saw how those forms of crime were based on rather cohesive communities within which key criminals carried a certain amount of status based on a mixture of fear and respect. One of the key aims of traditional organised crime was indeed to exercise power and achieve status and notoriety within the communities in which they operated. Such forms of criminality tended to be organised on a hierarchical basis with a well known (and feared) boss and various subordinates who organised different aspects of criminal activities. Such groups were usually organised on the model of an extended family.

At the end of the lecture on traditional British organised crime we noted how the old style 'family firm' had to a considerable extent given way to newer, more flexible, network systems of organisation more adequate to an activity of illegal trading in which many criminal entrepreneurs would establish connections and engage in activities (as with drugs trafficking) far outside their local communities. This is one of the consequences of modernisation and globalisation. Thus the UK National Criminal Intelligence Service in its Threat Assessment Report for 2005 has this to say about forms of criminal organisation in Britain at the present time

The term 'organised crime group' is often used when referring to the activities of serious and organised criminals, and in some instances it best describes the way those concerned have organised and see themselves. However, the term can also be misleading.  While there are certainly some organised crime groups that resemble the traditional British 'firm' or Italian mafia, with permanent members each with a distinct role, and a hierarchy in which there are clear chains of command and communication, there are other 'groups' that are, in practice, loose networks. The members of those networks coalesce around one or more prominent criminal(s) to undertake particular criminal ventures of varying complexity, structure and length.  In the latter instance, the criminals may not think of themselves as being members of any group, and individuals may be involved with a number of sub-groups within the network, and therefore be involved in a number of separate criminal ventures at any one time. (NCIS UK Threat Assessment Report 2005 par 2.7)

Thus illegal trading illustrated by those discussed above, drugs and people trafficking, may involve a mixture of forms of criminal organisation, some with a more hierarchical character and others composed of loose networks of traffickers

By hierarchy we understand an organisation which has a leadership, which makes the key decisions about what types of criminal activity the group will engage in, and lower level 'middle management' of specialists who organise the activities, (trading, money laundering etc) and a 'workforce', similarly specialised ,which carries them out. Such organisations and their membership tend to be stable over time. These types of organisations have been around for some time. The American Mafia during the Prohibition era is an example of an organised crime group, engaged in primarily money making activities, but organised on a hierarchical basis. By contrast a network form of organisation implies a loose collection of individuals who collaborate with one another because it is in their mutual interest to do so. No one particular person is in charge, and the composition of the network may change over time as different individuals get involved or move away to engage in other (criminal or non-criminal activities) particular specialists, such as money launderers or drug refining chemists, tend to hire their services out to a number of different groups on a contract basis rather than working for any one particular group.

David Carter (1997 - referenced at the end of this lecture) describes the difference between these two forms of organisation as follows. What we are referring to here as network organisation, he calls entrepreneurial crime.

Whereas organized crime has always been profit oriented, it has traditionally involved a narrowly defined collective of members, most of whom were drawn to the group as a result of the unifying factor of heritage, kinship, or other common ground. Moreover, members typically stayed with the organisation as career criminals, either with one specific crime groups or with a recognized 'companion' organisation.

Entrepreneurial crime, in contrast, has a relatively small core of people who are permanent members of the enterprise, Others are brought into the enterprise as needed to deal with specific issues--for example, theft from shipments, auto theft, drug trafficking, and theft of intellectual property. The entrepreneurial criminal organisation seeks a targeted commodity and amalgamates with other groups that best serve the profitable interest of the enterprise. (Carter 1997 139) 

 Hierarchy: the Colombian drugs cartels

In what sort of situation would we expect to find hierarchical organisation?  One of the most well known hierarchical criminal organisations in the modern activity of drugs trading were the notorious Medellin and Cali cartels which dominated the Colombian drugs trade during the 1980s (Medellin and Cali are two cities in Colombia which were the location of powerful criminal organisations. The term 'Cartel' means an association of sellers-in this case of illegal cocaine-who combine together to agree prices and distribution so as to avoid competition)

In Colombia during the 1980s about 80 percent of the cocaine export trade was controlled by powerful groups of criminal businessmen grouped in five loosely organised cartels based in the cities of Medellin and Cali. These were fairly hierarchical business organisation of top financiers, a middle management to deal with chemists, pilots etc and a large army of subcontracted specialists. One observer described the structure of the Colombian drugs manufacture and trading at that time (mid 1980s) as follows:

"Five loosely organised syndicates headquartered in Medellin and Cali control an estimated 70-80 per cent of the cocaine exported from Colombia and about 60-70 per cent of all cocaine sold in the United States... The big Colombian syndicates do not form a cartel in the sense of being able to maintain prices... There is bad blood between the Medellin and Cali groups stemming from Medellin's attempt to poach on Cali's sales territory in New York City... (that was 1984-5 and in 1988 in Colombia)... Yet there is considerable business collaboration within each group. Traffickers collaborate on insuring cocaine shipments, engage in joint ventures, exchange loads, and jointly plan assassinations. Moreover cocaine barons share a common political agenda that includes blocking the extradition of drug traffickers (to the U.S.), immobilising the criminal justice system and selectively persecuting the Colombian Left." 

(R. Lee 1988. The White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power)

A few of the leaders, in particular Pablo Escobar, [link] achieved a public profile and social status. When he was shot in 1993 many poor people came to his funeral. It is alleged that he had invested money in housing and social amenities for poor people in his area and given money to the church. Escobar, had he been a legitimate businessman would have counted among the 125 richest individuals outside the US and the drug trafficking and manufacturing organisations in which he participated would have ranked with the top global Oil corporations in terms of wealth.

So how were such large, hierarchical organisations able to exist and what functions did they fulfil?

•  Colombia is a drugs producing country. Such areas have a lot of fixed assets that need protecting crops have to be protected from government attempts at eradication (e.g. by spraying from the air) farmers have to be paid, the raw material has to be shipped to refining laboratories (where coca plant extract is refined to produce cocaine) in secret locations which cannot easily or rapidly be moved. So guards have to be paid, police and soldiers bribed etc. Such a situation is similar in many ways to that in which the older forms of organised crime such as the Sicilian Mafia existed. That is to say the control of territory is important.

•  In this respect Colombia is a weak state in which large areas of the national territory are not under the control of national government but are controlled by armed insurrectionist guerrilla groups who may be prepared to protect coca crops in return for payment from the drugs traffickers. In any event, in areas where the official state apparatus is weak, and corruptible, it is easier for larger hierarchical organisations of drug producers and traffickers to exist more or less openly. In an analogous manner local warlords and chieftains in Afghanistan and adjacent areas may protect opium growers and then tax them as an important source of income. There are other areas of failed states

•  Another important factor is the lack of alternative forms of employment or agriculture for vast numbers of poor people. Attempts by the government of Colombian or other Latin American countries (under pressure from the United States) to eradicate coca growing have often met with resistance under conditions in which the world prices for legitimate commodities such as coffee or cotton have been falling, Similarly, drugs traffickers may invest a portion of their profits in 'worthwhile' projects such as public housing or discreetly give money to the Catholic Church. In this way they hoped to secure the silence of the poor population.

The demise of the Cartels

But even in countries like Colombia where the criminal justice organs of the state are inefficient and corruptible large organisations led by individuals who become public figures are vulnerable. The US government put much pressure on and gave aid to the Colombian authorities to crack down on the traffickers. There was also an arrangement whereby leading traffickers could be extradited to the US to stand trial for drugs offences committed there. As a result by 1990 most of the leading traffickers of the Medellin group were in prison. In July1992 Pablo Escobar escaped from prison but in December 1993 was shot dead by Colombian paramilitary police. In the aftermath the Cali cartel replaced that of Medellin as the leading Colombian trafficker organisation and by 1994 was thought to control over 80 percent of New York's cocaine market and had dominant shares in other US and European markets.

But a further wave of arrests of leading Cali traffickers has weakened the power of this cartel also. But the consequence has been less a decline in the production of cocaine than a change in the structure of the production and marketing of the drug. People like Pablo Escobar, who sought a public profile and engaged in a flamboyant lifestyle in the manner of Al Capone have been replaced by a new generation of quieter criminal businessmen running smaller enterprises with a more network-like structure. Nevertheless there may still be some hierarchical business type organisations at work. According to the 2007 UNODC Word Drug Report on the global drugs trade:

"This drug flow has surely become less centralised than it was during the days of the Cali and Medellin cartels, which dominated the cocaine market at all levels. But the size of the seizures made in this region, as well as low levels of drug use in the transit zone countries, suggest that cocaine trafficking remains highly organized and dominated by some very large organizations." (World Drug Report 2007 p. 19)

A Colombian mafia?

There are, on the face of it, some striking similarities between the Colombian drugs cartels, at least during the 1980s, and the traditional forms of organised crime such as the Sicilian Mafia. The control of territory, the aspiration to political power and corruption are obvious parallels. Yet we should be wary of regarding the Colombian drugs cartels as modern forms of traditional organised crime. Damian Zaitch (see reference at the end of this lecture)  in his study of Colombian traffickers in the Netherlands, summarises the issue very succinctly (see pages 64-67). He argues that it is necessary to avoid easy analogies with the Italian case.

The drug entrepreneurs are driven by a 'logic of the market' by contrast to the 'logic of power' that drives the Sicilian Mafia. The primary aim of the Mafia is the control of territory and the acquisition of political power through protection rackets and extortion. This power was then used to move into drugs trading to augment income. Zaitch's argument here is consistent with that of Letizia Paoli (noted in the previous lecture) that the Mafia entered drugs trading but used the profits primarily to enhance its control over its local territory.

The Colombian drugs cartels work the other way around. Territorial control only plays a secondary role in their orientation to production for a global market in illegal drugs. Their ability to influence people, corrupt and bribe police and state officials or grant favours to friends is a consequence of their successful accumulation of wealth in the drugs trade and is designed above all to protect that trade from interference by the state. Thus although territory is being controlled and occasionally organised criminals may be seen to invest in local communities to secure the compliance of local populations, and to engage in the corruption or intimidation of state officials, police and politicians, this is not to preserve themselves as a power separate from the state but in order to protect their economic interests and profit opportunities in illegal drugs manufacture and trading. They have little interest in local status, power and prestige as such. Their main orientation is to the global illegal economy, how much money they can make through exports to countries such as the US and Western Europe

Zaitch also argues that the internal organisation of cocaine trafficker groups, although it may be hierarchical in some respects, lacks the cohesion and orientation to family and kinship of the traditional Mafia organisation.

Networks: disorganised organised crime

In 2002 the United Nations Office On Drugs And Crime conducted a Survey of 40 organised crime groups in 16 countries which reported that two thirds of the groups surveyed had a classical hierarchical type of structure.

The most common characteristics of organized crime groups assessed by the survey  are thus as follows   

• Two thirds of the groups have a classical hierarchical type of structure while one  third are more loosely organized.   
• The majority of the groups are of moderate size, with between 20-50  participants.   
• Violence is essential to the undertaking of their activities for the majority of the  groups.    
• Under half of the groups do not have a strong social or ethnic identity while ethnic-based organizations represent less than a third of the organized crime  groups.    
• The largest number of groups engaged in only one primary criminal activity.   
• In the majority of cases groups are engaged in criminal activities in multiple  countries.    
• The vast majority of the groups make use of corruption, either extensively or  occasionally.    
• Just under half of the groups are said to have no political influence, while one  third of the groups have an influence at the local/regional level.    
• Under half of the groups have extensively penetrated the legitimate economy.   
• The largest number of groups cooperate with other organized criminal groups,  largely as a source of illicit commodities.    
• The vast majority of groups make use of corruption, either extensively or  occasionally.

However, there are methodological problems involved in coming to such conclusions. As the report itself makes clear:

if research focuses only on high-profile better  known criminal groups it is possible that this work will reflect a declining portion of  the reality of organized crime as the situation continues to evolve. It should be noted  that one methodological concern - that  applies both to this report as well as to other  work which attempts to collect primary data on organized crime groups - is that data collected will be biased towards more visible and prominent criminal groups as  opposed to less visible, unconventional and smaller groups. (UN 2002 6)

As far as drugs organised crime is concerned it is clear that when we move away from the drug producing countries and focus on countries where drugs are consumed then looser network forms of criminal organisation often appear more appropriate. A vast amount of drugs is of course consumed in the poor countries in which it is grown and manufactured. Fernando Meirelles' well known movie City of God  graphically portrays the highly destructive and violent lives of young men involved in the drugs trade in Rio de Janiero (Brazil). But vast amounts are exported to the big cities of North America and Europe where poverty and misery on the one hand combine with the affluent lifestyles of some sections of the rich to fuel a massive demand for illegal drugs. Various characteristics of the drugs trade in these regions place a premium on flexibility and loose connections.

• These are countries where police are strong and well organised, surveillance techniques are sophisticated, and law enforcement agents are relatively free of corruption. The premium is therefore on avoiding and hiding from the police and the criminal justice system rather than attempting to corrupt or intimidate them. Corruption certainly exists, but it is usually restricted to low ranking police officers and the bottom of the organisation, rather than senior officials, judges or government ministers. (Italy remains to a considerable extent an exception and we shall deal with this later). Network organisations are less vulnerable to disruption by police action than a hierarchical organisation. In the case of the latter, if the 'big guy' who runs the organisation is arrested then the organisation may well fall apart because people further down the line don't know who to turn to. But with a network of independent traffickers, each working more or less on their own account, if someone is arrested the others can rapidly change their suppliers. Also in a network, individual traffickers may know relatively little about who the other people in the network are and therefore have less information to give to the police

• A network is an egalitarian form of organisation of independent actors who come together for mutual benefit. People with particular expertise (such as money laundering) can be approached and hired as and when needed. They will know less about the people employing their services on a 'one-off' basis than they would if they were fully paid up members of an old-style Mafia organisation. So even if they are compromised and forced to give information to the police they will have less information to give.

• In countries where the main activity of organised crime in the drugs trade is concerned with selling and distribution there will be less important assets to protect than in countries like Colombia where there are farmers to be paid, refining laboratories to be set up and transport over long distances to be organised. Members of networks may make contact with a particular middleman who buys cocaine from Colombian cartels. The middleman may deal with an number of local purchasers who won't necessarily know each other. The purchaser obviously needs to store his drugs in a lock up garage in South London or similar, and to store it for as short a time as possible before it is sold on to street dealers. This activity of purchasing and selling is well adapted to network organisation. Relations of purchase and sale are in themselves network activities in which groups of buyers and sellers come together (and obviously know when and where to look for each other - drugs dealers cannot advertise in the local corner shop) for a specific exchange and then may have no further contact with each other until a further purchase is required.

• Market conditions may change rapidly in a particular city or country. There may be a glut of drugs with the result that prices are falling. Or the law enforcement authorities may have made a big seizure and disrupted a particular supply route. If the information about these types of changes in conditions has to go up the hierarchy and await a decision at the top about how the organisation should respond then it will take more time than it would if buyers and sellers are directly in contact with one another, Drug shipments can be more rapidly directed to the most profitable outlets.

 
Of course, in adopting network structures, organised crime is very much mirroring what is happening in the organisation of the legal economy. The old hierarchical mega-corporation with a top down management structure is being to a considerable extent superseded by smaller scale outsourced production to smaller, flexible units. This shift is understood by economists and sociologists as a shift from 'Fordism' to 'Post-Fordism'. You can read an article I wrote a few years ago on the implications of this shift for crime and the control of crime 

Conclusion

Reviewing the material we have covered in this and the preceding lecture we can attempt a very tentative classification of forms of criminal organisation. It must be stressed that these classifications are very much ideal types. Actual criminal organisations may combine one or more types or shift from one to another depending on circumstances and evolution. The research into the structure of criminal organisation is beset with difficulties

In earlier lectures we set up a rather crude contrast between traditional and modern forms of organised crime. In this and the previous lecture we modified this in various ways; traditional organisations modernising and new modern forms of organisation emerging. In this lecture we have drawn a further contrast between hierarchical and network forms of modern criminal organisation. The basis of these distinctions concerns two themes the form of organisation of the group (hierarchical or network) and the predominant activities of the group (social and political power or money making) We shall attempt to sum up the main differences and set them out in the table below.

The contrast here runs along three axes forms of organisation, how power is used, and what are the main activities of the organisation. On the basis of the examples and issues we have discussed in previous lectures we could set up a contrast between traditional and modern organisation on the following basis.

Traditional

• Traditional organisations, as exemplified by the old Sicilian Mafia are organised on the basis of a family, including honorary members who swear an oath of loyalty to the 'boss'. This family structure is authoritarian and hierarchical with the boss and his immediate associates making general decisions about what types of activity the group will engage in. Members lower down the hierarchy can only engage in new types of criminal activity with the authorisation of the boss or 'Godfather'.

• An important aim of traditional mafia-type organisation was to exercise power and control over the communities in which they operated. This was done with a mixture of violence, and also the ability to fix or sort out problems for members of local communities, in return for loyalty in the future. An illustration of this in the movies was the opening sequence of Godfather I.

• A key source of funds for such groups tends to be those which directly enforce power over local communities such as protection rackets in which members of local communities with property or businesses to protect pay, reluctantly for the most part, a tax to the criminals in return for the security of their property. The criminals may also sell their willingness to use violence as a form of armed protection to those who can pay for it such as local wealthy people

• Finally, to the extent that such groups engage in money-making criminal activities which take them further afield than the local community, such as drugs trading, they tend to reinvest their profits in local activities. (see the comments by Letizia Paoli mentioned in the previous lecture.)

Modern hierarchical

• Exemplified by the Colombian drugs cartels particularly during the 1980s modern hierarchical organisations are business organisations above all else. Members may be recruited on a family basis but the emphasis is on joint illegal activity to accumulate wealth. A clear leadership exists and makes the general decisions about the activities of the group.

• The clear aim of the organisation is the accumulation of wealth. This may or may not be invested locally. Power over local communities and the corruption of state agencies is for the purposes of protecting the money making activities of the group. The control of local communities and territory is not an end in itself. Settling local disputes is not an issue. If such activities are undertaken it is usually by individual members of the group on an individual basis

• The main source of wealth is the trading activities of the group. Local protection rackets and extortion are of secondary importance

• Wealth accumulated from illegal activities is not necessarily invested in local activities. The aim is to simply to maximise profits and these may be reinvested globally in international markets both legal and illegal.

Modern network

• Exemplified by drugs distribution and marketing networks in urban centres of North America or Europe. Small groups of independent traders (traffickers, smugglers etc) who enter into agreements for particular projects such as drugs importing, smuggling goods or people etc. There is no central directing authority and changes in market conditions, law enforcement activity etc., is passed between groups as the opportunity arises.

• The clear aim is the accumulation of wealth, There is little or no relation to the local community within which the criminals operate except that of selling or providing a product. From time to time individuals may be threatened so as not to give evidence to the police (witness intimidation) in cases where they have information relevant to a prosecution. But the predominant strategy of such small groups of networkers is concealment. They seek no power or status in the community and they are often insufficiently powerful to corrupt state agencies except on a very localised basis. Their main strategy towards the law enforcement agencies is concealment and disguise.

• The main source of wealth is trading, predominantly drugs. Protection rackets may be organised by larger groups.

• Wealth accumulated from illegal activities is not likely to be invested locally but rather laundered and 'spirited away' abroad where law enforcement and taxation agencies are less likely to uncover it.

I repeat what I said at the beginning of this section this classification is a starting point and no more than that. In today's fast developing global criminal networks and markets organisational structures and activities are evolving at a fast pace.

references

Carter, David (1997) 'International Organized Crime Emerging Trends in Entrepreneurial Crime. in Ryan, P. Rush, G. eds. Understanding Organized Crime in Global Perspective. London Sage Publications

Williams, Phil (2001) 'Transnational Criminal Networks' in John Arquilla, and David Ronfeldt (editors) Networks and Netwars The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy. Washington DC Rand Corporation

Zaitch, Damian (2002) Trafficking Cocaine Colombian Drug Entrepreneurs in the Netherlands. The Hague Kluwer Law International