Characteristics of Organized Crime

Organized Crime Introduction Organized crime is loosely defined as any criminal activities that are conducted by a group of individuals in a highly orderly and organized fashion. These activities are in the most part illicit and illegal operations that are conducted with the sole purpose of monetary benefit by the perpetrators. The nature of organization is such that the criminal activities are divided among different individuals who man or are in control of specific aspects of the operation and generally report to a leader who is the main brains or coordinator of the entire organization. Due to the sophisticated nature of these operations, they consequently tend to transcend national borders and are thus of international stature.

These organized crimes are very diverse in nature and generally depend on their main ideologies or main product of trade. Examples of these crimes include: Contemporary slavery, cyber crimes, counterfeiting, arms trafficking, extortion and racketeering, human trafficking, prostitution, piracy, drug trafficking, money laundering, and child pornography among many others. There is no denying that if organized crime is left to continue unabated it ends up ruining the fabric of the entire nation by plunging the society into systemic and endemic corruption that affects governmental service delivery and endangering the lives of those who try to stand in the way of the criminals. Organized criminality therefore poses a very tangible threat to gainful societal integration and the democratic health of the nation.

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Characteristics of Organized Criminal Operations and Measures to Counter Them The characteristics of organized criminal activities are diverse and vary depending on the location and scope of their operations (Campos, 2011). However, some of the unique characteristics are: They are transnational in nature, are more often than not involved in heinous crimes, are actively operational in different crime markets, usually run legitimate enterprises as fronts to cover up for their main criminal activities, do not shy away from bribing government officials to look the other way, use the latest in technology to carry out their activities, and are very innovative and highly adaptive in their enterprises (Dumienski, 2012). Although terrorist groups also fit the definition of being organized criminal outfits, what distinguish them are their end goals. While the main goal of drug cartels and the mafia is financial gains, the main goal of terrorists is pushing for their ideological principles in their activities (Shanty & Mishra, 2008).

Mexico: Mexican Drug Syndicates Ever since the entry into partnership of Mexican drug syndicates with the Colombian cartels in the early 1990s, the impact of these syndicates have continually grown especially in the cross border trade with America. Until their entry into cocaine trafficking, the syndicates had not really exploited the porous 2000 mile border with America as they have done in recent years.

The result of this burst in energy is that now these Mexican syndicates control nearly all the wholesale cocaine market in western and southern United States. In order to keep an iron grip on their trade, the syndicates have effectively taken over cross-border human-trafficking activities where they have been known to force Mexicans desperate to cross over to America into drug mules (Shanty & Mishra, 2008).

The biggest Mexican cartels include Caro-Quintero in Sonora, organization of ArellanoFelix, and Amezcua-Contreras in Guadalajara. All these syndicates deal in large scale trafficking

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of a combination of many drugs from heroine, marijuana, cocaine and methamphetamine. Most of these drug syndicates are based on the northern part of Mexico near the American border and it is the cities and towns in places where they operate that have experienced their worst sides (Jordan, 1999). The border towns of Juarez and Guadalajara have as a result of the drug wars between the various cartels or law enforcement and the cartels experienced a dramatic rise in insecurity (Parakilas, 2012). Twenty-two (22) people in 1998 were killed in the town of Baja in California when rival drug traffickers engaged in tough wars. In the city of Tijuana alone, drug related disputes account for over 75% of the deaths recorded; in 1998, 300 people were murdered in the city as a result of these very disputes.

Colombia: Medellin Cartel Colombia was the main operational hub of two of the world largest and most notorious drug cartels, the Cali cartel and the Medellin cartel. The specific climatic advantage of the country being located between both the pacific and Caribbean coasts makes it at an advantage in terms of exposure to markets. It is no wonder that over 75% of cocaine trade is controlled by the Colombian cartels. In addition to Colombia being a major cocaine producer, it also has unprecedented access via remote access routes in the mountain ranges to Bolivia and Peru, who also happen to be major coca growers (Shanty & Mishra, 2008). The coca leaves were turned to paste before chemical treatment to cocaine hydrochloride was done in facilities in the interior of the Colombian countryside.

The Medellin Cartel was the first major drug cartel to emerge in Colombia and was based in Medellin. Among its top brass of leadership was Pablo Escobar, Ochoa brothers, Jose Rodriguez and Carlos Lehder (Shanty & Mishra, 2008). Unlike the other major cartels formed in the 1980’s, the Cali cartel, the Medellin cartel had a very mean streak. The main reason for the

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eventual dominance of the Medellin cartel in cocaine sales in Miami and New York was all based on Lehder’s evolutionary idea of moving transportation from ships to private air crafts.

The cartel was known to be ruthless in dealing with its detractors and in 1984 assassinated the Colombian Justice Minister, Rodrigo Bonilla. The cartel also led a daring attack on the supreme court of Colombia. In 1989, the gravity of their ruthlessness reached a new high when they blew an Avianca passenger plane killing 110 individuals in an effort to get rid of 2 confidential informants who were on board. The cartel had completely taken over by the early 1990’s as the de facto authority in Medellin, with Pablo Escobar at one time offering bounties on the head of ‘errant’ police officers to the tune of $3000. Such moves had gone a long way in silencing any form of opposition to their operations by government or any other individuals.

Italy: Sicilian Mafia The Sicilian Mafia or the Cosa Nostra was a group that emerged in the island of Sicily in Southern Italy during the 19th century. The groups were divided into families and clans each having territorial sovereignty in a given locale. With the 19th century emigration of Europeans to America and other places such as Canada, the Sicilian families also emigrated and established themselves in their new residences but still had strong ties to Sicily.

Despite efforts from many European and American authorities to crack down on the Mafia’s dominance in the drug and narcotics trade, the mafia has somehow still managed to remain resilient (Jordan, 1999). The strong influence of the mafia was such that at one time during the 1980s, they controlled an estimated $25 billion in GDP in Italy through its various fronts and businesses ranging from agribusiness, financial investments, real estate and commerce. One of their major incomes came from the reported 80% heroine market stake they controlled in New York. Their dominance in the drug market took an upturn during the 1990s

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when Sicilian mafiosos entered into a pact with the Colombians, giving the South Americans exclusive rights to traffic their cocaine within Europe. This posed a threat to the social fabric of Europe as the Colombians were known to be ruthless operatives in the drug market (Duyne et al, 2005).

The major influence of the Mafioso was the kind of endemic and systemic corruption that they injected into Europe and America, but more so in Southern Italy. Their corrupt dealings were very deep rooted in virtually all levels of business and government in Italy with policemen, private businessmen, court officials, political leaders, government bureaucrats and customs officials all in the entangled web. So when courageous prosecutors launched “Operation Clean Hands” (White, 2000) in the early 1990s, over 1500 businessmen and politicians were charged within 2 years of the initiative. In an effort to retaliate, Giovanni Falcone, an Italian judge was in 1992 assassinated by the Mafia bosses. These incidents of assassinations were not isolated since in the past the bosses were known to engage the Italian government officials with brutal deaths to deter them from taking interests in their businesses. Salvatore Riina ‘Toto’, a mafia boss, in an effort to consolidate his rule, assassinated an attorney general, five judges, police chiefs and leading politicians in addition to the hundreds he killed. After much public outcry, his organization was cracked down heavily by law enforcement, with investigations later showing that they were closely involved with a major political party at the time, the “Christian Democratic Party” (Jordan, 1999).

Impacts of Organized Crime on Socio-economic Welfare and its Democracy Among the challenges that organized crime brings to the society as a whole include: Political pressure, economic coercion, institutional threat, decay in social attributes and financial pressures.

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Social impacts One of the major impacts of organized crime activities on the nation is the increase in violence and insecurity (Walker, 2012). This is especially true in relation to drug cartels since they use different local gangs in the inner cities to sell their products. These local gangs routinely engage in tough wars among each other in an effort to increase their market share, resulting to the rise of very dangerous neighborhoods where mortality rates have raised exponentially due to an increased number of drive-by shootings. The increase in drug usage has been attributed to the rise in crime rates as addicts who do not have stable sources of income result to stealing in order to get their daily dose.

Human trafficking has resulted to the rise in contemporary slavery whereby it is mostly these illegal syndicates who traffic in contraband and other illicit products that have also diversified into smuggling humans across borders. Most of these individuals who are smuggled are usually in pursuit of a better life across borders, but instead end up being pushed into the sex trade either as prostitutes or sex slaves (Syring, 2012). Increase in cases of child pornography, which these criminal groups do not shy away from engaging in, have served to contribute in the continual moral decay of the society. Prostitution and the sex trade in general, which are highly dependent on the drug trade, have increased the number of venereal disease infections that are reported. This is because in most cases in an effort to earn more money, they end up engaging in unprotected sex (Dumienski, 2012).

Political pressures Many transnational crime syndicates are known to have deep rooted political agendas (Walker, 2002). The reason for this is because as these criminal enterprises continue to expand, they wish to have a greater degree of influence on the governmental institutions of the land as

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these controls ultimately help them to secure their economic interests in the long run. The reason they result to pilling pressure on political leadership is so that they ensure the state does not negatively impact on their enterprises, thus they engage government agencies tasked to curb their activities. This is the reason why criminal syndicates are always in a plot to eliminate the threats of law enforcement and judicial officers whom they consider as their most prevalent threats.

Outspoken politicians are also known to have been on the wrong side of the organizations (Gottschalk, 2009).

A more potent way of minimizing policy threats to criminal enterprises is for the crime syndicates to sponsor candidates in an election. Colombian cocaine cartels were notorious for using this method; they perfected the method such that it almost became fool-proof (Albanese, 2011). Donations would be made to political parties through many donors in order to make the contributions look legitimate. In return for the financial support offered, the victorious candidates would literally sing to the tune of their masters and implement favourable policies. The Italian mafia was favoring ‘devolution’ in the country so that the nation would be split to three federations. In the 1994 Colombian presidential election, the Cali cartel donated $6 million to Ernesto Sampler in an arrangement that would ensure that the cartel gets a soft landing if and when they decide to surrender during the presidency of Sampler were he to emerge victorious in the poll (Jordan, 1999).

Drug cartels have been known to support more radical political changes in they cannot have their way in the ballot (Shanty & Mishra, 2008). In 1993, Pablo Escobar in an effort to guarantee the supply of coca leaves for his cocaine business helped launch and support a rebel movement, Antioquia Rebelde to oppose the Colombian government in Bogota that was cracking down heavily on his operations. Sicilian Mafioso were notorious in conducting high profile

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kidnapping on the families of wealthy and well connected individuals in order to force the government to ease pressure on their activities. However, most criminal organizations, especially the cocaine cartels of Latin America, prefer to compromise persons in authority through bribes as long as they still maintain profitability in the process. The Cali cartel leader Rodrigo Orejuela is quoted to have said to the effect that his organization does not assassinate judges or government ministers; instead, they just bribe the officials (Shanty & Mishra, 2008).

Institutional threats The main institutional threats from organized crimes mostly come as a result of the corrupt dealings that they project towards the shaping of government policy (Duyne et al, 2005).

The influence, for instance, of large scale drug trade is that syndicates employ high levels of technology and investment in the logistics of transport for their products to their markets. As a result of this sophisticated and functional system of mass transportation by the organizations, government control is effectively diminished such that they have almost non-existent control on the trade routes used for these illicit activities.

Heightened use of internet technologies and the subsequent liberal policies of international wire transfers have resulted in the organizations effectively becoming financial bigwigs enjoying economic protection (Campana, 2011). The kinds of money these organizations draw rival the GDP of most countries in the third world regions of Africa and Latin America. This acquired financial might has seeped through to the economies of the host countries such as Mexico and Colombia where these drug monies are literally fueling economic activities in the nations (Albanese, 2011).

It is however in countries that are emerging from decades of authoritarian rule such as the former Soviet countries of Eastern Europe where recent changes in economic policies and

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liberalization of the market system have spurred massive investments in their economies. The danger of these market policies is that organized crime enterprises have established themselves in these economies to a point where they are now almost completely indistinguishable from legitimate business and state operations (Campana, 2011). Corruption in these new states is so rampant such that it has affected almost all levels of government; from the central government, to economic ministries, to military and security service which have all served to contribute to illegal dollar flight and exports (Duyne et al, 2005).

Economic threats The kind of economic impacts that result range from the money that these organizations coerce from local businesses in the form of the so called ‘protection fees’ to special contributions for ‘communal activities’ such as demanding that local businesses and households chip in financially, for instance to burry a drug gang member who has succumbed to fatalities after confrontation with law enforcement or members of a rival gangs. The impact may also be the closure of economic activities in neighborhoods where gang rivalries often play out in public as investors close shop in an effort to secure their investments by moving to places that are not under the influence of these organizations (Walker, 2002).

Systemic corruption in government as a result of cooperation and collaboration with these organized criminal networks has served to turn away foreign investments. A classic example is that of Russia which in the period of 1991 – 1996 had foreign investment of $7 billion; that was 22 times less than that of China at $156 billion despite Russia’s double per capita wealth and larger geographical area (Shanty & Mishra, 2008). Protection rackets in Russia served to increase direct costs and increase commodity and services prices by an average of 30%. Also the proliferation of illegal enterprises in the Russian economy had displaced legitimate businesses.

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These economic impacts on the society can also be of a positive nature (Shanty & Mishra, 2008). Areas in Latin America which are under drug syndicates and cartels have reported increased investment and an increase in job opportunities for the locals as the cartels plough back their resources and invest in local industries, commerce and real estate. These investments in legitimate enterprises and businesses have had tremendous positive effects on the global and local economies. The fear, however, is that the increased dependence on illegal funds serve to result in overvaluation of the local currency as seen in Colombia where the increase in dependence of illegal drug exports ends up trapping the government. The result of this dependence is that the government, though in paper denies any support for these organizations, allow the cartels essentially end up running their illicit operations as legitimate enterprises (Gottschalk, 2009).

Conclusion The continued proliferation of organized criminal gangs across the world is a worrying trend. Human trafficking has been rising over the years with drug cartels and mafia families diversifying their trade to include sex trafficking and enslavement of individuals in foreign countries. Of all the various forms of organized crime, drug trafficking is undoubtedly the one that posses the greatest threat to international security. Evidence from countries such as Colombia where cocaine trade has literally taken over the country’s economy has now spread to Mexican towns near the American border whereby drug syndicates fighting for control of the lucrative American market have resulted to escalation in violence in these towns. The globalization of the drug market is now breaking into the former Soviet states of Easter Europe and increasingly posing a threat to foreign investment and business as a whole in these newly liberalized markets.

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