Archives for organised crime

The traditional ‘pub’ as a site of leisure (and crime) In bygone eras, the public house (i.e. the ‘local pub’) was a staple of the British social landscape. It was a transitional space for leisure: somewhere to go after work to relax and socialise before heading home. Yet, the local…

This article is not meant to fully cover trade in post-conflict societies, but rather, the aim of this article is to introduce the kind of issues that enable illicit trade to flourish in post-conflict societies. In particular, this article will cover places like Kosovo and similar post-conflict societies where the EU has…

This post draws on research completed as part of RUSI’s Financial Crime 2.0 research programme. In early March 2019, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) announced that it was seeking to freeze and potentially forfeit £3.6 million in 95 bank accounts, most of them held by overseas students studying in the UK. The reason…

Critical infrastructures (CIs) are the backbone of our global society. These infrastructures keep the global economy moving, ensuring the day-to-day delivery of social goods and services. They are the hidden pillars behind our hospitals, financial institutions, logistical hubs, electricity grids, nuclear power plants and information and communication nodes. CIs form…

There are many ways to research organised crime and illicit enterprise. One of the most useful – yet underused – is historical research. This article argues that historical research should be used more to study criminal phenomena, and shows how its use highlights both the limitations of repressive short-term countermeasures…

The locution “criminal organisations” works better than “organised crime” for drawing attention to variation along the following lines. Different categories of organisation have distinctive revenue streams, modes of committing or modulating violence, origin myths, cultural practices and narratives of self-justification. They also exist at different scales, and manifest differential capacities…

Being a criminal in Rio de Janeiro has never been a safe business, but this year it’s more dangerous than ever. On February 16 2018, Brazil’s federal government took over the administration of security in the state of Rio, normally an exclusive domain of the State government. President Michel Temer…

Extortion against businesses is one of the main security challenges facing the Mexican government today. Statistics from crimes reported to the police show that extortion has increased dramatically since the country was plunged into a decade-long ‘war’ against organised crime, rising by about 81% in the past 10 years. However, given…

Modern slavery is often linked to organised crime. We assume the problem is driven by criminal gangs that make huge profits from trafficking and exploiting vulnerable children, women and men into forced labour, sexual exploitation or other activities that violate their basic human rights and freedoms. But I don’t agree.…