CRIMINOLOGY AND PENOLOGY – ORGANISED CRIME

Module 1
DEFINING ORGANIZED CRIME
By Mr. Twinobusingye Severino
LLM (Mak); LLB(Hons) Mak; B.Ph.(Hons) (Mak; DIP. LP (LDC); DIP. LL(LDC); DIP.Ph(KNS)

October 2022

The most obvious distinction between organized crime and other forms of criminal conduct is that it is
“organized.” In general terms, it does not include random, unplanned, individual criminal acts.
Instead, it focuses exclusively on planned, rational acts that reflect the effort of groups of individuals.
Several efforts have been made to elicit common elements to describe and define organized crime
with greater specificity.
A list of all the crimes committed by organized criminal groups would be outdated quickly as social,
political and technological changes result in changing opportunities for crime in different locations.
Therefore, the unit of analysis in most definitions is not the offence but the offender: an organized
criminal group. A better understanding of the nature of these groups will help in developing more
effective responses to them. A broad typology of organized crimes is offered in Modules 3 and 4.
There are many definitions of organized crime. Analysis reveals that several characteristics of
organized crime are common among these definitions (Albanese, 2016; Finckenauer, 2005;
Hagan, 1983; Maltz, 1985). These characteristics include the purpose of organized crime to
financially profit through crime. Organized crime mainly responds to public demand for services.
Corruption is an enabler that protects organized crime operations. Sometimes intimidation, threats
and/or force are also needed to protect those operations. These elements comprise organized crime as a
continuing criminal enterprise.
For the purposes of these Modules, a general definition of organized crime could read as follows:
Definition of organized crime for the purpose of these Modules
Organized crime is a continuing criminal enterprise that rationally works to profit from illicit
activities that are often in great public demand. Its continuing existence is maintained through

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corruption of public officials and the use of intimidation, threats or force to protect its operations.
A general definition has limitations, however, because organized crime activity varies across countries,
regions, crime-types, and nature of its organization. Therefore, it is important to know the general
elements of organized crime, but greater knowledge is needed to understand how it manifests in
different locations and criminal contexts.
Definition in the Organized Crime Convention
The realization that not a single country, no matter how powerful, can fight organized crime across
borders in isolation, led to the passage of the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime, which came into force in 2003. The negotiations leading up to this Convention
caused Member States to consider the definition of organized crime in setting the stage for
international action.
The Convention does not contain a definition of transnational organized crime or organized crime.
There are many elements of organized crime, which might not occur in every case, and might also
change over time, making a specific consensus definition difficult. Instead, the Convention defines “an
organized criminal group.” A precise definition is required because the Convention aims at
directing policy, law, and practice in preventing and combating organized crime.

Under the Convention (article 2a), an “organized criminal group” is defined using four criteria: A
structured group of three or more persons;
The group exists for a period of time;
It acts in concert with the aim of committing at least one serious crime; To
obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.
Structured group is defined in the negative: as one that does not need a formal hierarchy or
continuity of its membership. This makes the definition broad, including loosely affiliated groups
without any formally defined roles for its members or a developed structure.
For purposes of the Convention, serious crime means an offence punishable by a maximum penalty of
incarceration of at least four years (article 2b). Four years was selected by international consensus
at the time of negotiation as a reflection of offence seriousness while it recognizes that criminal codes
vary widely around the world in prescribing incarceration for

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various offences. There is no requirement for countries to introduce a definition of serious crime
or to follow the definition of the Convention. The definition of serious crime is included to define the
scope of application of the Convention and to invoke the international cooperation provisions of
the Convention.
The purpose of organized criminal groups
The interpretative notes to the Convention state that the words “in order to obtain, directly or indirectly,
a financial or other material benefit” should be understood broadly. It includes, for example, crimes in
which the predominant motivation may be sexual gratification, such as the receipt or trade of materials
by members of child pornography rings, the trading of children by members of paedophile rings or cost
sharing among ring members.
Source: Travaux Préparatoires of the negotiations for the elaboration of the United Nations Convention
against Organized Crime and the Protocols thereto.
The Convention has near universal adherence, representing the overwhelming majority of the world’s
nations. For an updated list of countries that have ratified the Convention, please visit the Strategies and
Treaties section of UNODC Portal on Sharing Electronic Resources and Laws on Crime (SHERLOC).
The portal contains legislation, case law and other relevant information regarding the
implementation of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime.
The definitions make clear that the size of an organized criminal group can be quite small
(although some organized criminal groups can be large), and it does not have to exist for a long period
of time (although some do). Significantly, the seriousness of the crimes committed by these groups, and
their profit-driven nature, are defining elements.
The Convention covers only transnational crimes, which are planned, executed, or have effects
across national borders. This broad definition of transnationality acknowledges the complexity of
the issue and sets the stage for broad international cooperation.

The element of transnationality

The offence is transnational if:
It is committed in more than one State;
It is committed in one State but a substantial part of its preparation, planning, direction or control
takes place in another State;

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It is committed in one State but involves an organized criminal group that engages in criminal activities
in more than one State; or
It is committed in one State but has substantial effects in another State.
Source: United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, article 3.2.
Is important to note that, while the Convention covers only transnational crimes, in article 34(2),
it also specifies that the transnational element and the involvement of an organized criminal group
are not to be considered elements of those offences in domestic legislation for criminalization
purposes. This provision is to avoid loopholes in domestic legislation. The Convention requires
the criminalization of four specific offences: many organized criminal groups utilize money
laundering, corruption and obstruction of justice to protect their operations from law enforcement.
Therefore, that modus operandi has to be criminalized in all jurisdictions. The Convention also
requires the criminalization of participation in an organized criminal group, which is discussed in
Module 2.
Three protocols to the Convention relate to specific types of transnational crime: trafficking in persons,
smuggling of migrants and trafficking in firearms. These will be discussed in other Guides as examples
of transnational organized crime that often involve multiple countries of origin, transit and destination,
and strongly require concerted actions of these countries to respond or prevent these crimes
effectively.
Similarities and differences between organized crime and other forms of crime
Using the offence, rather than the offender, as a unit of analysis, some acts are clearly
“organized,” in their commission but are not considered part of organized crime for the purpose of
the Organized Crime Convention. Organized crime is actually one type of several categories of
organized criminal behaviour.
White-collar crime, for instance, is related to and overlaps with organized crime and the definition
contained in the Organized Crime Convention allows to capture many cases of white collar crime.
Nonetheless, the two crimes have significant differences in that white-collar crime occurs as a deviation
from legitimate business activity, whereas organized crime occurs as a continuing criminal enterprise
that exists to profit primarily from illicit activity. White-collar crime can be carried out by an
individual whereas organized crime requires more people and planning in order to carry out offences
on a more systematic basis. White-collar crime can also be carried out by organized criminal groups.
There has been much research comparing the linkages between organized crime and white-collar
crime (Kegö, Leijonmarck and Molcean, 2011; Tusikov, 2012).

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Governmental bodies and politicians can also be considered offenders of organized crime if the
elements of the general definition are met. It is also important to notice that not only individuals
but also legal persons, such as corporations, can carry out crimes during the course of business.
Serious crime is frequently committed through or under the cover of legal entities. Complex structures
can effectively hide the true ownership, clients or particular transactions. Legal persons may also
be used to shield natural persons from liability, and complex structures may be used to conceal
illegal activity. The role of legal persons in illegal activity may span the whole range of organized
transnational crimes, from trafficking in persons, drugs or arms to corruption and money
laundering. Ensuring the liability of legal persons is therefore an important component in
combating transnational organized crime (more on the liability of legal persons in Module 4).
Terrorism is another form of “organized” criminal behaviour, but it is distinct from organized crime. In
general terms, terrorism involves crimes committed with the objective of intimidating a population or
compelling a government or international organization with a view to achieving political or social
objectives. Examples would include hostage-taking in order to secure freedom for those seen as
imprisoned unjustly or acts of violence done in retribution for perceived past injustices. An act of
terrorism has a political objective.
Organized crime, on the other hand, always seeks to obtain a financial or other material benefit,
whereas power and control can be secondary motives. Organized crime can involve violence and
coercion, but the objective in organized crime remains profit.
The definition of “organized criminal group” in the Organized Crime Convention only includes groups
that through their activities seek to obtain, directly or indirectly, a “financial or other material
benefit.” This would not, in principle, include groups such as some terrorist or insurgent groups,
provided that their goals were purely non-material. However, the Convention may still apply to
crimes committed by thosethose groups in the event that they commit crimes covered by the
Convention in order to raise financial or other material benefits.
In other words, while they generally pursue different objectives, activities of terrorists and
organized criminal groups can overlap (Bassiouni, 1990). A clear example is when terrorist groups use
organized crime activity to fund their political objectives. Terrorist organizations can thus adopt the
conventional tactics of organized criminal groups, such as generating profits from drug trafficking,
or other types of illicit trade. In this context, UN General Assembly Resolution 55/25 adopting the
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime also calls upon States to recognize the link between
transnational organized criminal activities and acts of terrorism.

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Another important element of distinction between these two crimes is that by definition, organized
crime cannot be committed by a single person (as spelled out in the definition of organized criminal
group provided by article 2(a) of the Organized Crime Convention) while a terrorist act can be.
There is no definition agreed on by all Members States on terrorism. Instead, there are 19
universal legal instruments against terrorism negotiated over the last 50 years. Although
negotiations to draft a comprehensive convention on international terrorism have been undergoing,
so far the development of a comprehensive strategy against terrorism has been constrained by the
inability to agree on a definition of terrorism, among other issues.
The International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism provides a broad
definition that is reported below.
Broad definition of terrorism
Article 2-1: Any person commits an offence within the meaning of this Convention if that person
by any means, directly or indirectly, unlawfully and wilfully, provides or collects funds with the
intention that they should be used or in the knowledge that they are to be used, in full or in part, in
order to carry out:
[…]
(b) Any other act intended to cause death or serious bodily injury to a civilian, or to any other person
not taking an active part in the hostilities in a situation of armed conflict, when the purpose of
such act, by its nature or context, is to intimidate a population, or to compel a government or an
international organization to do or to abstain from doing any act.
Source: International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism; FATF
Interpretative Note to Special Recommendation II on the Financing of Terrorism, defining
terrorist act as the above, in addition to offences under the universal anti-terrorism conventions
and protocols negotiated as of 1999.
Organized criminal groups, however, may also adopt terrorist tactics of indiscriminate violence and
largescale public intimidation to further criminal objectives or fulfil special operational aims.
Organized criminal groups and terrorist organizations may build alliances with each other. The
nature of these alliances varies broadly and can include one-off, short-term, and long-term
relationships. With time, criminal and terrorist groups may develop a capacity to engage in both
criminal and terrorist activities, thus forming entities that display the characteristics of both
groups.

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ACTIVITIES, ORGANIZATION AND COMPOSITION OF ORGANIZED CRIMINAL
GROUPS Activities
Examining the descriptions and definitions of organized crime in criminal codes and case studies,
three primary categories of illegal behaviour emerge. These categories reflect the individual crimes
that are most commonly associated with organized crime activity (Albanese, 2015). The three categories
include provision of illicit services, provision of illicit goods (both dealt with in greater detail in
Module 3), and the infiltration of legitimate business or government (the focus of Module 4).
Within each of these categories are offences that are more specific.
The provision of illicit services attempts to satisfy the public demand for, for instance, sexual and other
forms of labour that is not permitted under law as well as procuring or facilitating the illegal entry or
stay of a person in a country. Specific offences in this category include trafficking in persons,
including for purposes of sexual exploitation, and smuggling of migrants. More details on the
provision of illicit services is provided in Module 3.
Besides illicit services, organized criminal groups also provide particular products that a segment
of the public desires, but cannot obtain legally. Many people wish to buy illegal products or legal
ones at the lowest price possible, regardless of where the seller originally obtained them, or unaware
that the products may not be safe. Due to this demand, organized criminal groups emerge who produce,
buy and sell stolen, counterfeit or falsified merchandise, i.e., stolen art and other cultural property,
falsified medical products, illicitly manufactured/ traded firearms, illicit wildlife products and
counterfeit food items. The stolen, counterfeit or falsified property might also consist of
automobiles, jewellery, stereo equipment, mobile phones, software, or any other product for which
there is a high consumer demand.
More specifics on the provision of illicit goods is provided in Module 3.
The third category of criminal activities is the infiltration of legitimate business or government. An
example is labour intimidation, which involves the use of force or threats to obtain money for ensuring
jobs or peace at construction sites. These offences often entail threats to employers or employees
that if money is not paid, there will be no job for the employees, or that violence, strikes, or vandalism
will occur at the employer’s companies. There is a clear connection between corruption and the
infiltration of business or government, because public officials are often willingly bribed or corrupted in
these cases, or are coerced using intimidation or threats. More specifics on the offences that underlie
the infiltration of business and government are provided in Module 4.

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The provision of illicit goods and the provision of illicit services can be distinguished from the
infiltration of legitimate business in their consensual nature and lack of inherent violence,
although there are clear exceptions, such as in the case of trafficking in persons. Organized criminal
groups who offer drugs, stolen property, or counterfeit goods rely on the existing demand among
the public to make money. Because they also rely heavily on return business, they want the illicit
transaction to go well in order to ensure future illicit sales and exchanges.
In providing illegal goods and service, it is most common that members of the public who are interested
in these goods and services seek out the illicit opportunities. These exchanges are usually non-violent,
but violence or threats occur when one party to the transaction feels cheated or short-changed.
Violence can also occur when an organized criminal group attempts to monopolize an illicit market
by threatening its criminal competitors.
There are also many harms created by organized crime, and some of these are not often visible.
The trafficking and provision of illicit goods and services create economic harm to the legitimate
economy in supporting an underground, untaxed, illicit economy. There are also harms to health
and to the victims of these crimes. The harms that result from the infiltration of legitimate business
or government are associated with corruption and extortion. These offences often involve
intimidation, threats, or violence, causing economic harm, in addition to harm to the legitimacy of
public institutions, and the misuse of public funds for criminal purposes.
Organization
Membership and hierarchy
Organized criminal groups are organized in different ways. Some organized criminal groups are
hierarchical with some kind of structure and leadership within the group, as has been found in
some mafia groups. Some organized criminal groups are ethnically or culturally bound, but may
lack a clear hierarchical structure. Many groups more closely resemble networks organized by
needed skills or access to economic opportunities in illicit markets, rather than relying on pre-
existing relationships. Of course, there are variations and overlaps in the way different organized
criminal groups organize within societies and across borders.
Territorial versus non-territorial organized criminal groups
Organized criminal groups differ in their relationship to specific territories or jurisdictions. Some
groups focus on a local territory and attempt to maintain monopoly control of illegal activities in
the area, enforcing their control through extortion and corruption. Territorial groups include some
traditional mafia groups, street gangs and maritime piracy groups. Other

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organized criminal groups are non-territorial, and their activities regularly cross-jurisdictional
boundaries and national borders. Organized criminal groups that engage in cybercrime,
environmental crimes, and firearms trafficking are usually non-territorial in nature, which create
different problems for enforcement across jurisdictional boundaries (Barker, 2014; De Ruyver,
Vermeulen, Vander Beken, 2002; van Dijk, 2008; Viano, 2017). Smuggling of migrants is
transnational per definition. More specifics on the nature of different types of organized criminal
groups are provided in Module 7.
Composition
Some typologies of organized crime attempt to classify by looking at who is involved in the
activity rather than by looking at the activity itself. Typologies of organized crime focus most often on
ethnicity and the nature of the structure of the organized criminal group.
Ethnicity or culture versus criminal markets
Ethnicity (i.e., the ancestry or culture of a particular group of people) is perhaps the most common
of all categorizations of organized crime, but it is not a good descriptor. This is because criminal
cases and research studies show that organized crime activities are often committed by interethnic
groups, and available criminal opportunities cause groups to emerge from many different backgrounds.
As Europol’s Organized Crime Threat Assessment found, “Organized criminal groups are as varied as
the markets they service and the activities they engage in” (Europol, 2017). Therefore, criminal
markets and activities provide greater understanding of organized crime than do ethnicity or national
origin (UNOactivities
Both historically and in contemporary society there are many examples of interethnic and
international organized crime (Block Alan, 1979; Blom and Jennissen, 2014; Bovenkerk and Siegel
2003; Siegel and Bovenkerk, 2000). Europol found criminals of more than 180 nationalities were
involved in serious and organized crime in the EU, and the majority of organized criminal groups
operating internationally had members of more than one nationality (Europol, 2017). Biographical
attributes, such as ethnicity or culture, can help describe a particular person or group, but they do
little to explain that person or group’s behaviour, which requires analysis of criminal markets and
activities.
Illicit activities that the public desires combined with local availability, or other opportunity
factors, appear to dictate how and which type of criminal group will emerge to exploit the
opportunity. It is less common, but sometimes a group will attempt to create a criminal
opportunity through intimidation or extortion.

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There have been many studies of criminal groups, and many have found them to be loosely organized,
due to the self-interest of each participant. So highly structured organized criminal groups have been
found to be less common (Adler, 1985; Antonopoulos, 2009; Ianni, and Reuss-Ianni, 1973; Soudijn
and Kleemans, 2009). A mafia member who became an informer, Joseph Valachi, testified during the
1960s about his experience with Italian-American organized crime. He stated that the function of the
“family” or group was mutual protection; otherwise, “everybody operates by himself” (U.S. Senate
Committee on Government Operations Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, 1963). Therefore,
attention must be given to how criminal markets and opportunities work to shape particular types of
organized criminal groups.
Gender and organized crime
Organized crime was seen historically as masculine behaviour with women involved only for purposes
of exploitation, or as silent supporters of their partners’ questionable activities. In more recent years,
closer attention has been paid to the role of women in organized crime activity. Women have been
found to be leaders in organized criminal groups, including organizers of organized criminal
activities and equal partners in crime. They have also been found to assume assistant and supporting
roles, subordinate to male criminals as stable and often central support systems. Such tasks have
included taking care of the finances of the organized criminal group. In trafficking in persons cases,
women have been found to act as the intermediary between perpetrators and victims, often through a
“promotion” from a victim to a supervisory position (Arsovska and Allum, 2014; Global Initiative
Secretariat, 2017; Pizzini-Gambetta, 2014; UNODC, 2016).
Other analyses have found considerable evidence that women had knowledge and awareness of
the criminal affiliations of their male counterparts, and in some cases were active participants in
maintaining and concealing criminal activity (Bonanno and Donofrio, 1991; Calder, 1995;
O’Brien and Kurins, 1991; San, 2011). It is likely that additional investigations will yield more
evidence of female involvement in organized crime.
Young women and organized crime
“Girls and young women are pulled into gangs through their lives and exposure in areas where gangs
provide the principal forms of social organisation for young people ... The result is a litany of lost
lives and a reinforcing of a ‘cycle of gangsterism and violence’ as the young children they bear are
themselves vulnerable to being drawn into gang life.”
Source: Shaw, Mark and Luke Lee Skywalker, 2017 (p. 12).

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Case studies
Case Study 1 (United States v. Viktor Bout)
Viktor Bout, an arms dealer from Russia, was arrested by the Royal Thai Police in Thailand in 2008.
In 2010, Bout was extradited to the United States to stand trial on terrorism charges after having been
accused of intending to smuggle arms to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for
use against U.S. forces. Although prosecutors had asked for life in prison, arguing that Bout’s weapons
trafficking had fuelled conflicts around the world, Viktor Bout was sentenced to 25 years in prison by
a Manhattan federal court on charges of: (a) conspiring to kill American citizens (in violation of
18 U.S.C. § 2332(b)), officers, and employees (in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1114 and 1117) by
agreeing to sell weapons to drug enforcement informants who he believed were members of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a terrorist organization known as FARC; (b) conspiring
to acquire and export surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles (in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2332g); and (c)
conspiracy to provide material support or resources to a designated terrorist organization (in violation
of 18
U.S.C. § 2339B).
According to various sources, Bout played a role in fuelling international conflicts with weapons.
He ran air transport companies, which operated predominantly in Africa and the Middle East in the
mid-1990s and early 2000s. For instance, he operated in several countries under United Nations
sanctions such as Liberia, Angola, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Sudan. His company, Air Cess, together
with its sister company, Air Pass, are known to have been involved in the smuggling of
commodities from South Africa to the National
Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)’s controlled areas, while he was located in the
United Arab Emirates. Based in part on their close association with former Liberian President
Charles Taylor, Bout and his associate, Chichakli, have been subjects of United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) sanctions restricting their travel and their ability to conduct business around the world.
According to the UNSC Sanctions Committee Concerning Liberia, Bout “supported former President
Taylor’s regime in [an] effort to destabilize Sierra Leone and gain illicit access to diamonds.” The
Sanctions Committee also noted that Chichakli, “an employee/associate” of Bout’s, had a
“significant role in assisting [Bout] in setting up and managing a number of his key firms and
moving money.” As a result of the UNSC resolutions and sanctions regime, all United Nations Member
States were directed to freeze any funds, financial assets and economic resources owned or controlled
by Bout and Chichakli.
Bout was sentenced on 5 April 2012 to 25 years of imprisonment and transferred to the United States
Penitentiary, Marion, Illinois, in June 2012.

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Case Study 2 (White-Collar Crime)
Jonathan Lebed became interested in the stock market when he and two others competed in a
stockpicking tournament during high school. He subsequently came up with a scheme to make real
money, working out of his bedroom. Using brokerage accounts set up by his father, he bought cheap
stocks electronically that were traded on the stock exchange. He would then flood message boards on
the Internet with false and misleading postings that gave the impression that these cheap stocks
would soon become valuable. Messages such as “Net stock to gain 1000 percent,” combined with
false stories that he was a company president, created the illusion that he had inside knowledge
about these inexpensive stocks and the companies that issued them. To prevent his identity or the
source of the postings from being revealed, he used many fictitious names when posting the misleading
messages about the cheap stocks he had purchased.
As soon as the stock prices rose in response to his postings, Lebed would sell his shares for a quick
profit. According to investigators, he profited between USD 11,000 to more than USD 70,000 on each
trade. Ultimately, he was charged with using the Internet to manipulate stocks and earning USD
273,000 in illegal profits. The case was settled when he agreed to pay the Government USD
285,000.
Case Study 3 (United States v. Juan Almeida)
In January 1997, Juan Almeida (Cuban), Leonid “Tarzan” Fainberg (Ukrainian) and Nelson “Tony”
Yester (Cuban) were arrested in Florida, USA and charged with conspiracy to distribute cocaine.
Yester was at large at the time of the trial. The conspiracy encompassed three ventures that were
undertaken between 1986 and 1995. The first venture took place in the late 1980’s when Almeida with
fugitive co-conspirator Nelson “Tony” Yester coordinated the transportation of several shipments of
cocaine from Miami to New York. The second venture, perhaps the one that gave them a certain
degree of fame, entailed the attempt to purchase a World War II-era submarine from the former
Soviet Union. The submarine was meant to be used by Pablo Escobar’s associates to sneak
cocaine from South America up the west coast of the United States into San Francisco. The third
venture involved a plan to conceal cocaine inside Russia-bound shipments of shrimps. The
Government’s “star” witness with respect to the submarine and shrimp ventures was Leonid “Tarzan”
Fainberg.
Leonid “Tarzan” Fainberg, a Ukrainian mobster born in Odessa, left the Soviet Union in the early
1980s for
Israel, and later moved to the United States following the fall of the Soviet Union. From 1992 to
1997, Fainberg’s criminal activities included racketeering, money laundering, counterfeiting

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money, illegally trafficking girls from Russia and forcing them to work as strippers and
prostitutes, importing and distributing narcotics such as cocaine and heroin from South America to
the United States, Russia, and elsewhere.
This case sheds light on how organized criminal groups can build mutually beneficial
relationships. It also demonstrates the role of brokers in facilitating partnerships between various
organized criminal groups. Finally, this case illustrates criminal mobility across national borders
and complexity of criminal conspiracies
Case Study 5 (Child Sexual Exploitation; R. V Way)
The Canadian case R. V Way involved 176 films produced by Mr. Brian Way’s company, Azov Films,
which the prosecution alleged were child pornography recordings (in accordance with the terminology
used in the Canadian legislation; the United Nations prefer to describe this conduct as “child sexual
exploitation”), but which Way claimed were nudist artistic films of boy models. The defendant argued
there were no sexual acts depicted in these films found at the company’s offices. The main question to
be answered in court was whether the material in question constituted child pornography as
defined in the Canadian Criminal Code (Section
163.1 (1) (ii), according to which the dominant characteristic of child pornography is “depiction, for a
sexual purpose, of a sexual organ or the anal region of a person under the age of eighteen years.”
Another question was to establish whether those in Way’s enterprise constituted an organized
criminal group.
The court noted that Azov Films was was sophisticated and quickly expanded internationally. The
website had legal text suggesting the material was legal in Canada and the United States. It had an
online library or catalogue with a search function and a familiar payment system. The material
could be downloaded or be provided in hard copy by post or by courier. Azov Films' customer list
and details from the defendant's home collection resulted in the investigation to expand as more
severe cases of child sexual abuse and child pornography were revealed. Hundreds of at risk children
were identified worldwide and hundreds of adults across continents were arrested following high
levels of cooperation between law enforcement agencies internationally.
While the defendant referred to the children or boys as models the court examined the features of
the legislation to confirm that the sexualized nudity of children fell within the definition of child
pornography. In doing so it also confirmed that child pornography on the low end of the scale (in terms
of severity), constitutes child pornography for the purposes of the Canadian Criminal Code. Notably
while no sexual acts were perpetrated directly on the 40 or so children (mainly from Romania and
Ukraine) in the case, the court attached significance to

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the feelings of shame and depression that the boys suffered. It was noted that the boys felt disgraced
when they realized the films were sold around the world; some suffered anxiety and agitation. The
films were for sale in 92 different countries. At least one of the boys was groomed to appear in adult
pornography movies when he reached the age of 18, videos that were also distributed by the
company.
The court concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that given the sexual poses, the type of activities
engaged in, the website on which the films are sold (the common element of which is the sale of films
that depict young nude boys and men), the fact that graphic photographs accompany some of the films,
and the communications by Way regarding the desires of his ever increasing client base, the reasonable
viewer would consider that the depictions were for a sexual purpose. In sum the court was satisfied
both that the dominant characteristic of the films was the depiction of the genitals and anal regions
of the boys and for a sexual purpose that those films were therefore child pornography.
The prosecution also argued that the entire enterprise should be considered an organized criminal
group. Nonetheless, the facts did not meet the definition in this case as the individuals were employees,
including Way’s mother who was listed as the company’s treasurer and administrator, a cameraman
and an editor. In addition, no evidence was produced regarding:
(a) the rules of the organization; (b) the interrelationship among the parties to the alleged
organized criminal group; (c) the knowledge of Mr. Way’s employees about what other members
of the organization were doing for the organized criminal group. The court was influenced by the
fact that the film company also produced other films that were not illegal, thus complicating the
test in terms of identifying the financial or other material benefit-the mens rea required as evidence
of an organized criminal group. Therefore, the court concluded that no evidence was produced proving
beyond a reasonable doubt that the organization had the structure necessary to constitute an organized
criminal group.
Although Azov Films was not found to be an organized criminal group, Way’s culpability was attached
to his private collection kept at his home with some 187,001 unique images and 8,747 unique
videos) and which he also shared. Way, however, was sentenced on 15 counts linked to both the
manufacture and sale of child pornography and his personal collection of child pornography. He was
found not guilty of instructing others to import, produce, distribute and export child pornography for the
benefit of an organized criminal group.
In August 2016 he was sentenced to ten years imprisonment and a fine of $20,000. He was required to
register himself as a sex offender; provide a sample of his DNA for forensic analysis; and was
forbidden from going into a public park or public swim area where children

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under 16 are present or can reasonably be expected to be present, or a day-care centre, school
ground, playground or community centre; seeking, obtaining or continuing any employment, or
becoming a volunteer in a capacity, that involves being in a position of trust or authority over
children under the age of 16. In addition, he was forbidden from using a computer to
communicate with a person under 16. This provision was stated to remain in force for 10 years
after Way’s release.
MODULE 2: ORGANIZING THE COMMISSION OF CRIMES
Legal definitions of organized crimes
Organized crime is often defined in sweeping terms. Comments such as “mob-linked” activity, crimes
that bear the “earmarks of the mafia,” and other suggestive terms do not help differentiate
organized crimes from conventional crimes in an objective way. This Module is designed to provide
clarity in classifying organized crimes and in distinguishing them from traditional crimes.
The Organized Crime Convention in its article 5 offers States parties two alternative options to
criminalize participation in an organized criminal group: conspiracy and criminal association.
These offences create criminal liability for persons who intentionally participate in or contribute to
the criminal activities of organized criminal groups. They are aimed at tackling organized crime at
its core by criminalizing acts that involve participation in or contributions to an organized criminal
group. The offences are designed to be preventive, by creating liability distinct from the attempt or
completion of the criminal activity. They hold criminally liable those who associate for criminal
endeavours, even if they have not yet committed an offence. They can extend criminal liability to
situations in which crime is anticipated and likely to occur, but a specific offence has yet to
materialize. They apply to groups of persons acting in concert to commit (serious) crime (e.g.,
provision of illicit goods or services, or infiltration of business or government).
In simple terms, conspiracy is an offence that is based on an agreement to commit crime, whereas
criminal association is an offence for participating in the activities of an organized criminal group.
Conspiracy is used in common law countries, such as Canada, Myanmar, Pakistan, Uganda and
the US, and criminal association is the principle used in civil law countries, such as Algeria,
France, Gabon, Germany, Italy, Romania, Spain, Turkey, and Venezuela. Several countries, such as
the UK, have elements of both models concurrently.

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Conspiracy
Conspiracy occurs when two or more persons agree to commit a crime-an essential feature for
committing organized crime. One purpose of the conspiracy offence is to extend liability “backwards”
by criminalizing the planning (or agreement) stage of a criminal offence. Conspiracy can create
criminal liability even if no preparation of the contemplated offence has begun. In many jurisdictions,
an act in furtherance of the agreement is required. The offence thus serves to prevent crime and allows
criminal justice agencies to intervene (and enables charges to be laid) some time before an offence is
actually attempted or completed. The criminalization of conspiracy has a further purpose in that it
allows for prosecution of multiple persons involved in a criminal enterprise. The offence attaches
liability to agreements to commit crime, which enables the prosecution of persons who organize and
plan crime but do not themselves execute those plans. It is defined as an inchoate crime, or an act
engaged in toward the commission of a criminal act.
The agreement must be made between at least two persons; an agreement with oneself is not
possible. Jurisprudence suggests that, while the agreement cannot exist without communication
between the conspirators, there is no requirement that the parties to the agreement know each other.
All that is required is that each conspirator is committed to the agreed objective(s). There is no
requirement regarding the level of involvement of a conspirator in the agreement. The agreement
may envisage that all conspirators equally take some action towards the agreed goal, but a conspirator
may also be part of the agreement without carrying out any action aimed at achieving the common
objective.
Purpose of the conspiracy agreement
The Organized Crime Convention makes an important addition to the general common-law concept of
conspiracy by requiring that the purpose of the agreement between the conspirators is to obtain a
financial or other material benefit. This element is reflective of the overall objective of the Convention
and one of the main characteristics of organized crime, which is to achieve a financial or other material
gain from criminal activity.
The most important elements of the crime of conspiracy are the act (actus reus) and the state of mind
(mens rea) required. They are summarized in Table 2.1. It is important to note that there are
differences among countries in how conspiracy is defined, but the significant elements of the crime
are summarized here.

Elements of conspiracy in the Organized Crime Convention

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Organized Crime Convention Physical elements (actus reus)
Mental elements (mens rea)
Article 5, para. 1(a)(i) Agreeing with one or more other persons to commit a serious crime
(action) The agreement was entered into intentionally. The agreement was made for a purpose
related directly or indirectly to obtaining a financial or other material benefit
To summarize, according to the Organized Crime Convention, liability for conspiracy generally requires
a voluntary agreement between two or more people, the parties do not have to be involved extensively
with the conspiracy, and the object is to commit a serious crime. An overt act in furtherance of the
conspiracy is required in many jurisdictions.
Criminal association
While conspiracy is the main legal tool for addressing criminal enterprises in common law
countries, most civil law countries prefer the legal concept of punishing participation in a criminal
association (or organization or group). This is called the offence of criminal association – i.e.,
association de malfaiteurs, since the model of such criminal provisions are Articles 265-268 of the
Criminal Code of France of 1810 (Calderoni, 2010). Participation of the accused in a criminal
organization is the offence, rather than an agreement between members of the organization or
planning a crime with others, which is the focus of conspiracy. For both conspiracy and criminal
association, the participation in the group, or planning of the crime, is a separate offence from any
ultimate crimes that are carried out.
Intention to take part in the criminal group and knowledge of the aim
Like conspiracy, there is variation among nations in the scope of their criminal association laws,
although in every case the participation in the criminal group is the central element, rather than a
specific agreement to commit a crime. The elements of the offence of criminal association require that
the accused had intention to take part in the criminal group or its activities with knowledge of at
least the group’s general aims.
If the participation relates to other, non-criminal activities of the organized criminal group, the accused
must have known that such participation will contribute to achieving the criminal aim. This may include
persons who commit a criminal offence in pursuit of the aims of, or on behalf of, the organized criminal
group, but also persons who operate legitimate front operations in support of an organized criminal
group or who provide services, such as bookkeeping, knowing that such conduct contributes to the
achievement of the criminal aims of the group. Therefore, association with a group that has a
criminal objective results in criminal

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responsibility. important elements of criminal association, although some differences exist among
national laws.
Crime Convention Physical elements (actus reus)
Mental elements (mens rea)
Article 5, para. 1(a)(ii)a Through an act or omission, take an active part in criminal activities of the
organized criminal group The act or omission is intentional and undertaken with knowledge of the
criminal nature of the group, or of its criminal activities or objectives
Article 5, para. 1(a)(ii)b Through an act or omission, take an active part in other (non-criminal)
activities of the organized criminal group The act or omission is intentional and undertaken with
knowledge that participation will contribute to the achievement of the criminal aim
The offences for participation in a criminal association in civil law jurisdictions perform an
analogous function of the conspiracy offences in common law jurisdictions. In recent years, some
countries of both legal traditions have introduced both conspiracy and criminal association laws
as a method to deal with organized criminal groups, as analysed in more detail in the following
section of this Module. Many have restricted their use to certain kinds of serious offences (Calderoni,
2012; Hauck and Peterke, 2016; Sergi, 2014)
Definitions in the Organized Crime Convention
The Organized Crime Convention aims at meeting the need for a global response and at ensuring
the effective criminalization of acts of participation in criminal groups. Article 5 of the Convention
recognizes the two main approaches to such criminalization that are cited above as equivalent. The
two alternative options of article 5, paragraph 1 (a) (i) and paragraph 1 (a)
(ii) were thus created to reflect the fact that some countries have conspiracy laws, while others have
criminal association laws. The Convention requires States parties to criminalize at least one such
offence as distinct from the attempted or completed criminal activity.
Recognizing the legal differences among Member States, States parties to the Convention are
permitted to use either the conspiracy approach, or the criminal association approach, as a legal
method to punish participation in criminal organizations, or participation in the offences of criminal
enterprises.
The two criminal offences considered thus far - conspiracy and criminal association - perform an
analogous function in jurisdictions with different legal traditions. Nonetheless, they are inherently
different. As detailed in previous sections of this Module, conspiracy is a crime that creates criminal
responsibility for the mere fact of agreeing to commit a criminal offence,

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irrespective of whether the objective is carried out or even attempted (Okoth, 2014). It is distinct
and separate from the substantive crime that the conspirators plan to commit. Therefore, in
principle, a defendant may be convicted for both conspiracy and its underlying crime. On the contrary,
the crime of participation in a criminal association (or organization, or group) in many jurisdictions
merges into the substantive offence once the underlying crime is carried out.
Criminal organizations and enterprise laws
In order to tackle organized crime and, in particular, its infiltration and exertion of corrupt
influence over legitimate businesses, the United States introduced the offence of racketeering.
Racketeering is a newer kind of law with a similar objective to conspiracy and criminal association, but
with a broader scope. The offence of racketeering is not included in the Organized Crime Convention. It
provides for extended penalties for crimes committed as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise. It is
sometimes referred to as RICO for the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a
United States federal law passed in 1970, and makes it unlawful to acquire, operate, or receive
income from an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity.
Although only a limited number of Member States have a legislation similar to RICO, several countries
have laws with similar intent, but the scope of these laws varies considerably. Australia, Canada,
Italy, New Zealand and South Africa are examples with newer laws aimed at racketeering activity such
as financial crime, bank transactions, corruption, cybercrime, and other forms of transnational crime.
A significant number of racketeering cases involve international organized crime, using the Internet
and international exchanges to provide illicit goods and services (Ayling and Broadhurst, 2014; Heber,
2009; Salvador, 2015; Sergi, 2014).
Definition of a racketeering enterprise
An enterprise under RICO is defined as any legal or illegal ongoing business or group that is used as a
base for criminal activity. Racketeering activity can be defined broadly, and many felonies suffice for
liability, if conducted as part of an enterprise and pattern. An enterprise can be any individual or
group (legal or illegal organization) that commits these crimes. The pattern is two or more felonies
committed within a 10-year period (excluding any periods of imprisonment of the defendants).
The RICO law attaches extended penalties (up to 20 years of imprisonment) for crimes committed
in “racketeering” fashion, that is, specified felonies committed as part of a criminal

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enterprise and as part of a pattern. These RICO provisions were established to attack organized
criminal groups and their operations.
The precise scope and meaning of “enterprise,” “pattern,” and the activities that suffice for
“racketeering activity” have been developed through a series of domestic court decisions and
interpretations, as is customary in the common law tradition, and racketeering cases now include
corporate misconduct, public corruption, and other ongoing criminal activity. It is the enterprise that
lies at the centre of racketeering (Kleemans, 2017; State of New Jersey Commission of
Investigation, 2011; Transcrime, 2012; U.S. Department of Justice, 2016).
Racketeering is a tool for the criminal justice system to go after those criminal enterprises that engage in
ongoing organized crime activity, rather than only prosecute individuals or groups for specific illegal
acts. It was observed more than 80 years ago that “racketeering cannot exist without protection”
(Chamberlin, 1932). Criminalization of racketeering aims to remove some of the protection that
surrounds criminal enterprises by exposing those involved to extended penalties beyond those
entailed by the crimes themselves.
In addition to the offences of conspiracy, criminal association and racketeering, liability needs to be
extended to persons who provide advice or assistance in the commission of serious crimes
involving organized crime. This liability specifically includes persons intentionally organizing,
directing, aiding, abetting, facilitating or counselling the commission of serious crime involving
an organized criminal group, as the Organized Crime Convention states. These provisions enable
the prosecution of leaders, accomplices, organizers, and arrangers, as well as lower-level participants,
in the commission of serious crimes. Aiding, abetting, facilitating or counselling also covers
secondary parties and accomplices who are not themselves principal offenders.
Enabling offence: obstruction of justice
Another characteristic of organized crime is its ongoing nature. Organized criminal groups form and
continue in order to exploit criminal opportunities on a systematic basis, so there is a need to organize
the illicit activity, plan and monitor its execution, and protect the criminal enterprise from discovery
by authorities. One way in which criminal enterprises attempt to protect themselves is through
obstruction of justice. It is all too common for members of organized criminal groups to eliminate
witnesses, use physical force against police investigators and threaten judges and prosecutors.
Indeed, many people have lost their lives or faced serious attacks in their quest to bring organized
criminal groups and their associates to justice.

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The Organized Crime Convention, in article 23, requires the criminalization of obstruction of justice.
Obstruction of justice combines the protection of the life and safety of the person with the protection of
the integrity of the criminal justice system, and those participating and working within it. Under
the Convention, obstruction of justice includes the use of inducements, force, threats or
intimidation to interfere with witnesses and judicial or law enforcement officials whose role is to
produce accurate evidence and testimony.
One of the two obstruction of justice offences in the Organized Crime Convention relates to efforts to
influence potential witnesses and others in a position to provide the authorities with relevant evidence.
The obligation for States parties is to criminalize both the use of corrupt means (such as bribery)
and of coercive means (such as threats or violence). This conduct may be employed against any person,
private individuals or public officials who participate in proceedings involving a Convention offence.
The other obstruction of justice offence in the Organized Crime Convention relates to conduct intended
to pervert the course of justice by use of coercive means, i.e., physical force, threats or intimidation
against law enforcement and judicial officials. The conduct is aimed at law enforcement and
judicial officials. In addition, the Convention requires the criminalization of corruption.
It is not necessary to succeed in the attempt to obstruct justice, as long as the defendant carries out
the required act with the necessary intent. In other words, it suffices to show that the accused person
acted with the intention to induce false testimony or to interfere in the giving of testimony or the
production of evidence; it is not necessary to prove that, because of his or her conduct, false
testimony or evidence was actually induced or provided. It is also not required to show that the exercise
of the official’s duties was actually interfered with; any intention to do so fulfils the elements of the
offence. For example, in one case, the defendant made a conditional threat that if he was forced to meet
with the tax authorities, he would bring a gun and “someone might be shot” (U.S. v. Price, 1991). The
court in this case held that this threatening act (although never actually carried out) constituted
obstruction of justice. The mens rea (guilty mind) requirement involves specific intent to interfere with
the administration of justice.
Article 23 of the Organized Crime Convention requires States parties to prohibit obstruction of
justice, involving force, threats or promises to interfere in the investigative and judicial process.
These requirements are also included as article 25 in the UN Convention against Corruption
(UNODC, 2004):

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 (a) The use of physical force, threats or intimidation or the promise, offering or giving of an
undue advantage to induce false testimony or to interfere in the giving of testimony or the
production of evidence in a proceeding in relation to the commission of offences covered by
this Convention;

(b) The use of physical force, threats or intimidation to interfere with the exercise of official duties
by a justice or law enforcement official in relation to the commission of offences covered by
this Convention. Nothing in this subparagraph shall prejudice the right of States parties to have
legislation that protects other categories of public officials.
The Organized Crime Convention places States parties under an obligation to criminalize conduct
that involves obstructing justice in the trial phase, and also in the pre-trial phase, which could
include obstructing an investigation.
Variations in obstruction of justice laws
A review of the scope and application of the obstruction of justice offences under domestic laws
reveals a significant variation among countries in the types of conduct and the types of persons/victims
covered. The tendency among countries has been not to have an overarching offence encompassing all
forms of obstruction of justice, but to cover all the forms through a combination of multiple,
overlapping provisions (UNODC, 2015).
In some countries, the offences also extend to selected persons outside government systems, for
example journalists who may be threatened or harmed in the course of their journalistic
investigations and revelations. Similarly, domestic laws may cover persons related, connected or
known to the official or to the person participating in the criminal justice process, in addition to direct
participants.
The focus of the Organized Crime Convention on obstruction of justice targets the person who incites,
induces or causes another person to give false testimony or provide false evidence, not on the person
who gives false evidence. In other words, obstruction of justice is closely linked to but does not equal
perjury – which involves giving false testimony in court, especially when under oath. Similarly, a
distinction is made between “the promise, offering or giving of an undue advantage” as corrupt
means in obstruction of justice as well as other general offences relating to corruption and bribery.
Obstruction of justice also links to witness protection (UNODC, 2012; UNODC, 2015).

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Summary
“Conspiracy” and “criminal association” are characteristic organized crimes offences in that they
criminalize the planning of crimes by groups and associating with organized criminal groups.
Organized crime requires more than one person, and some rational planning and organization to
carry out the criminal conduct successfully.
“Racketeering” is a newer approach to punishing ongoing criminal enterprises. Obstruction of justice is
an example of a crime used by organized criminal groups to ensure their survival from law
enforcement and prosecution as well as to continue to profit illegally.
Case studies
Case Study 1 (Drug Smuggling Conspiracy)
Mothers recruited from an impoverished neighbourhood were charged with “renting” their infants
to women who would then fly with them on international plane trips. Women couriers made at least 34
smuggling trips to Panama and Jamaica using 20 different infants. The women were given baby
formula cans that contained liquid cocaine. It is alleged that smugglers punched holes in the baby
formula cans, drained the formula, and then used syringes to fill them with liquid cocaine. In some
cases, cocaine also was placed in rum bottles or concealed in suitcase handles. The women with infants
would then return to North America with the drugs, which were distributed by others.
Among the 35 people charged in this smuggling scheme were the parents who “rented” their babies for
short periods in exchange for money. The parents knew little of the smuggling scheme and
basically saw their role merely as “loaning” their babies in an effort to get some needed money.
Significant features
Criminal conspiracy vs. Criminal association
Case Study 2 (United States v. John Cody)
John A. Cody was a notorious New York union leader and racketeer. He was the president of the
International Brotherhood of Teamsters Union between 1976 and 1984, during which time he utilized
strikes, extortion, and mafia intimidation to change contracts to his benefit and gained a fearsome
reputation within the New York construction industry.
Cody was closely associated with several organized crime figures. During a 1975 interview conducted
by the FBI, Cody admitted that he knew Carlo Gambino and Ettore “Terry” Zappi

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well but claimed that these relationships were purely social, and that he knew nothing about either
man’s business activities or their reputations as high-ranking members of organized crime. Gambino
reportedly attended the marriage of Cody’s son, Michael in 1974. This investigation also revealed a
close association between Cody and Paul Castellano, also known as the “boss of bosses” of the Five
Families of La Cosa Nostra in New York City.
Eventually, Cody was convicted of violating the federal racketeering statute. In particular, he was
charged and convicted on seven of eight counts of an indictment that charged him with using his
positions with the Union and the Union’s pension fund to conduct the affairs of those entities through a
pattern of racketeering activity that spanned a fourteen-year period. The racketeering acts
included, among other, several Taft-Hartley violations relating to Cody’s receipt of free labour
and building materials for the construction of his summer home in Southampton and the receipt of
cash kickbacks totalling 160,000 from two real estate brokers for arranging the purchases of two tracts
of land by the Teamsters pension fund in 1970 and again in 1974.
Case study 3 (Pattern of racketeering activity in the poaching of abalone – South
Africa)
The case concerns the poaching of abalone, a species of mollusk considered a delicacy in the
Orient. Large quantities of abalone have been exported from South Africa from the 1980s to date,
mostly illegally.
Abalone poaching reached alarming proportions in Port Elizabeth, regarded as the hub of the Eastern
Cape. The illegal activities led to the depletion, bordering on the extinction of abalone in the area. To
combat the illegal activities, the South African Police formed a team of investigators including
officials from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), under the command
of the Organized Crime Unit’s chief.
In March 2015, police surveillance on suspicious coastal activities led to the arrest of a poacher,
who later turned into a police informant (as provided by section 204 of the South African
Criminal Procedure Act).
The information he supplied allowed the detention of other members of the organized criminal group
who also agreed to become “section 204” witnesses.
The evidence produced in the trial in respect of the various racketeering activities of the group indicates
that the enterprise was in operation between January 2015 and April 2016. The investigation of
the criminal organization took time because of the sophisticated manner in which they operated,
explained in the judgment as follows:

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Diving equipment had to be organised. There were divers who would dive and harvest the abalone
from the sea.The abalone would be placed in marked bags, bearing the identification marks of each
diver. The abalone would be given over to a gardjie, who would take it to a designated motor
vehicle. The driver would drive to the house (weigh house) where it would be sorted in terms of sizes,
deshelled and weighed per bag. Each diver would be paid per the weight and size of the abalone. The
abalone would be taken from the weigh house by another driver to a store house, where it would be kept
in deep-freezers. It would be transported by another person to a processing plant where it would be
cleaned and cooked. After that process it would be transported to either Gauteng or Cape Town
and ultimately to China where it is sold as a delicacy. The syndicates operated on a “need to know
basis”. The diver does not know the driver. The latter does not know the weighers who in turn do not
know the store person. The store person does not know where the processing plant is. Even payments
are not made by the kingpin, i.e. the person who ultimately sells it to the market directly.
Payments are filtered down through different people.
The three accused in the case were Mr. Brown, Mr. Victor and Mr. Turner. Mr. Brown, the owner
of a construction business, was the employer of the other two defendants, as well as the accomplices
turned witnesses, being the kingpin of the criminal operation.
Mr. Victor played a significant role in the running of the enterprise. He recruited some of the “204”
witnesses to either transport abalone or provided them houses to store abalone. Payment was
filtered through him. He was involved in the day to day running of the organization and he was
instrumental in carrying out the affairs of the enterprise. Mr. Turner also played an essential role as
an employee in charge of weighing, processing, transportation, and other activities critical to the
operation.
The trial showed a pattern of racketeering activity vested in the planned, ongoing, continuous and
repeated – direct or indirect – involvement in the illegal collecting, possession, transportation and
processing of abalone. It also produced evidence that the abalone poached was destined for the
international market, as shown by the SMSs and WhatsApp’s messages found in Mr. Brown’s
phone.
Mr. Brown challenged the validity of the police searches, adduced pressure on the part of police
officers to turn people into “section 204” witnesses and claimed that the video camera that recorded the
operations in the house of the informant amounted to a trap. The judge dismissed most of these
claims, but several police searches were declared invalid.

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The three defendants were found guilty of criminal offences against the Marine Living Resources
Act (MLRA) and the Prevention of Organised Crime Act (POCA) and sentenced to several terms
of imprisonment.

Infiltration of Organized Crime in Business and Government

Extortion
Extortion consists of obtaining property from another through the wrongful use of actual or threatened
force, violence or fear. Such coercive extortion is synonymous with the term blackmail, which is an
older term used to indicate extortion. Common law jurisdictions also refer to a second type of extortion,
extortion “under colour of office” or “under colour of official right”, which is the wrongful taking by a
public officer of money or property that is not due to him/her, whether or not the taking was
accomplished by force, threats, or use of fear.
Besides some exceptions, such as in the case of extortion “under colour of office” or “under colour of
official right”, the act required for extortion is the threat of future harm. Generally, extortion
statutes require that a threat must be made to the person or property of the victim. The nature of the
threatened harm varies by jurisdiction, and it can include bodily harm, damage to property, damage
to reputation, criminal accusations, or abuse of a public office. The extortionate threat required must be
serious enough to place a reasonable person in fear. The actual obtainment of money or property is not
required to commit the offence.
In many jurisdictions, the intent to take money or property to which one is not lawfully entitled must
exist at the time of the threat in order to establish extortion. In other words, making the threat is
sufficient and the actual obtainment of money or property is not required to commit the offence.
Extortion is different from the crime of robbery: in robbery, the property is taken against the will
and without the consent of the victim, while in extortion the victim consents, although unwillingly,
to surrender money or property. Another distinguishing factor is that the nature of the threat for robbery
is limited to an immediate physical harm to the victim. Extortion, on the other hand, encompasses a
greater variety of threats relating to future harm (Neumann and Elsenbroich, 2017).
Extortion racketeering
Systematic extortion on a regular basis has also been called extortion racketeering. As discussed
in Module 2, racketeering is a separate offence in some countries. Although both

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extortion and racketeering imply planned intimidation, violence, corruption, and duress, extortion
racketeering connotes the goal of organized criminal groups not only to sell illegal goods and services,
but also to create criminal monopolies by extorting and controlling those who provide illegal goods
and services. The underlying conditions for the existence of extortion racketeering are the
presence of vulnerable targets, inefficient social control, and motivated criminal actors.
The term “protection rackets”, mentioned earlier in this Module, is an analogous term to extortion
racketeering, involving circumstances where money is paid by a victim under duress in exchange for
avoiding damage to a business, construction site, or harm to employees and customers. There are
numerous documented accounts of organized criminal groups infiltrating construction unions,
hotels, restaurants, and the garment, food, and waste disposal industries. Organized criminal groups
in multiple locations around the world have systematically demanded kickbacks (i.e., secret bribe
payments) on contracts to guarantee labour peace or an uninterrupted shipment of supplies (Rusev,
2016).
In this way, members of powerful organized criminal groups have drawn salaries from companies
without performing any work, after they threatened the businesses. These fictitious “on the
books” jobs are fraudulent and set up to hide their illicit income sources (Capeci and Mustain,
1996; Jacobs with Friel and Radick, 1999; Maas, 1999).
There is no precise estimate of the extent of extortion racketeering, although empirical studies have
been done on the topic. For instance, interviews conducted with business owners in ethnic
communities in New York City found that most admitted to being approached by gangs for money,
goods, or services and that most of these businesses paid what was asked. In other locations
around the world, as many as four-fifths of all businesses have paid some form of extortion, but
the numbers vary. These studies show that systematic extortion racketeering occurs most often
with small businesses in urban locations, where the police cannot be relied upon for protection
(Chin, Ko-lin, 1996; Finckenauer and Waring, 2000; Finckenauer and Ko-lin Chin, 2007; Gambetta,
1996; Paoli, 2003; Tulyakov, 2001).
Extortion by public officials (rather than by organized criminal groups) might also occur as
ongoing racketeering when public officials are used to threaten to exercise their official authority
if they do not receive a payment or favour (which is thus provided under duress). The threatened
actions can involve writing a summons, giving false testimony, conducting an official inspection,
fabricating a criminal charge as well as denying a government contract. Therefore, extortion
racketeering applies to a variety of systematic behaviours, all of which

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involve obtaining property by way of coercion or threats, implied or explicit, of some future
harm.
It has been found in some cases that victims are willing to pay extortion to powerful organized criminal
groups for protection in order to avoid being extorted by a continuing series of individual criminals
or local gangs. In different countries and different continents, the use of extortion on a systematic
basis appears to occur with some regularity (Anita, 2009; Rusev, 2016; Chin, Ko-lin, 1996).
Loansharking
Loansharking (also known as usury) is defined as lending money at an interest rate that exceeds
the allowable legal limit. Profits obtained by organized criminal groups from other illegal
activities such as drug trafficking and migrant smuggling (see Module 3) have been used to make
even more money by lending these profits to customers at usurious rates, i.e. rates exceeding the interest
rate on lending generally set by law.
In some cases, the profits from lawful businesses are used for loansharking. Small business owners, for
instance, may find themselves in the situation of having few alternatives to seeking illegal sources of
credit in order to continue in business. Loansharking shows how illicit profits can be used to generate
even more illicit money and, thereby, sustain the growth of organized criminal groups (Marinaro,
2017; Soudijn and Zhang, 2013). Loansharking also relates to money laundering in that it provides a
mean to move illicit profits away from their initial source, making them difficult to trace.
Links between organized crime and corruption
Although there is no universally agreed definition on corruption, it has been described in generic
terms as the use of public office for private gain or the abuse of entrusted power for private gain. It
subverts legitimate governmental processes, misspends public’s money, and undermines public
confidence in government. Corruption supports the ongoing existence of organized crime, because
corrupt public officials protect organized criminal groups from law enforcement and disruption (Rose-
Ackerman and Palikfa, 2016; Rowe, Akman, Smith and Tomison, 2013; Transparency International,
2017; White, 2013).
It is difficult to keep a continuing criminal enterprise profitable and survive over the long term unless
there is a means to protect it from law enforcement, which ultimately learns of its existence. For
example, border crossings need to be ensured, locations of illicit activity “protected,” police or
customs officials paid off, illicit funds delivered and deposited, court cases “fixed,” stolen
property bought and sold, and politicians persuaded not to interfere.

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These are examples of the kinds of corrupt activity needed by organized criminal groups in order to
remain in illicit business and engage in ongoing criminal activity without interruption.
The Organized Crime Convention addresses the criminalization of corruption in the public sector in
article 8. Article 8(1) requires the establishment of two corruption-related offences: active and
passive bribery. Under article 8(1)(a) States parties are required to criminalize “the promise, offering
or giving to a public official, directly or indirectly, of an undue advantage in order that the official act
or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her official duties”. Directly or indirectly means that
the undue advantage is for the official himself or herself or another person or entity.
Under article 8(1)(b) States parties are required to criminalize “the solicitation or acceptance by a
public official, directly or indirectly, of an undue advantage in order that the official act or refrain from
acting in the exercise of his or her official duties.” This offence is the passive version of the
offence in article 8(1)(a). The required elements are soliciting or accepting the bribe.
In both provisions on active and passive bribery, the punishment is determined by the nature and
seriousness of the act in question. The “undue advantage” required for bribery is ordinarily either a
financial gain or some other benefit to oneself or to another in exchange for an official act. The criminal
intent is generally established by the circumstances of the case in determining whether the benefit is
made or received for an illegal purpose.
The question of bribery involving officials of other countries (“foreign public officials”) and
international civil servants is addressed by article 8(2) of the Organized Crime Convention, which
requires that States give serious consideration to the introduction of such an offence.
Corruption is also the focus of a separate Convention, the United Nations Convention against Corruption
(hereinafter Convention against Corruption) that entered into force in 2005. It is a comprehensive
normative instrument and the only legally binding universal anti-corruption instrument. It
addresses a broad range of issues such as prevention of corruption, criminalization and law
enforcement, international cooperation, and for the first time in an international Convention,
asset recovery
The Convention against Corruption includes a comprehensive set of criminalization provisions,
both mandatory and optional, covering a wide range of acts of corruption. In addition, it offers a
platform not only for harmonizing national substantive provisions, but also for ensuring a minimum
level of deterrence through specific provisions on the prosecution, adjudication and sanctions in
corruption-related cases.

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States parties to the Convention are obliged to establish as criminal offences: Active and
passive bribery of national public officials (art. 15);
Active bribery of foreign public officials and officials of public international organizations (art. 16
para. 1);
Embezzlement, misappropriation or other diversion by a public official of property entrusted to him
(her) by virtue of his (her) position (art. 17);
Obstruction of justice (art. 25);
Participation in any capacity such as an accomplice, assistant or instigator in an offence established
in accordance with the Convention (art. 27 para. 1);
Money-laundering (art. 23).
In addition, States parties are further required to consider the criminalization of:
Passive bribery of foreign public officials and officials of public international organizations (art. 16
para.
2);
Active and passive trading in influence (art. 18);
Abuse of functions (art. 19);
Active and passive bribery in the private sector (art. 21); Embezzlement of
property in the private sector (art. 22);
Concealment or continued retention of property knowing that such property is the result of any of
the offences established in accordance with the Convention (art. 24);
Any attempt to commit, or preparation for, an offence established in accordance with the
Convention (art. 27 paras. 2 and 3);
Subject to constitutional provisions and the fundamental principles of national legal systems, the
criminalization of illicit enrichment (art. 20).
The inclusion of optional criminalization provisions was deemed necessary because of the fact that
there may be criminal offences which some countries may have already established in their domestic
law, or may find their establishment useful in fighting corruption, but other countries would be unable
to do the same, often because of constitutional impediments. Further details about the Convention
against Corruption are given in Module 14.

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Establishing illicit enrichment as a criminal offence: human rights implications?
Often, the only tangible evidence that a crime has taken place is the money that changes hands
between the corrupt official and his or her partner in crime, thus the enrichment of the corrupt official
becomes the most visible manifestation of corruption. Many States have established the offence of
illicit enrichment to strengthen their ability to fight corruption of public officials and recover
assets. Based on the idea that unexplained wealth of a public official may, in fact, be visible
proceeds of corruption, illicit enrichment was identified as a non-mandatory crime in article 20 of
the Convention against Corruption and defined as a “significant increase in the assets of a public
official that he or she cannot reasonably explain in relation to his or her lawful income.”
Human rights and constitutional arguments often arise in discussions surrounding the
criminalization of illicit enrichment. One critical issue subject to ongoing debate relates to the perceived
reversal of the burden of proof. Article 20 maintains that the significant increase in the assets that
amounts to the crime of illicit enrichment is one that the public official cannot reasonably explain.
This perceived reversal of the burden of proof in a criminal case is regarded by some as a
potential violation of fundamental human rights that protect the defendant, in particular the
presumption of innocence – which requires the State to prove the guilt of an accused and relieves the
accused of any burden to prove his or her innocence – and the related rights to silence and protection
against self-incrimination.
However, it should be noted that there is no presumption of guilt in such cases and that the burden of
proof remains on the prosecution, as it has to demonstrate that the enrichment is beyond one’s lawful
income. It may thus be viewed as a rebuttable presumption (i.e. an assumption of fact accepted by
the court until disproved by evidence). Once such a case is made, the defendant can then offer a
reasonable or credible explanation.
Organized criminal groups use all forms of corruption to infiltrate political, economic and social levels
all over the world. Through corruption criminal groups generate poverty, as corruption determines the
misuse of public resources by diverting them from sectors of vital importance such as health,
education and development. Therefore, corruption prevention and investigations in all sectors are
necessary to reduce the ability of organized criminal groups to survive and profit, and for a society to
achieve sustainable development.
Bribery versus Extortion
Article 15 of the Convention against Corruption defines bribery of national public officials as both the
promise, offering or giving of an undue advantage and the solicitation or acceptance

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of an undue advantage by a national public official. Similarly, article 16 deals with bribery of foreign
public officials and officials of public international organizations.
The legal distinction between bribery and extortion is not straightforward, it varies between
jurisdictions and a person can be guilty of both in many instances. The debate over the bribery-
extortion distinction has centred on the second type of extortion, namely the extortion under colour of
official right. There is a degree of overlap between the two concepts and “extortion ‘under colour of
official right’ equals the knowing receipt of bribes” (United States v. Holzer, 1988). Both offences
involve the exchange of money, property, or services, but the manner in which the exchange occurs
and the parties involved often vary depending upon the nature of the crime.
In extortion, the receiver is making a threat towards the extorted party, threatening to perform a certain
action that will harm the extorted party unless the extorted party gives the receiver whatever the receiver
requests. On the other hand, in cases of bribery, the bribed party will do something in favour of the
bribing party.
Bribery relates to a corrupt benefit given or received to influence official action so as to afford the giver
better than fair treatment. Both the person giving and the recipient are guilty of bribery. On the
other hand, coercive extortion by a public official is the seeking or receiving of a corrupt benefit paid
under an implicit or explicit threat to give the payer worse than fair treatment or to make the payer
worse off. The payee is guilty of extortion; the payer is the victim of extortion.

In other words, bribery and extortion present several significant commonalities and differences,
Organized criminal groups commonly use bribery to protect their illicit activities. For instance, members
of organized criminal groups may do illicit favours or pay judges, jurors, police or other public officials
in exchange for them to “look the other way”. Extortion characterizes the infiltration of legitimate
business when organized criminal groups try to force payments from individuals or businesses using
threats to avoid worse than fair treatment.
The line between bribery and extortion is rather blurred when a public official expects a bribe for an
action they are paid to carry out. Surveys in different countries have found that businesses and
citizens often have little choice but to pay what is asked (UNODC, 2013; UNODC, 2017). This
situation makes it difficult to assess the true voluntariness of the exchange.

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Examples of bribery from the Western Balkans and Nigeria
WESTERN BALKANS
Roughly, one in ten businesses (10.2 percent) that had contact with a public official in the 12 months
prior to the survey paid a bribe to a public official. (UNODC, 2013)
NIGERIA
Most bribes are solicited by public officials in return for public services that are their duty to deliver,
indicating that those officials have little fear of being sanctioned. This suggests that in such cases
bribery is not simply seen as a kind of administrative lubricant to smoothen the bureaucratic process, but
rather as a scheme to extort money or other types of bribe from the citizen requesting the public
service (UNODC, 2017).
Money-laundering
Money-laundering is the processing of criminal proceeds to disguise their illegal origin. For
instance, a drug trafficker might buy a restaurant to disguise drug profits with the legitimate profits of
the restaurant. In this way, the drug profits are “laundered” through the restaurant to make the income
look as if it was earned lawfully. Money-laundering is crucial to organized crime operations because
offenders would be discovered easily if they could not “merge” their illegal cash into, for instance, a
legal business, bank, or real estate (Soudijn, 2014; Malm and Bichler, 2013).
The crucial need to conceal organized crime activity was addressed by articles 6 and 7 of the Organized
Crime Convention. Article 6 requires State parties to criminalize money- laundering, while article
7 refers to measures to combat money-laundering.
Criminalization of the laundering of proceeds of crime in article 6 of the Organized Crime
Convention
1. Each State Party shall adopt, in accordance with fundamental principles of its domestic law, such
legislative and other measures as may be necessary to establish as criminal offences, when
committed intentionally:
(a)
(i) The conversion or transfer of property, knowing that such property is the
proceeds of crime, for the purpose of concealing or disguising the illicit origin
of the property or of helping any person who is involved in the

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 commission of the predicate offence to evade the legal consequences of his or
her action;
(ii) The concealment or disguise of the true nature, source, location,
disposition, movement or ownership of or rights with respect to property,
knowing that such property is the proceeds of crime;
(c)Subject to the basic concepts of its legal system:
(i) The acquisition, possession or use of property, knowing, at the time of receipt, that such
property is the proceeds of crime;
(ii) Participation in, association with or conspiracy to commit, attempts to commit and aiding,
abetting, facilitating and counselling the commission of any of the offences established in
accordance with this article.
Article 6(1) of the Convention requires that each State party criminalize money-laundering.
Criminalization not only allows national authorities to organize the detection, prosecution and
repression of the offence, but also provides the legal basis for international cooperation among
police, judicial and administrative authorities, including mutual legal assistance and extradition.
The Organized Crime Convention seeks to establish uniformity for the intolerance for money-
laundering, which serves to conceal organized crime activity. In article 7, requirements for
comprehensive domestic regulatory and supervisory schemes for banks and non-bank financial
institutions are set forth, as is strong guidance for cooperation and the exchange of information at the
national and international levels to investigate suspected money-laundering activity.
The money-laundering cycle can be broken down into three distinct stages; however, it is
important to remember that money-laundering is a single process. The
stages of money-

Placement (i.e. moving the funds from direct association with the crime)
Layering (i.e. disguising the trail to foil pursuit)
Integration (i.e. making the money available to the criminal, once again, from what seem to be
legitimate sources)
The placement stage represents the initial entry of the proceeds of crime into the financial system.
Generally, this stage serves two objectives: it relieves the criminal of holding large amounts of
cash obtained illegally; and it inserts the money into the legitimate financial

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system. During this stage, money launderers are most vulnerable to being caught, because placing large
amounts of cash into the legitimate financial system may raise suspicions.
The layering stage comes after the placement stage and it is sometimes referred to as “structuring.”
This is the most complex money-laundering stage and often entails moving the illicit funds
internationally. The primary purpose of the placement stage is to separate the illicit money from its
source. This is done through a sophisticated process involving layering financial transactions,
whose final goal is to conceal the audit trail and break the link with the original criminal activity.
The final stage of the money-laundering process is termed “integration.” During this stage the money is
returned to the perpetrators from what seems to be a legitimate source. The criminal proceeds, that
were initially placed as cash and layered through a number of financial transactions, are now fully
integrated into the financial system and can be used for any legitimate purpose.
Anti-money laundering laws generally require the recipients of funds to exercise the reasonable
care expected in a financial transaction. There have been many significant cases involving banks
moving money internationally without exercising proper due diligence in knowing their customers
or the source of the funds. Given the threats of transnational crime, corruption, and terrorism, many
countries have expanded their money-laundering control efforts beyond banks, to include other
businesses that might exchange or move large amounts of cash (e.g., check-cashing companies,
money transmitters, jewellers, pawnbrokers, casinos, credit card companies, traveller’s check and
money order issuers)
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an independent intergovernmental body that develops
and promotes policies to protect the global financial system against money- laundering. In 2003,
the FATF issued an updated set of 40 Recommendations for improving national legal systems,
enhancing the role of the financial sector and intensifying cooperation in the fight against money-
laundering (FATF, 2003).
The FATF’s approach of identifying non-cooperating countries and territories proved successful
in forcing improvements in the anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing systems of
a number of countries. Through financial incentives, sanctions, and monitoring, the FATF has
successfully encouraged countries to create and enforce money- laundering laws and to cooperate in
international investigations.

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Corrupt public officials and money-laundering
A review of cases by the FATF found that corrupt public officials used money-laundering methods
very similar to those used by organized crime. The corrupt public officials disguised their ownership
through corporate vehicles and trust companies, and used gatekeepers and nominees to launder proceeds
through the domestic and foreign financial institutions. They used their power, like organized crime
figures in some jurisdictions, to acquire state assets, control law enforcement, and capture banks (FATF
2011; FATF, 2015).
According to the FATF, common indicators of “red flags” of potential money-laundering activity
include:
Frequent high-dollar cash transactions.
Use of large amounts of cash when checks would be expected and would be more convenient. Many
wire transfers to or from known bank secrecy havens around the world.
Immediate check or debit card withdrawals of large and frequent sums received by wire transfer.
An account holder who pays undue attention to secrecy regarding personal or business identity.
Lack of general knowledge about the customer’s stated business.
These are the kinds of indicators that financial institutions and businesses dealing in cash
transactions are expected to act on when unusual financial transactions occur. Besides the above
mentioned 40 Recommendations, the FATF has also developed 9 Special Recommendations to
set out the basic framework to detect, prevent and suppress the financing of terrorism and terrorist
acts. These 9 Special Recommendations together with the 40 previously adopted provide a
comprehensive set of measures for an effective legal and institutional regime against money-
laundering and the financing of terrorism.
Liability of legal persons
Organized criminal groups have been known to use corporations, businesses, charitable
organizations or other entities to commit serious and sophisticated crimes. They might use these
organizations to mask individual involvement in these offences as companies may be particularly
useful for hiding clients and transactions as well as for preserving ownership of the proceeds of
crime. The criminal law has procedures to account for this kind of conduct

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under the guise of an organization. These are based on the distinction between natural persons (i.e.
individuals) and legal persons, such as corporations.
Natural versus legal persons
The law recognizes two type of persons: natural persons and legal persons. Natural persons are human
beings, responsible for their actions according to law. Legal persons are creations of the law, usually
business or corporations, which are not individuals but have some capacity to take actions that affect
others.
Complex corporate structures can effectively hide true ownership, clients, or transactions. The concept
of legal person can also be used to shield natural persons from liability, and complex structures may be
used to conceal illegal activity. The role of legal persons in illegal activity may span the whole range
of organized transnational crimes, from trafficking in persons, drugs, falsified medical products or
arms, to corruption and money-laundering. Ensuring the liability of legal persons is therefore an
important component in combating transnational organized crime.
Article 10 of the Organized Crime Convention on the liability of legal persons is an important
recognition of the role that legal persons might play in the commission or facilitation of
transnational organized crime. It requires that States parties establish the liability of legal persons,
while also providing that, subject to the legal principles of the State party, this liability may be
criminal, civil or administrative. National legal regimes remain quite diverse in the ways in which
they address liability of legal persons, how they attribute responsibility or guilt and determine
sanctions, with some States resorting to criminal penalties against the organization itself, such as
fines, forfeiture of property or deprivation of legal rights, whereas others employ non-criminal or
quasi-criminal measures.
Article 10. Liability of legal persons
Each State Party shall adopt such measures as may be necessary, consistent with its legal principles, to
establish the liability of legal persons for participation in serious crimes involving an organized criminal
group and for the offences established in accordance with articles 5, 6, 8 and 23 of this Convention.
Subject to the legal principles of the State Party, the liability of legal persons may be criminal, civil or
administrative.
Such liability shall be without prejudice to the criminal liability of the natural persons who have
committed the offences.

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Each State Party shall, in particular, ensure that legal persons held liable in accordance with this article
are subject to effective, proportionate and dissuasive criminal or non-criminal sanctions, including
monetary sanctions.
Notably, under article 10 (3) the liability of legal entities must be established without prejudice to the
criminal liability of the natural persons who have committed the offences. The liability of natural
persons who perpetrated the acts, therefore, is in addition to any corporate liability and must not be
affected by it. In other words, when an individual commits crimes on behalf of a legal entity, it must
be possible to prosecute and sanction both the individual and the legal entity
Some key questions can be identified in the process of establishing the liability of legal persons.
For instance: What does a legal person mean in a particular legal context? Can a legal person (e.g., a
business) be held legally responsible for a crime committed by some of its members? How is that
responsibility attributed to the legal entity? If a country recognizes criminal liability of legal persons,
how does the legislator attribute the mental element of a crime to an artificial entity?
The attribution of responsibility to an artificial entity is a particularly complex challenge for many
jurisdictions, because most legal systems base their criminal laws on a combination of physical conduct
and mental states. Whereas the element of physical conduct is relatively straightforward, the
attribution of mental states, such as “intention” or “knowledge”, to a legal person is more complex. In
this context, some countries decided to make the liability of the entity dependent upon the liability of
individuals. Thus, in jurisdictions that adopted this approach, a company may be held liable for a
criminal offence committed by an officer or employee of the organization. Other countries, sought
to reflect the culpability of the organization itself and for instance, identified the responsibility of the
organization in the way in which it is structured, its policies and its failure to supervise its employees
or agents.
As with crimes committed by natural persons, defences to liability may be available to legal persons.
An example is the defence of “due diligence.” Due diligence is, in essence, the opposite of
negligence. That is, the defendant may reduce or escape liability if it is able to prove that it took all
reasonable steps to ensure compliance with the relevant law.
As article 10(4) specifies, State also have to ensure that legal persons are held liable, and thus that
effective, proportionate and dissuasive sanctions are imposed on legal persons. The most frequently
used sanction against a legal entity is a fine, which can be characterized as a criminal sanction, a
non-criminal sanction, or a hybrid one. Other sanctions include confiscation, restitution, or even
closing down of legal entities. In addition, States may wish to

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consider non-monetary sanctions available in some jurisdictions, such as withdrawal of certain
advantages or prohibition of certain activities.
The establishment of the liability of legal persons increases the difficulty for those in the
legitimate business sector of acting as a facilitator for organized crime activity. In addition, it might also
have a deterrent effect, considering that reputational damage can be very costly for the organization
and that it may act as a catalyst for more effective management and supervisory structures to ensure
compliance MODULE 3. CAUSES OF ORGANIZED CRIME
Introduction
The reason people engage in crime is the most fundamental issue in the study of criminology. Many
studies have been undertaken to explain and understand the existence of crime. The historical record
shows that crime exists in all societies, but levels of crime vary dramatically both within and among
nations. Furthermore, levels of crime can and do change over time. This observation has two relevant
implications: first, there is room for improvement from any existing situation, and second, there are
many examples of crime increases and reductions from around the world to study.
Comparatively to other aspects of organized crime, little attention has been paid to its causes and
facilitating factors. The causes are those underlying events, structures and conditions that have
existed over a period of time and that are necessary for organized crime to shape up and manifest
itself. As for facilitating factors, these are the factors that encourage the expansion of organized
criminal activities. For example, literature on Central Asia often cites the existence of tribes and clans,
or strong social cohesion, as a facilitating factor to organized crime (UNODC, 2007). These studies
maintain that the strong social cohesion would make it easier for people to engage in organized
criminal activities. Nonetheless, such facilitating factors are clearly not enough to explain why
people engage in organized criminal activities. There is a third group of factors that play an
important role in creating and facilitating organized crime: the so-called “mobilizing factors”.
They predominantly concern the motivations of the key stakeholders and thus are the set of highly
personal reasons and causes for which people engage in criminal activities. They are considered
transversally throughout this Module.
This Module provides an overview of the different approaches adopted in criminology to the causes and
facilitating factors of organized crime, as well as distinguish the strength and weaknesses of the
related explanations. Considering the variety of activities carried out by organized criminal groups
as well as the existence of different types of them with a very

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diverse membership base, it is likely that more than one explanation is needed to shed light on the
causes and facilitating factors of organized crime.
Topics covered
Positivist perspectives in criminology
Blocked opportunity
Hedonism
Routine activity theory
State failure Criminogenic
asymmetry
Ethical explanation of criminal conduct Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs) Learning outcomes
Understand a typology of different approaches to the causes of organized crime. Assess the
application of this typology in different situations.
Distinguish the strengths and weaknesses among the different explanations of organized crime in
various contexts
Positivism: environmental influences
The positivist perspective in criminology looks to internal or external influences on individuals as the
primary cause of criminal behaviour. Most attempts to explain crime over the last century have
examined social factors as causes. The assumption of these efforts is that changing underlying
social conditions will reduce or prevent criminal behaviour (Akers, Sellers, Jennings, 2016;
Matthew and Dulisse, 2014; Williams III and McShane, 2017).
This explanation, based on opportunity structures, posits that crime results from a lack of access to
legitimate means (i.e., “blocked opportunity”) for achieving social goals (e.g., having a good job, or
generally achieving economic success) (Cloward and Ohlin, 1960). Therefore, some neighbourhoods at
the poorer ends of social and economic conditions provide greater opportunity for illicit activity than
others.
Three types of criminal subcultures develop when young people withdraw legitimacy from
accepted social goals because they lack the means to achieve them (e.g., unequal

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employment opportunities or the inability to obtain advanced education or training). The three
subcultures are: criminal, conflict, and retreatist. The criminal subculture occurs when these young
people associate and become accepted as adult criminals. The conflict subculture involves violent
gangs in which status is obtained through intimidation and battles over territory. The retreatist
subculture is comprised of those who lack either the opportunity or the abilities to gain acceptance in
the criminal or conflict subcultures; these individuals may become drop-outs or drug addicts.
The criminal subculture has the clearest connection to organized crime. In these situations, a young
person becomes an apprentice criminal who develops relationships with career criminals and
members of organized criminal groups. According to this theory, participation in an organized criminal
group is thus prompted by blocked opportunities for success in legitimate society.
Blocked opportunity and crime
Blocked opportunity does not lead directly to a life of crime, because there must also exist
opportunities to form relationships with the criminal subculture, as well as the personal ability to gain
status in this milieu. Therefore, a merging of age groups and common values that accept and
encourage the commission of crimes is necessary for young people to become part of the adult
criminal subculture (Albanese, 2015).
There are sociological theories of crime to explain how a young person becomes an adult criminal.
Each focus on different social factors that affect the person. These theories focus on “delinquent
traditions” found in some neighbourhoods, “learning” through others that crime is acceptable, or
“neutralizing” the guilt felt about their criminal conduct by rationalizing it (Matza, 1964; Shaw and
McKay, 1960; Sutherland, 1939).
Of course, other factors can increase opportunities for organized crime. For instance, globalized
trade, the ease of movement around the world as well as technological advancement also create
new opportunities for exploitation (an example is the online sexual exploitation of children) and the
diversification of activities (e.g. new routes to smuggle migrants, novel ways to traffic and sell
cultural property or wildlife specimen, and launder money as well as innovative methods to
falsify medical products or produce counterfeit products and technologies). The opportunity
theory described above attempts to provide specific reasons why and explain how individuals go
about exploiting these opportunities when they are presented.

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Shortcoming of positivist explanations of organized crime is that they focus on external (or
psychological) influences on behaviour. Despite all influences in a person’s life, and opportunities
to commit a crime, the individual still has to make the ultimate decision to violate the law. Bad
neighbourhoods, poor family support and the presence of organized criminal groups make it
difficult to become a law-abiding adult, yet many people who grow up in these contexts are. There are
many factors influencing the choice of people to commit crimes, but these influences do not
determine the decision to exploit opportunities in criminal ways. In conclusion, the positivist
explanations illustrate which conditions make a criminal lifestyle an easy choice, but they do not
explain why many people succeed against the odds and their environment.
Classical: pain-pleasure decisions
The classical view in criminology explains crime as a free-will decision to make a criminal choice.
This choice is made by applying the pain-pleasure principle: people act in ways that maximize pleasure
and minimize pain. Classicists believe that people are hedonistic and will seek pleasure at every
opportunity and avoid pain. The way to prevent crime, according to classicism, is by deterrence-
the risk of apprehension and punishment (Beccaria, 1764; Roshier, 1989; Valasik, 2014).
Applying classicism to criminal conduct, when the potential pain associated with crime (the likelihood
of apprehension) is greater in the mind of the offender than the pleasure (gain) to be derived from the
crime, the crime is prevented. This explanation fails to explain why crime persists even in those
countries where governments add new laws, increase penalties, and make efforts to improve law
enforcement.
One type of classical approach focuses on “routine activities” or “situational crime prevention.” This
perspective concentrates on “criminal settings” (i.e., environments conducive to organized crime
activity) rather than on the motivations of individuals or groups of people. By focusing on the
circumstances of crime, this perspective examines the availability of opportunities to commit
specific crimes and aims at reducing them through, for instance, improved urban renewal and
environmental design. This approach is based on the principle of routine activities, or, in other words,
on the assumption that levels of organized crime are determined by several facilitating factors, such
as: availability of attractive targets and opportunities, a low level of supervision, and low risk of
apprehension. Rather than focusing on distant causes of crime (e.g., poverty, poor education, peer
groups), the focus is shifted to practical ways to reduce the opportunities for crime or to minimize their
harm (Bullock, Clarke

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and Tilley, 2010; Eckblom, 2003). The situational crime prevention approach is also considered
in Module 13.
Situational crime prevention of organized crime
There is evidence that situational crime prevention can be useful in reducing some activities of
organized criminal groups by limiting criminal opportunities and minimizing harm (Felson, 2006). The
situational crime prevention perspective has been used to try to account for the manufacture of
methamphetamine, automobile theft, open-air drug markets, products counterfeiting and other
crimes. (Bullock, Clarke and Tilley, 2010; von Lampe, 2011; Zabyelina, 2016). These empirical
efforts have shown some support for the situational perspective in preventing organized illicit
activity.
Situational crime prevention requires that crime prevention techniques be directed at five areas:
Increasing the effort for offenders (e.g., target hardening, controlling crime facilitators).
Increasing the risks (e.g., surveillance of offenders and victims, screening entrances and exits).
Reducing the rewards (e.g., removing targets, controlling markets). Reducing
provocations (e.g., reducing temptations, avoiding disputes); and
Removing excuses (e.g., setting clear rules, alerting conscience). (Clarke, 2005)
The exact methods needed to achieve these goals depend on the particular crime and its
underlying preparatory behaviours, although empirical efforts reveal that it is sometimes difficult
to isolate the methods of crime prevention that will have an impact on organized crime activity
(Bullock, Clarke and Tilley, 2010).
Another influential classical explanation is the “general theory of crime” intended to explain all kinds of
crime, including organized crime. This explanation sees crime emanating from the human tendency “to
pursue short-term gratification,” rather than consider the long-term consequences. Short-term
gratification usually implies impulsiveness, aggression, and lack of empathy for others
(Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990).
A notable shortcoming with the classical approach in criminology is overstating the impact of penalties
on human conduct. Deterrence is a weak influencer in criminal justice, because the odds of
apprehension are generally low. In addition, the tendency of some to act on the base of short-term
gratification must be caused by some factors that would need to be further

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investigated. There are questions that are hardly answered when trying to explain criminal
conducts through classicism. For instance: why do many people choose not to engage in crime,
despite the low risk of apprehension? A study of several hundred organized crime offenders in
Europe found that “internal drives are the hardest element to capture, particularly when offenders seem
to be motivated internally (i.e., they were not talked into committing a crime by others)” (van Koppen,
2013). At the same time, there are other drives and factors that this approach underestimates or fails
to consider and that clearly have a relevant impact on a person’s decision to commit a crime.
Structural factors and organized crime
The structural approach towards explaining organized crime focuses less on individual behaviour
and emphasizes the role played by broader systemic factors, such as sociological, legal, economic, and
political attributes of the international system. These factors may not necessarily cause crime, but
they create the conditions in which organized criminal activity flourishes.
Weak States and organized crime
Weak and failing States as well as conflict regions have traditionally been considered as crime-
facilitative environments. Organized crime emerges out of the power vacuum that is created by
the absence of enforcement and good governance. Failed States have weak institutions and high
levels of corruption, which can be both a symptom and cause of organized criminal activity. The
incapability of state institutions allows criminal organizations to operate more or less freely and
corruption attracts organized crime, as corrupt institutions are highly susceptible to influence.
Therefore, organized criminal groups can take advantage of the governance void in weak States, as
well as the lack of law and order, and use the State to further their interests.
The incapacity of States to control national borders is also closely connected to the ability of the
government to ensure its presence in remote areas of the State. Abandoned, economically marginal and
sparsely populated areas are thus more susceptible to turn into criminal havens. The conditions that
impede economic development and diminish the State’s incentives to develop the infrastructure
necessary to maintain a robust presence lead to the emergence of shadow economies and black
markets. Systematically corrupt police, judges, licensing agencies, and other State institutions
result in the State structures operating as a criminal enterprise in demanding bribes, illicit fees, and
compliance from citizens and businesses. In some situations, these institutions also receive bribes
from organized criminal groups to protect existing illegal activities (please, see Module 4 for an
explanation of the concepts of

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corruption, bribery and generally, methods used by organized criminal groups to infiltrate
business and government).
State failure and State transition can result in the inability of the government to deliver key
political goods and services. Economic failure, such as high unemployment, low standards of living,
and reliance on underground markets, stimulates criminal organizations to supply goods, services
and jobs. The more the State is absent or deficient in the provision of legal employment and public
goods, the more communities are susceptible to becoming dependent on and supporters of criminal
organizations (Felbab-Brown, 2012). From this perspective, organized criminal groups can
accumulate political capital and broad public support. This makes them capable of acting as
quasi-States.
A study of 59 countries found both State and economic failure to result in these outcomes and
highlighted that a corrupt judiciary and the existence of black market activities emerged as the
strongest political and economic correlates of organized crime (Sung, 2004). Of course, organized
crime has also thrived in circumstances characterized by strong government structures, but the
important feature is the extent to which the operation of government agencies reflects the interests
of the public versus the private interests of corrupt officials or organized criminal groups.
Addition to State failure, the structure of the international system in itself can be seen as a
contributing factor to the formation of criminal opportunities for organized crime. Some scholars
contend that transnational crime is driven by structural differences between countries. From this
perspective, inequalities of various kinds, the so-called “criminogenic asymmetries,” embedded in
the international system, create circumstances that criminal organizations are able to capitalize on
(Passas, 2001; Zabyelina, 2014). From this perspective it can be argued that if one country makes a
particular conduct legal whereas another government criminalized it, transnational organized
crime can take advantage of the discrepancies between competing legal jurisdictions. These
discrepancies are viewed as mechanisms by which illicit markets are created and trafficking routes
developed (Block and Chambliss, 1981). For instance, because of the absence of effective
enforcement of laws against the illicit organ trade and public tolerance of these practices, certain
countries have attracted transplant tourists seeking organ donors. Likewise, cross-border illegal
waste disposal is driven in part by different standards in environmental protection.
Structural factors assumed to create opportunities for organized crime
Asymmetry of controls; The difference in ability of States to implement border controls and
enforce laws.

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Asymmetry of resources; The disparity of allocation of natural and human resources in the
international system.
Asymmetry of price; The disparity between States in terms of the distribution of economic assets
and income.
Asymmetry of investment; The disparity between investments of States in domestic crime
prevention and criminal justice vs. Reinforcing international legal, institutional and operational
capacities (the former being considerably higher than the latter).
Legal asymmetries; Disharmonization of legal systems and laws.
In light of the structural predisposition of the international system to make illicit markets
profitable, there has been explicit acknowledgment of the fact that the fight against organized crime
should be part of any comprehensive and effective strategy aimed at achieving the “qualitative”
dimensions of development, such as human rights, access to justice, good governance, rule of law
and security. These key dimensions of development are at the very core of the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDGs).
The Sustainable Development Goals
The 17 SDGs of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development were adopted by world leaders in
September 2015 and came into force on 1 January 2016. The SDGs build on the success of the
Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and aim to go further to end all forms of poverty. The new
Goals are unique in that they call for action by all countries, poor, rich and middle-income to
promote prosperity while protecting the planet. They recognize that ending poverty must go hand-
in-hand with strategies that build economic growth and addresses a range of social needs
including education, health, social protection, and job opportunities, while tackling climate change
and environmental protection. While the SDGs are not legally binding, governments are expected to
take ownership and establish national frameworks for the achievement of the 17 Goals.
Countering organized crime is explicitly referenced as a critical target in Goal 16, but the repeated
references throughout the 17 Goals to the many manifestations of organized crime- from labour
exploitation to poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna- evidence the fact that
organized crime has become one of the key areas of developmental focus of the United Nations.
Countering organized crime is explicitly referenced as a critical target in Goal 16, but the repeated
references throughout the 17 Goals to the many manifestations of organized crime-

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from labour exploitation to poaching and trafficking of protected species of flora and fauna- evidence
the fact that organized crime has become one of the key areas of developmental focus of the
United Nations.
The SDGs and organized crime
While the SDGs are interconnected and often the key to success on one goal will involve tackling
issues more commonly associated with another, UNODC particularly contributes to the achievement
of Goal 16 focused on peace, justice and strong institutions and other related Goals. The figure below
shows the main Goals UNODC aims to assist Member States to achieve.
Addressing organized crime requires a systemic and integrated approach focused on harmonization
of laws and enforcement of regulatory frameworks, human rights protection, building of sustainable
communities and raising social awareness. A systemic approach is required because of the
interlinkages with major global risks such as corruption (both a driver and consequence of criminal
behaviour), fragile states (massive illicit trade often being a cause and nearly always an important
consequence), or economic disparities (which contribute to and are exacerbated by a lack of security
and the rule of law) (UNODC position paper; Model United Nations Resource Guide, 2018).
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development affirms explicitly that “there can be no sustainable
development without peace and no peace without sustainable development”, thus recognizing that
reducing crime, conflict, violence and discrimination are key elements of people’s well-being.
Ethical perspective: moral failure in decision-making
The ethical perspective sees crime as the result of a moral failure in making decisions. Crime takes place
when a person fails to appreciate the wrongfulness of an act or its impact on the victim. The ethical
explanation of crime appreciates that external factors have a role to play in influencing some people
toward criminal conduct, but these factors do not cause the conduct by themselves.
The ethical perspective also agrees that a free-will decision underlies criminal behaviour, but contrary
to what is asserted by the classical approach, the inherent tendency to engage in crime is not controlled
by the risk of apprehension. Instead, the presence or absence of ethical principles informs one’s
decisions.
The ethical perspective on crime causation

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The ethical view sees crime as placing one’s own self-interest above the interests of others. Any
shortterm gain for the offender obtained from a crime is outweighed by understanding the
wrongfulness of the conduct and the harm it causes to the victim or community. From an ethical
standpoint, therefore, a person refrains from criminal behaviour because, all factors considered, it does
not bring pleasure. Ethical decision-making and reinforcement from an early age would help
inculcate the notion of personal and social responsibility for one’s own behaviour, and a greater
appreciation of the harm caused. Such appreciation is often found to be missing in many cases of
organized crime and corruption (Glor and Greene, 2003; OECD, UNODC and World Bank,
2013).
According to the ethical perspective, crime occurs when criminal acts bring pleasure rather than guilt or
shame (Albanese, 2016). Ethicists argue that people often do not make decisions in ethical terms
because ethical principles and their application to decision-making are often not part of the
educational process, or are not modelled by parents or family members. Lacking education and
experience in making ethical decisions, people often do what comes naturally and thus make decisions
based on self-interest, failing to understand or appreciate the legitimate interests of others or the
community at large (Narvaez, 2006).
Perspectives on crime causes and facilitating factors
Any one explanation of the causes and facilitating factors of organized crime considered in a vacuum
is hardly exhaustive. Nonetheless, a combination of the factors they consider can provide a very
useful and exhaustive picture of these elements. This conclusion is supported by a number of research
and interviewbased studies on the topic.
Causes and facilitating factors of women and girls’ participation in organized criminal
groups: the example of Cape Town
Based on interviews with more than 30 female gang members in Cape Town, South Africa, a study
identified factors that facilitated gang membership amongst these females, ranging from those in their
teens to the middle-aged. It is important to note that the findings of this study are not necessarily
representative of wider female involvement in organized crime. However, it does help to understand
and highlight the experiences of women involved in the Cape Town gang milieu (Shaw and
Skywalker, 2017).
The interviews revealed several themes that may, in part, be understood as causes or facilitative
factors of joining the gangs:
Feeling of belonging and family: Many of the females interviewed noted that they joined the gang
scene because it provided them with a sense of belonging that they felt was missing

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from their often violent and dysfunctional biological family life. Being part of these gang families
also provided the women with security, such as protection, and resources (e.g., money, clothes,
and jewellery). Many of these females joined the gangs through romantic relationships with
existing male gang members.
Protection: A common reason for joining the gangs mentioned by the women was that the gangs
offered them protection. Being part of the gang “families” provided them with security in an often
dangerous environment, in which women were particularly vulnerable to sexual and domestic
violence. However, many women noted that they were still subject to such violence from within
the gang (e.g. their partners who were gang members).
Resources: The gangs also offered these women resources they would otherwise be unable to afford
or access, such as jewellery, cars, and clothing. Access to these goods was often through the women’s
boyfriends and gang bosses.
“The path of least resistance”: Some women reported that joining a gang was easier than resisting-
it was the path of least resistance. Joining the gang also provided them with “immediate
rewards” as a result.
Under- and unemployment in the licit economy: Several of the women noted that the gangs offered
more exciting opportunities with larger rewards compared to the jobs available to them in the licit
economy. The few ordinary employment opportunities the women found, often in the retail sector,
were described as “boring and poorly paid”.
Substance abuse: According to some women interviewed, they saw joining gangs as one of the only
option left to them because of their struggle with substance abuse. Their addictions made it difficult to
find steady and licit employment and made them particularly vulnerable to violence. Gangs offered not
only protection (to a certain extent), but access to substances as well.
Case studies
Case study 1 (Blood Diamonds)
With a population of 6.1 million today, Sierra Leone lost an estimated 100,000 to 200,000 people
in an armed conflict that raged between 1991 and 2002. Another two million were displaced and
took shelter mainly in Guinea and Liberia. The conflict received a lot of international attention
because of the use of child soldiers, systematic mutilation, and the use of so-called “blood diamonds” to
finance armed groups. Diamonds mined in rebel-controlled areas in a number of West African
countries, including Sierra Leone, Côte d’Ivoire and Liberia,

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reached the international diamond market. It was roughly estimated that conflict diamonds could
amount to as high as 15% of the total trade.
In response to the large-scale trade in diamonds, the Kimberley Process (initiated in 2000 by UN
resolution A/RES/55/56) was initiated by the United Nations to address the illicit trade in diamonds
originating in conflict areas. Working closely with diamonds producing companies and other legitimate
actors in the industry, the United Nations came up with a system to certify the origin of rough
diamonds. Although the certification scheme encountered a number of challenges, such as
corruption, the illicit trade in diamonds was reduced to manageable proportions, illustrating how
strategic measures designed to tackle the entire transnational market can be more effective than
armed interventions at the national level.
Case study 3 (Hells Angels)
Project Flatlined involved a 10-month investigation beginning in May 2011 into the criminal activities
of members of the Manitoba chapter of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and the Redlined Support
Crew. The Redlined Support Crew was a subsidiary group of the Hells Angels in Manitoba
formed to provide “street-level enforcement” for the Hells Angels in a dispute with Rock
Machine, another motorcycle gang, over territory for drug trafficking in Manitoba. The dispute had
been ongoing since early 2010. The two warring gangs had been involved in a number of violent
conflicts, including drive-by shootings, firebombings and physical assaults.
Project Flatlined ultimately led to the arrest of 25 members of the Hells Angels, Redlined and associates
of these clubs, with charges being laid against 16 people. At least nine of these 16 people were
convicted. Information about the criminal proceedings against the other seven people was not
available at the time of writing. In relation to some of the people who were arrested but not
charged with criminal offences, sureties of the peace were successfully obtained. Surety of the
peace, or peace bond, is a formal commitment, promise or contract an individual gives to a court of
law to keep the peace for a specified period of time.
The organized criminal group in this case was involved in trafficking between one and two
kilograms of cocaine every month between May 2011 and February 2012 in Winnipeg, primarily
in Elmwood. A court heard that the operation generated more than CAD 100,000 every month.
During the period of the group’s operation, the group’s dealers were receiving more than 500 phone
calls per day on dedicated cell phones used for their illegal activities. A judge later described the
organization as “well organized, well equipped, well financed and highly profitable.”

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The criminal group was led by Mr. Dale Jason Sweeney, who bought the cocaine from suppliers in
British Columbia. He then gave the cocaine to members of the Redlined Support Crew who turned it
into crack cocaine and sold it in small quantities to users on the street. This was performed at two
properties in Winnipeg. The Hells Angels and the Redlined Support Crew met weekly to exchange
profits from their operations
Case Study 4 (Internet Bank Fraud in Fiji)
In 2013, Rajneel Vishal Chaudary was a 27-year-old student completing his Bachelor of
Commerce at the University of South Pacific in Suva. Together with his high school friend
Manjeet Singh, he used internet banking to transfer funds from various bank accounts to his own and to
a girlfriend’s account, without her consent nor the consent of the other lawful account holders
involved.
Mr. Chaudary was charged with three counts of money laundering and plead guilty at the
beginning of the trial in March 2017. He was convicted to eight years of imprisonment with a non-
parole period of six years. In mid-2018, the High Court of Fiji granted appeal on grounds related to the
amendments of charges and subsequently wrong conviction. A retrial has been ordered.
MODULE 4 MODELS AND STRUCTURE OF ORGANIZED CRIME.
Models and structure of organized crime
Law enforcement, researchers, non-governmental and international organizations have examined
various manifestations of organized crime in different world regions using informants, police and
court records, participant observation, interviews with community members, economic analyses and
historical accounts. Dramatic variation is reported in both the size, scope and activities of organized
criminal groups.
Market driven organized crime
A UNODC global assessment of nine distinct illicit product markets and flows concluded that the
criminal activity is driven by the markets and products, rather than by the groups involved. As the study
points out: “[m]ost organized crime problems today seem to be less a matter of a group of individuals
who are involved in a range of illicit activities, and more a matter of a group of illicit activities in which
some individuals and groups are presently involved” (UNODC, 2010).
As shown in Module 3, opportunities and demand for illicit goods and services generate groups
willing to exploit those opportunities. At the same time, as explored in Module 4,

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infiltration of legitimate business and government requires aggressive tactics by organized criminal
groups to create these openings for corruption and money-laundering.
There have been hundreds of cases and studies of organized criminal groups with many interesting
findings. It is impossible to summarize all of them across time, location, and crime types, nonetheless a
large number of empirical studies identifies three general types of organized criminal groups. These
three types, or models, are summarized below.
A model is an effort to capture the essence of a phenomenon to understand it more clearly. For
instance, we model the universe, child development, the aging process, and many other concepts to
understand them. The patterns or models of organized criminal groups can be grouped into three general
types: groups with hierarchical or organizational structure; groups based on local cultural or ethnic
connections; and groups relying on economic business-type relationships. There is overlap among
these models, and perhaps few organized criminal groups exist as a distinct “type,” but there are
important differences among these models that deserve a closer analysis.
Hierarchical model of organized criminal groups
The hierarchical model defines organized crime as a group of interdependent actors in which there is a
clear ranking among participants that distinguishes leaders from other members in the criminal
enterprise. This structure has been termed the “bureaucratic,” “corporate,” or “organizational”
model of organized crime. This description of organized criminal groups sees it as a government-like
or military-like structure, in which illegal activities are organized and approved by superiors and
carried out by lowerlevel operatives who are part of the group (Albanese, 2015; von Lampe,
2016).
Early accounts by informants described mafia groups in the United States and Italy as consisting
of bosses, lieutenants and soldiers who controlled territories and run profitable criminal enterprises
with these groups (“families”). These accounts provided the essence of the hierarchical model of
organized crime, operating with a clear structure, ranking, and organization (Anastasia, 2004;
Demaris, 1980; Maas, 1968; Shawcross and Young, 1987; Teresa and Renner, 1973; U.S. Senate;
1965).
The hierarchical approach to organized crime was adopted in official reports and it was used widely to
characterize all forms of organized crime beyond mafia-type organizations. This characterization
influenced the way in which organized crime was perceived and responded to around the world
(Albanese, 1988; Di Ronco and Lavorgna, 2016; Standing, 2003).

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Over the years, governments, non-governmental and international organizations and the academia
carried out a number of studies on the models of organized criminal groups. The results suggest that the
hierarchical model characterizes some organized criminal groups, but there are many others that are
not organized in this way (Lombardo, 1994; Lupo, 2015; Rostami, Mondani, Liljeros, Edling,
2017). Research has shown that highly organized and hierarchical mafia groups exist on one end of
a spectrum of organized criminal groups “with a variety of hybrid possibilities in between” (Sergi,
2017; Smith, 1980). The hierarchical model is most helpful in describing how some groups organize and
operate with respect for position, territory and the importance of being identified as “connected” with
the group.
An unfortunate outcome of widespread adherence to the hierarchical model of organized crime
was the assumption that successful prosecution of organized crime bosses would eliminate
organized criminal groups altogether by collapsing crime families. However, many successful mafia-
related prosecutions to the present day found that the continuing demand for illicit goods and
services led to the emergence of new leaders and new illicit enterprises to exploit these profitable
illegal markets.
Local, cultural model of organized crime
Beginning in the 1970s and extending to the present day, many empirical studies and analyses of
the operations and structure of organized criminal groups have occurred in different locations
around the world. A significant number of these studies found that cultural or ethnic ties, rather than
hierarchy, connected organized criminals together, and that many groups are local in nature without
significant connections to larger groups or distant locations (Abadinsky, 1981; Albini, 1971; Coles,
2001; Ianni with Reuss-Ianni, 1972; Reuter, Rubinstein and Wynn, 1983; Chin and Zhang, 2002).
The local, cultural model of organized crime structure highlights the importance of heritage (i.e.,
racial, ethnic, national, or other cultural ties) as the basis for trust, which is fundamental to establish
working relationships in illegal activities (Smith and Papachristos, 2016; von Lampe and Johansen,
2004). These groups are often smaller, operate in neighbourhoods, or smaller regions or territories, and
control some portion of the illicit activity there. Studies also found that some organized criminal groups
operate with relatively little direction or supervision in their day-to-day activities. The difference
from the hierarchical model lies in how relationships within the group are structured, because the
types of criminal activities are similar among groups, as they all exploit illicit markets for products
and services.

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Enterprise or business model of organized crime
The enterprise model of organized crime grew from the realization that the regulatory framework
and economic factors were the primary determinants behind the formation of organized criminal
groups. Organized criminal groups were found to structure their illicit activities around the
demands of customers e.g., for illicit drugs, firearms, or stolen property. The groups find ways to supply
those goods and services while navigating among the risks posed by law enforcement, as well as legal
and illegal competitors (e.g., other illicit products and groups). Their ultimate objective is to make a
profit out of these activities.
Organized crime versus legitimate business
According to the enterprise perspective, organized criminal groups form and thrive in the same way that
legitimate businesses do: they respond to the needs and demands of suppliers, customers,
regulators and competitors. The only difference between organized criminal groups and legitimate
business is that organized criminals deal in illegal products and services, whereas legitimate
businesses normally do not (Smith, 1980; Smith, 1990).
The enterprise model of organized crime focuses on how economic considerations lie at the heart of the
formation and success of organized criminal groups, more importantly than hierarchical or cultural
considerations, The enterprise model labels economic concerns as the primary cause of organized
criminal behaviour. In a study of drug markets, for example, it was found that groups consisted of
“individual entrepreneurs and small organizations rather than massive, centralized bureaucracies,”
which were “competitive” rather than “monopolistic” in nature (Adler, 1985).
Other studies found that the supply of illegal goods is usually provided by small-scale criminal groups,
and highlighted that the illegal economy functions like the legal one: it involves supply and demand,
customer preferences and competition. These factors, rather than relationships based on hierarchical or
cultural ties dictate the operation and organization of organized criminal groups (Paoli, 2002;
Rege and Lavorgna, 2017). The enterprise model sees organized criminal groups as the product of
illicit market forces, similar to those that cause legitimate businesses to flourish or die in the legal
sector of the economy (Gottschalk, 2009; Reuter, 1983; Reuter, 1993; Windle, 2013; Yeager, 2012).
The centrality of economic relationships, rather than personal relationships, was found even in
accounts of contract killers, who described it as paramount in profiting from and surviving a
vicious way of life (Shaw, 2017; Carlo, 2009 Focusing on groups versus activities

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Evidence from both criminal cases and research studies of organized criminal groups in different
locations supports each of the three models of organized crime in certain respects. Some organized
criminal groups are hierarchical (even if loosely so), culturally bound, and are also maintained by
supply and demand for available illicit products and services. Ethnically or culturally bound
organized criminal groups clearly exist that are not hierarchical in structure, but rather are driven by
economic opportunities in illicit markets. There are also organized criminal groups not hierarchical or
culturally bound that engage in criminal activities that correspond to the available opportunities to profit
illicitly.
Both the hierarchical and local cultural models focus on how organized criminal groups are organized;
the enterprise model focuses on how organized criminal activities are organized. Examples of all three
models can be found in different markets and locations around the world. Some organized crime
is hierarchical in nature and much is not. In addition, some organized crime is locally based and
culturally bound in nature and much is not. On the other hand, all organized crime activity is
entrepreneurial in nature as its ultimate purpose is a financial or other material benefit. Organized
crime as a course of conduct can be studied as an economic activity, but it is prosecuted based on the
relationship among its participants in criminal enterprises.
A UNODC analysis of 16 countries and one region (the Caribbean) summarized their reports of
transnational organized criminal groups in each country and what was known about three prominent
organized criminal groups there (United Nations Centre for International Crime Prevention,
2000). The 40 organized criminal groups identified were found to follow five different models:
Rigid hierarchy – single boss with strong internal discipline within several divisions.
Devolved hierarchy – regional structures, each with its own hierarchy and degree of autonomy.
Hierarchical conglomerate – a loose or umbrella association of otherwise separate organized criminal
groups.
Core criminal group – a horizontal structure of core individuals who describe themselves as working
for the same organization.
Organized criminal network – individuals engage in criminal activity in shifting alliances, not
necessarily affiliated with any criminal group, but according to skills they possess to carry out illicit
activity.

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This typology of groups ranged from the most to least organized, and the responding countries reported
about one-third of the groups to be hierarchical in structure. These groups are often larger, and better
documented, than other groups. The survey found about one-third of the 40 groups identified to be
ethnically-based. The remaining groups had no strong social or ethnic identity, or members were simply
drawn from the same social background. Significantly, two- thirds of the groups identified had activities
in three or more countries. This study illustrates how organized crime is structured differently in
different countries of the world.
New forms of organized crime: networked structure
A newer structure of organized crime occurs in the virtual world of cyberspace. Cyberspace is the
electronic marketplace in which illicit goods and services are sold, and businesses sometimes
infiltrated, without physical contact between the supplier and customer.

Organized criminal groups use digital services but also run digital services, both for financial or other
material benefit. (Broadhurst, Grabosky, Alazab, Bouhours, Chon, 2014; Choo and Smith, 2008)
Hackers threaten and extort victims, illicit drugs are sold and purchased online, as are falsified medical
products, counterfeit merchandise, illicit wildlife specimen and stolen property. The Internet and the
Darknet provide virtual spaces that can be used to connect criminals to customers without physical
contacts. Are structured organized criminal groups necessary for these offenders?
Criminals associate when it is necessary to operate a criminal scheme. If cyber-related crimes permit
criminals to become more disconnected from customers and victims, will members of organized
criminal groups become more disconnected from each other? Continuing criminal associations may
become less necessary. Instead, networks of convenience emerge in which criminals associate,
perhaps temporarily, and only when it is necessary to do so. These circumstances might involve the
need to find members with certain skills or access to supply, customers or competitors (Brenner,
2002).
Organized crime 2.0
Contemporary organized crime may be moving away from longer-term traditional relationships
and structures to more fluid, less formal and temporary associations. For example, Europol reported
that approximately 20% of known criminal networks in the EU exist for only a short time and are set
up to support specific criminal schemes (Europol, 2017).

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The less formal, more fluid nature of some contemporary organized criminal groups may reflect a
wider characteristic in society in general, where long-term personal relationships diminish,
reducing personal loyalty and commitment among individuals and institutions. In the world of
organized crime, this is a further argument to distinguish the acts of organized criminal groups
from the offenders who engage in it. The illicit acts committed by organized criminal groups have
remained quite stable, reflecting changes in the opportunities to provide illicit goods and services. These
changes in opportunities occurred through globalization of commerce and technological advances, e.g.,
broad Internet access and remote banking. On the other hand, the structure of organized criminal
groups may reflect changes in the nature of relationships needed to be successful in the criminal
marketplace. Figure 7.1 illustrates the similarities and differences among the different models of
organized criminal groups
Criminal Organizations in the Pacific
“Little is known about the types and structure of criminal organisations active in the South Pacific
and their level of sophistication. Most available sources point to Asian crime gangs, especially Chinese
and Japanese. The yakuza appears to be particularly influential in Guam, and the former US territories
of Micronesia and Northern Marianas. According to reports by the US Federal Bureau of
Investigations (FBI), the yakuza maintains links to local businesses and politicians in these places and
engages in illegal gambling and the smuggling of narcotics and firearms. Elsewhere, Chinese criminal
gangs are more prominent and there is growing concern around the region about the increasing
influence that ethnic Chinese groups exercise over local drug markets and other forms or organized
crime.” Case studies and exercises

Exercise 1 (Japan’s Yakuza)

Tokyo-based American journalist Jake Adelstein wrote in 2017:
“Contrary to recent news reports, Japan’s organized crimes groups, “the yakuza” aren’t vanishing
– they’re transforming. They are finding ways to morph from honor-bound tribal outlaws into
common criminals who will do anything for money. The shrewder ones are simply turning less visible.
That isn’t necessarily a plus for Japan or the world.”
Source: Jake Adelstein. “Japan’s yakuza aren’t disappearing. They are getting smarter.” The
Washington Post, April 8, 2017.
Read the article and discuss the statement in relation with the models of organized crime studied
in this module.

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Would Adelstein’s “transformation” statement apply to organized criminal groups in your region?
Discuss how globalization, technical, and communication advancements are impacting organized
crime in your region.
Case study 1 (Operation Onymous)
In November 2014, law enforcement and prosecutors in the European Union and the United States
launched Operation Onymous, an international operation aimed at taking down online illegal markets
and arresting vendors and administrators of such markets. The operation was coordinated by
Europol’s
European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), Eurojust, the FBI, and the United States Immigration and Customs
Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The operation culminated in the
arrest of 17 individuals and the seizure of Bitcoins amounting to USD 1 million, drugs, gold and
silver.
Among the marketplaces brought down was Silk Road 2.0, an online black market used to sell
drugs and other illegal items. In 2013, the FBI shut down its predecessor, Silk Road 1.0 and arrested its
founder Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted in February 2015 in the United States. Silk Road 2.0
was launched in November 2013 after the shutdown of its previous version. On 5 November 2015,
the alleged administrator of Silk Road 2.0, Blake Benthall, was arrested by the FBI in San Francisco.
According to the FBI, as of September 2014, Silk Road
2.0 had sales of at least approximately USD 8 million per month and approximately 150,000 active
users. As part of the investigation, an undercover agent infiltrated the administration of Silk Road 2.0
and obtained access to restricted information.
Silk Road 2.0 and other online marketplaces shut down as part of this investigation were operated
as TOR hidden services. The TOR (i.e. The Onion Router) network is a worldwide network that allows
users to establish anonymous communication. A TOR hidden service does not reveal the IP
address of the server used. TOR is used for both illicit and licit purposes, with the latter including
members of the military as well as activists and journalists evading censorship.
Most transactions on the shuttered marketplaces were carried out in Bitcoins. Bitcoin is a
decentralized cryptocurrency, i.e. there is no centralized authority and Bitcoin transactions are
processed and validated by a peer-to-peer network. Bitcoin users are anonymous but all their
transactions are stored in a public ledger. Information on Bitcoin users can be obtained from exchanges
– i.e. institutions converting Bitcoin into other currencies or vice versa – and other points of
intersection with the regulated financial system

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Case study 2 (structure of a drug trafficking organization)
The organized criminal group in question consisted of 21 members, citizens of the Serbia, Bosnia
and Herzegovina and Montenegro, operating on the territories of Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Serbia and Croatia. Serbian authorities brought criminal charges against five citizens of the Republic of
Serbia and one citizen of Montenegro; other members of the organized criminal group were
prosecuted by the competent authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two criminal proceedings
were conducted simultaneously and in coordination by authorities of both countries.
The leader of the group, a Serbian citizen, was managing the whole group’s business from the territory
of the Republic of Serbia, but no drugs were seized in the country. He had direct contacts with his
partners and group members in Montenegro who were sending drugs to affiliates in Bosnia and
Herzegovina. The latter were distributing and selling drugs in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as in
Croatia. This organized criminal group also had good connections in the local police, as it is
demonstrated by the fact that some of the defendants prosecuted in Bosnia and Herzegovina were
police officers.
The group had a pyramidal, hierarchical structure with clear roles for every member and adopted a
strict, almost military, way of command. The leader of the group communicated with a limited
number of members and most members were communicating with their superiors only via mobile
phones. This group formed specific cells in order to perform particular illicit activities. In particular,
they were involved in trafficking in cocaine, purchasing bombs and explosive devices, as well as stolen
goods such as vehicles, mobile phones etc. At the time of the arrest, the group was suspected of
organizing a robbery, kidnapping and murder. In February 2009, the police launched operation
“Valter,” in close cooperation with the Serbian Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime. From the
initial stages, Serbian authorities were in contact with the competent authorities of Bosnia and
Herzegovina and exchanged data and information on the activities of the criminal group.
The prompt and coordinated action of law enforcement agencies from Serbia and Bosnia and
Herzegovina prevented a number of serious crimes and brought the members of this criminal group to
justice. This group is seen as a one of the criminal groups with the highest level of organization in the
Balkan region.
Case Study 3 (Operation Eagle, Cook Islands)
Between September 2010 and May 2011, the Cook Islands Police, assisted by the New Zealand
Police, conducted an undercover operation that successfully dismantled a cannabis

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trafficking ring in the Cook Islands. The operation involved around thirty officers, eighteen of them
from New Zealand. It was set up because of concerns about the spread of cannabis use in the Cook
Islands with the possible involvement of police officers in drug-dealing.
In July 2012 – part way through what was expected to be a two-week trial – the three defendants
pleaded guilty to several counts of importing cannabis, conspiring to import cannabis, selling and
offering to supply cannabis, and cultivation of cannabis plant. The High Court of the Cook Islands
sentenced Giovanni Marsters, the main offender, to 6 years of imprisonment. His wife Inano
Matapo, a Senior Sergeant of the Cook Islands Police force, was sentenced to 2 ½ years’
imprisonment for corruption charges in addition to a minor cannabis-related charge. Samuel
Tangaroa, an employee of the Post Office, was sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment.
The sentencing judge considered Marsters the primary offender “if not the ringleader” of the criminal
enterprise. He arranged and financed imports of cannabis, engaged in retail selling of it, and
cultivated cannabis using paraphernalia of some sophistication. He imported cannabis from New
Zealand for its better quality meant higher profit in the Cook Islands. Marsters also imported seeds
to set up his growing operation.
The judge also pondered the role of Tangaroa, considering him an important player. Because of his
employment at the Post Office, he was able to intercept imported contraband before it got to Customs.
Tangaroa was paid in cannabis, which he used for personal consume as well as for dealing on his own.
Concerning Matapo, the judge considered that her insider knowledge as a high ranked police
officer allowed her to protect the illicit activities of her partner. Also, she was involved in a one-off
sale of cannabis.
This case was the first of its kind in the Cook Islands, setting a precedent on sentencing
guidelines for drug offenses
Case study 5 (The Mungiki – Kenya)
The Mungiki sect is a feared Kenyan criminal gang consisting mainly of youths from Kenya’s largest
tribe, the Kikuyu. Its origin is traced back to the 1980s when it was created as a self- defense force and
religious sect advocating for a return to traditional tribal beliefs and the rejection of Western values.
Its size is unknown, but the group claims to have thousands of members, especially unemployed
youths who believe the Mungiki is a refuge to gain economic and political success. Kenyan police
define the Mungiki as the vernacular version of the mafia.

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The Mungiki is believed to have links with politicians and powerful Kikuyu families. It has long run
extortion rackets in the lucrative minibus taxi industry. Its members are involved in kidnappings,
murder, extortion and racketeering, levying protection fees on the urban poor, illegally supplying
electricity and water for a price. They corrupt police officers in order to avoid detentions or
prosecutions.
They are divided into regional, district, and local level cells comprised of fifty members. Each cell is
then further divided into a local militia-like platoon comprising ten members. Members can be
characterized as landless and unemployed; while most of them are recruited among the very poor and
have little or no education, leaders tend to have university degrees.
The Mungiki members are said to swear an oath of secrecy, severely punish betrayal, and leave
the gang by death only. The group has continued operating in Kenya despite being banned by the
authorities in 2002
MODULE 6 CYBER ORGANIZED CRIME
Cyber organized crime: What is it?
Many crimes and cybercrimes have some level of organization (Wall, 2017); that is, these crimes
and cybercrimes are “planned, rational acts that reflect the effort of groups of individuals” (see
Module 1 on Definitions of Organized Crime of the E4J University Module Series on Organized
Crime). To differentiate between organized crime and cyber organized crime, this Module (and the
E4J University Module Series on Cybercrime) focuses on the “cyber” component of cyber
organized crime (Wall, 2017). This section of the Module explores the answers to the following
questions:
What role does cyberspace play in helping criminals organize themselves?
How does cyberspace and its technologies transform organized criminal behaviour to create new forms
of crime?
Cyberspace and the organization of criminal groups
Many organized criminal groups simply use Internet technologies to communicate with one another
and conduct their business. This “business” may create “ephemeral” forms of organization where
the Internet is used to link up offenders to commit an offline crime, after which they dissipate to form
new alliances. Alternatively, organized criminal groups may use networked technologies to create more
“sustained” organizational forms, [meant to last in time and to offer] protect[ion to] the criminals
operating under its wing from other criminals in the field and also law enforcement agencies (Varese,
2010, p. 14). Between these two extremes

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of the spectrum, there are also ‘hybrid’ forms in which a more broadly accepted criminal goal is
widely circulated ‘virtually’ by a small core group, but its physical expression is conducted by
individual lone wolves or localized cells – as found with some types of hacker groups or in offline
situations where a linkage is established between crime and terrorism. It is important to note that
while the “activities of terrorists and organized criminal groups can overlap (Bassiouni, 1990),”
“they generally pursue different objectives” (i.e., terrorists primarily pursue political or social
objectives, whereas organized criminal groups primarily pursue “financial or other material benefit[s]”;
Module 1 on Definitions of Organized Crime of the E4J University Series on Organized Crime; for
more information on the links between organized crime and terrorism please see Module 16 on
Linkages between Organized Crime and Terrorism of the E4J Series on Organized Crime). Most
organized criminal groups tend to exist on a continuum between ephemeral and sustainable with
hybrids in the middle and use Internet technologies to organize themselves to a lesser or greater extent.
Cyberspace and the organization of cybercrime
Whilst almost all organized criminal groups will use some type of networked technology to
organize themselves and their crimes, some are also using those technologies to commit
cybercrimes. The actual nature of the organization of cybercrimes varies according to the level of
digital and networked technology involved, the modus operandi and the intended victim groups,
which also help to define the differences between them (see Wall, 2017).
The level of use or transformation by digital and networked technology
The more traditional organized criminal groups tend not to be involved in committing cyber- dependent
crimes, which are those crimes that disappear when the Internet is removed (Wall, 2015, also see
Lavorna and Sergi, 2014; and others). They are, however, increasingly using networked technologies to
communicate with each other to organize crimes or seek intended victims, for example, to sell drugs
over the Internet or darknet. These forms of cybercrime are either “cyber-assisted” (usually using
communications technology), because without the Internet the offending would still take place but
by other means of communication, or they are “cyber-enabled”, when long-standing (usually
localized) forms of offending, such as illicit gambling, frauds and extortion, are given a global
reach by digital and networked technologies. If the Internet is removed, then the offending would
revert from the global to the local form. They contrast sharply with “cyber-dependent” crimes such as
hacking, distributed denial of service and ransomware attacks, and spamming which, as indicated
above, disappear when the Internet is removed from the equation.
Modus Operandi

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Cybercrime also varies according to the modus operandi of the offending involved, which is linked with
the motivations and profile of the criminal actors. The organization of “cybercrimes against the
machine” such as computer misuse offences by hackers, for example, are very different to “cybercrimes
using the machine” such as, scams, frauds, and extortion. Both of these are also very different from
“cybercrimes in the machine” such as child sexual abuse material, hate speech, terrorist materials
(where the offence is actually in the computer content) (Wall, 2017; see Cybercrime Module 2 on
General Types of Cybercrime for more information).
Target Victim Groups
The final factor that has to be considered when looking at cybercrime and its organization is who are the
targeted victim groups. Some criminal groups deliberately target individual users, for example, by
spamming deceptive emails to scam or defraud them. Other groups deliberately target businesses or
governmental organizations, to commit larger scale frauds, obtain trade secrets or to disrupt their
business flows (to extort or at the behest of a rival). Finally, other groups, usually State actors,
deliberately target the infrastructures of other States to create distrust or discontent and/or to cause
harm (Wall, 2017).
Therefore, not only is the organization of criminals using networked technologies a very different
issue to the way that criminals organize crimes online, but the latter also depends upon the level of
technologies used, the particular criminal acts being committed, and also the intended victim
groups.
Various research findings (Leukfeldt et al., 2017, 2017a, 2017b, 2016a, 2016b, and Wall, 2015)
highlight that offline organized criminal groups are completely different sets oof actors to online
organized criminal groups, but they also differ in terms of their age, motivation, organization and
gender make up (although they all seem to be predominantly male; for further information on
gender dimensions of online organized criminal groups, see Hutchings and Chua, 2016; for more
information on gender and organized crime see Module 15 of the E4J University Module Series on
Organized Crime). Not only these actors [might be] different, but their organization tends to be
distributed, if not dis-organized, by comparison to offline organized crime groups (Wall, 2015;
see the discussion about "swarms" and "hubs" in the section on Criminal groups engaging in
cyber organized crime).
Conceptualizing organized crime and defining the actors involved
Whether certain cybercrimes are identified as a form of organized crime or linked to organized crime
depends on the working definitions used of “organized crime” (UNODC, 2013, pp. 44-

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45). The United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime does not provide a
definition of organized crime. This is not only the result of a lack of agreement amongst States,
but rather a conscious choice made by the negotiators of the Convention. Any definition would
likely include a list of the illicit activities carried out by organized criminal groups, which are
constantly changing and adapting to the development of our dynamic world; therefore, such definition
would rapidly become outdated. Rather than the crime, the Organized Crime Convention defines
the actor involved in its commission: an “organized criminal group” (see Module 1 on Definitions of
Organized Crime of the E4J University Module Series on Organized Crime). Specifically, under Article
2(a) of the Convention an “organized criminal group” is defined as “a structured group of three or more
persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more
serious crimes or offences established in accordance with this Convention, in order to obtain,
directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.” Here, a structured group “does not need a
formal hierarchy or continuity of its membership”. This makes the definition broad, including loosely
affiliated groups without any formally defined roles for its members or a developed structure (see
Organized Crime Module 1).
While there is no universally agreed upon definition of organized crime (see Organized Crime Module
1), it can be understood as “a continuing criminal enterprise that rationally works to profit from illicit
activities that are often in great public demand. Its continuing existence is maintained through
corruption of public officials and the use of intimidation, threats or force to protect its operations”
(definition used in the E4J University Module Series on Organized Crime, see Organized Crime Module
1). By way of extension, cyber organized crime is a term used to describe organized crime activities in
cyberspace. Like organized crime, there is no consensus on the definition of cybercrime or cyber
organized crime (UNODC, 2013; Broadhurst et al., 2014; and Maras, 2016).
Studies on cyber organized crime have pointed out that some of the traditional features of
organized crime may not translate well to cyberspace. An example of such a feature is “control of
territory” (UNODC, 2013, p. 45). Varese argued that an organized criminal group “attempts to regulate
and control the production and distribution of a given commodity or service unlawfully” (2010, p.
14). This regulation is present in dark markets (e.g., the defunct DarkMarket and CardersMarket)
where administrators and moderators monitor site and content and ensure rules of the platforms
are enforced. If rules are not obeyed, those engaging in non-compliance are excluded from the site.
While “the production and distribution of a given commodity or service” could be controlled within
these sites, this control does not extend to other online forums (thus limiting the power and
authority of the networks).

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Therefore, unlike traditional organized crime, their “control over production and of certain
commodity [or services] in the underworld” is limited (Leukfeldt, Lavorgna, and Kleemans,
2017, p. 296).
In the case of dark markets, the structure, organization, regulation, and control over illicit goods
and services are connected to the online sites and not the people who run and/or moderate them. As
a result, when these dark market sites are taken offline (e.g., because of law enforcement investigation
and seizure of site), the network associated with this site often ceases to exist. There are, however,
exceptions, where members or others connected to a site (those not caught up in the law enforcement
investigation and prosecution) have created another site that mirrors the one taken offline. A case in
point is the (now defunct) darknet site Silk Road 2.0 (which mimicked Silk Road) that was created to
maintain continuity of activities previously performed on Silk Road (Maras, 2016). Even the name of
the administrator, Dread Pirate Roberts, remained the same as the one used by the administrator of Silk
Road (at least before the administrator was arrested).
Did you know?
The name Dread Pirate Roberts comes from a character in the movie Princess Bride (1987). In this
movie, the character going by the name “Dread Pirate Roberts” explains the significance of this
name. Dread Pirate Roberts does not refer to a specific person; it is a name that is inherited.
Whoever uses that name, inherits the reputation associated with that name (Maras, 2016).
Two other features traditionally associated with traditional organized criminal networks,
corruption and the threat or use of violence (Arsovska, 2011), are viewed as not translating well to
cyber organized crime (Leukfeldt, Lavorgna, and Kleemans, 2017). This, however, depends on
the type of cyber organized crime activity. With regards to the first feature, research has shown that
political corruption influences decisions to participate in organized crime activities. In one country,
online fraud, among other financial crimes, were found to be integral to the functioning of the State
(Ellis, 2016; see also discussion of Hoffmann et. Al., 2016). Concerning the second feature, there is
little evidence to suggest the use of violence or threat of the use of violence in furtherance of cyber
organized crime activities (UNODC, 2013; Leukfeldt, Lavorgna, and Kleemans, 2017), with the
exception of some cases where, for example, money mules (i.e., “individual[s] who obtain… and
transfer… money illegally upon request and payment by other[s]”; Maras, 2016) participated in cyber
organized crime activities and informed authorities that they participated in the illegal activities or
continued to participate in these activities because they were threatened by criminals (Leukfeldt,
Lavorgna,

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and Kleemans, 2017, p. 294). As an alternative to physical violence, cyber organized criminals conduct
or threaten cyberattacks or other forms of cybercrime as a means to coerce individuals into
complying with demands (Maras, 2016). Examples of this is cyber organized criminals’ use of
cryptoransomware (i.e., “malware that infects a user’s digital device, encrypts the user’s documents,
and threatens to delete files and data if the victim does not pay the ransom) and/or doxware (i.e., a
form cryptoransomware that perpetrators use against victims that releases the user’s data…if ransom
is not paid to decrypt the files and data”) (see Cybercrime Module 2 on General Types of
Cybercrime).
Criminology Theories
Criminology theories have been applied to cyber organized crime (Maras, 2016). These theories
consider cyber organized crime as a product of rational choice, criminal opportunities, conflict, relative
deprivation, learning, and/or strain (e.g., Broadhurst et al., 2018; Maras, 2016; Oyenuga, 2018; Wall,
2017; Bossler and Holt, 2009; Yar, 2005; some of these theories are included in Cybercrime Module 1
on Introduction to Cybercrime, Cybercrime Module 9 on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime Prevention:
Practical Applications and Measures, Cybercrime Module 11 on Cyber-Enabled Intellectual Property
Crime, and Cybercrime Module 12 on Interpersonal Cybercrime; criminology theories regarding
organized crime in general are discussed in Module 6 on Causes and Facilitating Factors of
Organized Crime of the E4J University Module Series on Organized Crime). Despite the breadth
of theories applied to cyber organized crime, the results from studies applying these theories to
this cybercrime have varied and support for the application of these theories is mixed (Maras, 2016)
Criminal groups engaging in cyber organized crime
Cyber organized crime can include organized criminal groups engaging in cybercrime and
cybercriminals or other groups that do not meet the criteria established by the Organized Crime
Convention, that engage in activities typically associated with organized crime. Regarding the first
type of cyber organized crime, there is evidence that traditional organized criminal groups have engaged
in cybercrime (UNODC, 2013; UNODC, 2012). Studies have also shown that organized criminal
groups have exploited the opportunities afforded to them by information and communication
technology to commit cybercrime. Specifically, research has shown that organized criminal groups
have utilized information and communication technology to exploit new online criminal markets
(e.g., Internet gambling) (Wang and Antonopoulos, 2016; Kshteri, 2010). For example, in 2016,
members of Camorra and ‘Ndrangheta were arrested for their role in an Internet gambling ring
(OCCRP, 2016; Reuters, 2016). What is more, organized criminal groups have also engaged in
cybercrime to facilitate

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offline organized crime activities. For example, an organized criminal group that trafficked drugs
hired hackers to gain access to the information technology systems of the Antwerp port in Belgium that
housed data about containers (Bateman, 2013; Glenny, 2017).
Organized criminal groups engaging in cyber organized crime may or may not exclusively operate
in cyberspace. In fact, studies have expanded the notion of organized crime to include activities driven
by some direct or indirect benefit that occur in whole or in part online (Grabosky, 2007;
Broadhurst, et al., 2014). These groups can thus operate either partially, predominately, or solely
online. While there have been cases of networks that have been formed and/or operated
exclusively and/or predominantly online (e.g., Shadowcrew ; for information about these types of
networks, see Leukfeldt, Kleemans, and Stol, 2017; Leukfeldt, Kleemans, and Stol, 2016a;
Leukfeldt, Kleemans, and Stol, 2016b, Choo and Smith, 2008; and Choo, 2008), research on the
creation and development of cyber organized criminal networks have shown that geographic proximity
and offline contacts play a large role in the formation and expansion (through recruitment) of these
networks (Broadhurst et al., 2014; Leukfeldt, Kleemans, and Stol, 2017; Leukfeldt, Lavorgna, and
Kleemans, 2017, pp. 292-293). For example, hot spots and hubs for cyber organized criminal networks
have been identified in Eastern Europe (Bhattacharjee, 2011; Kshetri, 2013; Broadhurst et al., 2014, p.
3). Furthermore, Europol (2018) revealed that “social engineering scams targeting EU citizens are
carried out by West African organized crim[inal] groups” (p. 13).
The extent of organization of cyber organized crime is still largely unknown (Lavorgna, 2016).
Empirical evidence of the structure of cyber organized crime, groups involved in this type of
cybercrime, and the types of cybercrimes committed, is sparse (UNODC, 2013, p. 45).
Nevertheless, typologies have been created based on available data concerning the links between
organized crime and cybercrime based on “the degree of involvement of groups in online (as opposed
to offline) activities and the structure of associations within the group" (BAE Systems Detica and
London Metropolitan University, 2012, cited in UNODC, 2013, p. 46). Particularly, three general
types of groups were identified: groups that predominantly operate online and commit
cybercrimes (Type I); those that operate offline and online and engage in crimes and cybercrimes
(Type II) (see Image 1); and those only utilizing information and communication technology to
facilitate offline crimes (Type III; not depicted in Image 1).
Further distinction is made between each type of group (BAE Systems Detica and London
Metropolitan University, 2012; UNODC, 2013; Broadhurst et al., 2014):
Type I groups can be further divided into swarms (i.e., less-structured groups that operate primarily
online) and hubs (i.e., more-structured groups that mostly operate online). Swarms

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are short-term associations formed for a specific purpose and which dissolve after their objectives
are achieved (BAE Systems Detica and London Metropolitan University, 2012).
Type II groups can be further separated into clustered hybrids (i.e., groups, small in size, that cluster
around certain crimes and cybercrimes, method of operation and tactics, or location) and extended
hybrids (i.e., less defined, highly complex groups operating offline and online).
Type III groups can be hierarchies (i.e., traditional organized criminal groups that utilize others to
facilitate their offline activities using information and communication technology) and aggregates
(i.e., transient, loosely organized groups that use ICT for limited, specific reasons to facilitate offline
activities).
Food for thought
Certain criminal groups that engage in cyber organized crime challenge traditional notions of organized
crime. Consider, for example, the definition of organized crime included in the United Nations
Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. The definition includes the requirement that the
group exist “for a “period of time;” however, this period is not defined in the Convention and the
interpretation of “period of time” has varied. On the other hand, the group does not need continuity of
its membership. In view of that, would a swarm meet this requirement?
Individuals within these groups have various roles and levels of importance within these groups.
Some individuals are considered essential to the group and its operations, while others are
considered nonessential, maybe even expendable. The former includes the leader and some core
members that are vital to the success of the group’s activities, which depends on the cybercrime (or
cybercrimes) committed (e.g., programmers, intrusion specialists, technical experts, data miners,
and money specialists, to name a few) (National Cyber Security Centre, 2017, pp. 5-6; UNODC,
2013, p. 46). The latter has been observed, for example, with money mules. These individuals
(knowingly or unknowingly) are recruited by and work for criminals, transfer goods between third
parties, and have been used to launder money (Maras, 2016).
In 2018, a criminal group that engaged in cyber organized crime was involved in a business email
compromise attack (similar to spearphishing and whaling; discussed in Cybercrime Module 2 on
General Types of Cybercrime), which tricked the targets into wire transferring money to the
perpetrators of this cybercrime who were masquerading as legitimate entities that the companies
worked with (see Operation Wire Wire, FBI, 2018). In this incident, money mules within the United
States were offered a job to conduct wire transfers and/or were

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recruited to create shell companies and open up bank accounts for the shell companies to receive
the proceeds of the online fraud. Once the money was transferred into the bank accounts
controlled by the money mule, the money mule kept a portion of the proceeds (agreed upon with
their recruiter and/or members of the group) and transferred the money to a bank in Poland or China
(Neil, 2018). Money mules, and other non-core members of cybercriminal groups engaging in
organized crime activities, are transient, participating in the activities of the group only as needed
and/or until they fulfil their purpose.
Koobface
Cyber organized criminals deployed Koobface (an anagram for Facebook), a computer worm designed
to spread via social media platforms. This malware spread by sending messages via social media to
users from their friends’ infected accounts. This message would have a link to a video. When users
would click on the link in the message, they were led to a website with the video. Once at that site, the
users were prompted to download an update or video codec in order to see the video, which was
actually the malware. The malware had many different functions, among them were its ability to
harvest data and license keys from infected systems, redirect Internet traffic for profit, and download
content to users’ systems.

Want to learn more?

For more information see: Richmond, Riva (2012). Web Gang Operating in the Open. New York
Times, 16 January 2012.
Case law has revealed that cybercriminals and/or members of organized criminal groups that engage in
cybercrime have been charged with offences used to prosecute organized criminals. For example,
in the United States, active members of online illicit markets (e.g., Carders.su, AlphaBay) have
been charged with conspiracy or racketeering offences. Conspiracy constitutes participation in an
organized criminal group, according to the United Nations Convention against Transnational
Organized Crime. Racketeering is initially a common law offence (see Module 2 of the E4J
University Modules Series on Organized Crime).
Online illicit markets (or dark markets) have been considered a criminal enterprise, “a group of
individuals with an identified hierarchy, or comparable structure, engaged in significant criminal
activity” (FBI, n.d.). Online forums, such as the now defunct AlphaBay, DarkMarket, Darkode, and
Carder.su, have clearly defined hierarchies (administrators, moderators, and ranking of members based
on privileges) (Maras, 2016). Individuals seeking to gain access

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to these forums had to have existing members recommend them (ICE, 2017). The same holds true for
other defunct online illicit markets. A case in point is Silk Road, an infamous darknet site (now
defunct) that primarily sold illicit drugs and was also considered a criminal enterprise. The
administrator of the site, Ross Ulbricht, obtained a percentage of every sale, tightly regulated and
controlled the activity on the site, utilized moderators to monitor and enforce the rules of the site,
and acted if those rules were not followed ( United States v. Ross William Ulbricht; 2016; Maras,
2016). This enforcement of rules is essential as the success of dark markets essentially depends on
“trust [which] is critical when relying on others in high risk and vulnerable situations to deliver
goods and services, especially when the transactions are illicit in nature. Victims of non-delivery or
counterfeit items cannot report this to the police, because they have engaged in unlawful conduct”
(Maras, 2016, p. 344).
Did you know?
The US prosecution of Ross William Ulbricht brought worldwide attention to the darknet and the illicit
actives occurring within this space.
Want to learn more about Silk Road?
Read:
United States v. Ross William Ulbricht (2016), On Appeal from the United States District Court fo
Cyber organized crime activities
Cyber organized criminals have engaged in a variety of cybercrimes, including fraud, hacking, malware
creation and distribution, DDoS attacks, blackmail, and intellectual property crime (see Cybercrime
Module 2 on General Types of Cybercrime and Cybercrime Module 11 on Cyber-Enabled Intellectual
Property Crime), such as the sale of counterfeit or falsified trademarked products (e.g., apparel,
accessories, shoes, electronics, medical products, automobile parts, etc.) and the labels, packages,
and any other identifying designs of these products (Albanese, 2018; Europol, 2018; Broadhurst et al.,
2018; Maras, 2016). These types of cybercrimes cause financial, psychological, economic, and even
physical harm (especially counterfeit electronics and automobile parts, as well as falsified medical
products, defined by the World Health Organization as “deliberately/fraudulently misrepresent
their identity, composition or source,” see WHO, 2017), and have been used to fund other forms of
serious crime, such as terrorism (Binder, 2016).

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Criminal groups that engage in cyber organized crime also provide services that facilitate crimes
and cybercrimes (crime as a service), such as data and identity documents (e.g., financial and
health data, passports, voter registration identifications); malware (i.e., made to order or known malware
– e.g., Zeus, a banking Trojan, designed to surreptitiously capture users’ banking details and other
information needed to log in to online accounts); distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks and
botnet services; keyloggers; phishing/spearphishing tools; hacking tutorials; and information about
vulnerabilities and exploits and instructions on how to take advantage of these (Broadhurst et al.,
2018; Maras, 2016). For instance, the Shadowcrew, “an international organization of
approximately 4,000 members … promoted and facilitated a wide variety of criminal activities
[online] including, among others, electronic theft of personal identifying information, credit card and
debit card fraud, and the production and sale of false identification documents” ( United States v.
Mantovani et al., criminal indictment, 2014).
Organized criminal groups have also profited and/or otherwise benefited from illicit products and
services offered online. For example, the creator of the Butterfly Bot advertised this malware
online as capable of taking control of Windows and Linux computers (BBC News, 2013). The creator
of the Butterfly Bot also sold plug-ins that modified the functions of the malware, and also offered
to create customized versions of the malware for paying customers (FBI, 2010). Various online
criminal networks deployed the Butterfly Bot, the largest application of this malware resulted in
the Mariposa botnet, which infected 12.7 million computers around the world (BBC News, 2013).
Cyber organized criminalsalso provide bulletproof hosting services, which enable criminals to utilize
servers to commit cybercrime and does not remove criminal content from these servers (National
Cyber Security Centre, 2017, p. 8). Because of low trust in criminal transactions online and the
existence of scammers, escrow services provided by cyber organized criminal groups are high in
demand. These escrow services enable the funds criminal customers pay for illicit goods and services to
be sent only after they confirm that the goods or services they paid for were received in good order
(National Cyber Security Centre, 2017, p. 8).
Illicit goods and services are primarily purchased with cryptocurrency (i.e., “a digital currency that
utilizes cryptography for security reasons;” Maras, 2016, p. 337). There are numerous
cryptocurrencies on the market (e.g., Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, Ethereum, and Monero, to name a
few). While most darknet markets primarily use Bitcoin, other cryptocurrencies (e.g., Ethereum and
Monero) are being utilized, and in some cases, preferred over Bitcoin (US Department of Justice,
2017; Broadhurst et al., 2018; Europol, 2018). Certain darknet sites use what is known as a ‘tumbler,’
which sends ‘all payments through a complex, semi-random

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series of dummy transactions … making it nearly impossible to link … [a] payment with any
… [cryptocurrency] leaving the site’ ( United States v. Ross William Ulbricht, Criminal
Complaint, 2013, p. 14).
Furthermore, cyber organized criminals also provide money-laundering (i.e., “the process
whereby criminals conceal and legitimate illicit funds”) as a service (Maras, 2016). The proceeds
from the services provided by cyber organized criminals are also laundered. Money- laundering
involves three stages: placement of illicit proceeds in financial system ( placement), concealment
of the origin of illicit funds ( layering), and reintroduction of funds into the economy with
concealed origin ( integration) (UNODC, n.d.; also see Module 4 on Infiltration of Organized
Crime in Business and Government of the E4J University Module Series on Organized Crime).
Money is laundered utilizing digital currency (i.e., unregulated currency only available virtually);
prepaid credit and debit cards (even Bitcoin-based cards); gift cards; money mules’ bank accounts;
fake name/shell company bank accounts; PayPal accounts; online gaming sites (via virtual gaming
currency); and illicit gambling sites (McMullan and Rege, 2010; Maras, 2016; Europol, 2018).
According to Europol (2018), cyber organized criminals are also utilizing semi-automated
cryptocurrency exchanges (known as swappers) and decentralized (peer-to-peer) exchanges, which
do not require the identification and verification of users (pursuant to Know Your Customer
requirements for regulated financial institutions) to launder criminal proceeds (Europol, 2018).
Moreover, cyber organized criminals have found new and creative ways to launder money, such as
Uber “ghost journeys” (i.e., drivers receive funds from money launderers to accept ride requests
from Uber accounts at a prearranged price without the launderers actually using the service), and
fake Airbnb rentals (i.e., money launderers pay Airbnb owners without staying at their property)
(Busby, 2018). Furthermore, cyber organized criminals engage in microlaundering “a process whereby
criminals launder large amounts of money by engaging in numerous small transactions”. Online, these
types of transactions can occur on commercial sites, auctions sites, and even employment sites (Maras,
2016).
Furthermore, cyber organized criminals have utilized information and communication technology
(ICT) to facilitate various forms of traditionally offline organized crime activities, such as the
smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons, wildlife, drugs, firearms, and cigarettes
trafficking (see the E4J University Module Series on Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of
Migrants, the E4J University Module Series on Wildlife, Forest and Fisheries Crime, the E4J
University Module Series on Firearms and Module 3 of the E4J University Module Series on
Organized Crime) For instance, the smuggling of migrants, which is defined under Article 3(a) of the
United Nations Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land,

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Sea and Air of 2000, supplementing the Organized Crime Convention as “the procurement, in order
to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person
into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident”, has been facilitated by
smugglers’ use of ICT to advertise, recruit, communicate with, and ultimately sell their services to
migrants (European Commission, 2016; Maras, 2016; see Module 14 of the E4J University Module
Series on Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants for further information).
Likewise, ICT facilitates trafficking in persons (see Module 3 of the E4J University Module Series
on Organized Crime, and the E4J University Module Series on Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of
Migrants for further information on trafficking in persons), which is defined, under Article 3(a) of the
United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women
and Children, Supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime
of 2000, as the
“recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of
force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a
position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of
a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall
include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual
exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the
removal of organs.”
ICT has been used by traffickers to identify and recruit victims using false promises of work, fame, and
love, advertise victims, communicate with clients and other traffickers, plan, organize and arrange
meetings with clients and victims, and monitor victims’ whereabouts and control their activities
(Latonero 2011; Latonero 2012; Latonero, Wex, and Dank, 2015; Maras, 2016; Europol, 2017; Maras,
2017; see Module 14 of the E4J University Module Series on Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling
of Migrants).
In addition to the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in persons, traffickers have used ICT to
engage in wildlife trafficking (“illegal capture, trade, and possession of endangered species, protected
wildlife, and parts and products thereof”; Maras, 2016, p. 357) in contravention of the Convention
on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) of 1973 (see
Organized Crime Module 3 for further information on wildlife trafficking). Besides some studies that
have shown the sale of wildlife on social media platforms, auction websites, and commercial websites
(e.g., IFAW, 2005; IFAW, 2008; IFAW, 2014; Lavorgna, 2014; Maras, 2016), a few studies have
identified the use of the darknet by wildlife traffickers

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(e.g., Roberts and Hernandez-Castro, 2017; IFAW, 2017). For example, a report by the
International Fund for Animal Welfare, the US Department of State, and the African Wildlife
Foundation, revealed that rhinoceros, elephant and tiger parts were advertised and sold for bitcoins on
the darknet (IFAW, 2017). Nevertheless, “very little…[illegal wildlife trade (IWT)] has ended up on
the dark web;” in fact, the “listings of rhino horn or ivory are mostly found to be the by-catch of traders
who specialize in other illicit trades…This would suggest that there is so little fear of legal
enforcement against IWT on the surface web that traders do not think it is worth hiding their
activities on the dark web, as child pornographers, drug dealers and arms traffickers know they
must” (Haysom, 2018, p. 6).
Moreover, ICT has been used to facilitate drug trafficking, “the unlawful distribution and sale of
drugs in violation of existing national and international laws” (Maras, 2016, p. 365), such as the
United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961 (as amended in 1972), the Convention
on Psychotropic Substances of 1971, and the Convention against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and
Psychotropic Substances of 1988 (see Organized Crime Module 3 for further information on drug
trafficking). Research has shown that cryptomarkets, “a type of website that employs advanced
encryption to protect users’ anonymity” (Broseus et al., 2016,
p. 7), like the now defunct Silk Road (a darknet site), are increasingly being used by drug
traffickers to expand their operations by reaching customers all over the world (Barratt, 2012; Christin,
2012; Martin, 2014; Maras, 2014). These cryptomarkets minimize the risks of violence and
exposure to law enforcement (with the exception of the risks associated with the interception of package
deliveries; Décary-Hétu et al., 2016; Aldridge and Askew, 2017) that are present in offline drug
trafficking (Norbutas, 2018). These cryptomarkets also reduce the uncertainties associated with drug
markets, increase buyers’ access to sellers’ information and feedback from buyers on the quality of
the sellers’ products and trustworthiness (via ratings), and increase sellers’ access to clients and
buyers’ access to drugs (Cambini et al., 2011; Van Buskirk, Naicker, Roxburgh, Bruno, & Burns,
2016; Hardy & Norgaard, 2016; Przepiorka et al., 2017).
Furthermore, ICT facilitates firearms trafficking (see Organized Crime Module 3 as well as the E4J
University Module Series on Firearms for further information on firearms trafficking), which is
defined under Article 3(e) of the United Nations Protocol against the Illicit Manufacturing of and
Trafficking in Firearms, Their Parts and Components and Ammunition, supplementing the United
Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime of 2000, as “the import, export,
acquisition, sale, delivery, movement or transfer of firearms, their parts and components and
ammunition from or across the territory of one State Party to that of another State Party if any one
of the States Parties concerned does not authorize it in

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accordance with the terms of this Protocol or if the firearms are not marked in accordance with
article 8 of this Protocol [for the purpose of identification and tracking of firearms].”
Advertisements for the illegal sale of firearms have been placed on social media, auction, and
commercial websites, as well as darknet sites (Maras, 2016; GAO, 2017). For example, legally
acquired firearms in the United States have then been sold illegally by traffickers on darknet sites (e.g.,
Agora Market, BMR and Utopia) and shipped to numerous countries in Europe in contravention of
States’ laws (US Department of Justice, 2017).
Lastly, ICT has been used to facilitate the trafficking of cigarettes (see Organized Crime Module 3
for further information on counterfeit products trafficking, including cigarettes), which “occurs when
individuals, groups, or businesses seek to sell cigarettes in a manner that evades existing laws and
taxation rates or sell counterfeit cigarettes and cigarettes with counterfeit tax stamps” (Maras, 2016,
p. 364). Research has shown that cigarette trafficking has occurred on commercial and auction
websites, as well the darknet (Décary-Hétu, Mousseau, Rguioui, 2018; Maras, 2016).
Ultimately, the Internet has made the distribution of goods and services much simpler; in the cases of
counterfeiting and cigarettes (and depending on the part of the world, firearms), the existing legitimate
supply chain is abused by traffickers (Wilson and Kinghorm, 2015; Reichel and Albanese, 2013); in
other forms of trafficking, such as drugs, humans, wildlife, firearms, as well as in counterfeiting and
cigarette trafficking, the Internet removes barrier to entry into these forms of organized crime by
providing perpetrators with the knowledge and tools they need, and access to customers to sell their
illicit goods and services (Maras, 2016). While it is known that ICT facilitates the smuggling of
migrants and different forms of trafficking, the nature and extent of this smuggling and these forms of
trafficking online is currently unknown (Maras, 2016); the same holds true for other forms of
trafficking, such as falsified medical products, wildlife, cultural property as well as minerals and
metals.
Preventing and countering cyber organized crime
The measures implemented to counter cyber organized crime have focused on law enforcement
and prosecution efforts, technical solutions, and education campaigns. Criminal justice efforts include
the monitoring of online sites (both the visible and Deep Web) that facilitate cyber organized crime
and/or promote the services of cyber organized criminals, the take down of these sites, and prosecutions
of those engaging in cyber organized crime. Cases in point are the AlphaBay and Hansa joint United
States and Netherlands law enforcement operations. The US-led investigation targeted AlphaBay (
Operation Bayonet). When AlphaBay was seized, users (vendors and buyers) of the platforms
migrated to another

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cryptomarket, Hansa, which unbeknownst to them, was under the control of the Dutch police, who was
conducting an undercover operation to identify and disrupt illicit activities committed on the darknet
site (Greenberg, 2018). This migration enabled Dutch authorities to identify and investigate these
individuals before the platform was shut down in July 2017 (Europol, 2017).
The AlphaBay and Hansa investigations demonstrate the importance of international cooperation
on cyber organized crime cases. National capacity-building (discussed in Cybercrime Module 7) of
nonspecialized law enforcement (those not exclusively focused on cybercrime) in the form of training
and knowledge sharing relating to cyber organized crime investigations (discussed in Cybercrime
Module 5 and in Module 11 of the E4J University Module Series on Organized Crime) (UNODC,
2013; Europol, 2018) can assist in this endeavour
Undercover law enforcement operations involving the surreptitious monitoring of these sites and users’
activities, and the publicizing of these operations, are not only aimed at identifying and disrupting illicit
activities on these sites but also at eroding trust in these markets because trust is essential to the
success of dark markets and cryptomarkets (Lusthaus, 2012). The presence of scam dark markets
and cryptomarkets also erodes trust in these markets. For example, after the take down of Silk Road,
users migrated to other cryptomarkets (with their bitcoins), only to find out that these dark markets were
scams (the platforms shut down, taking the users bitcoins with them, also known as an exit scam)
(Maras, 2016).
Prosecutions of cyber organized criminals are aimed at holding perpetrators of illicit activities on these
sites and creators, administrators, and moderators of these sites responsible for their crimes.
Before taking his own life, Alexandre Cazes, the creator and administrator of AlphaBay, was
facing numerous charges relating to organized crime (that carried significant penalties) for his role (US
Department of Justice, 2017). The creator and administrator for Silk Road received a sentence of life
imprisonment without parole in the United States for his crimes (Greenberg, 2017). Nevertheless,
severe penalties for cyber organized crimeby no means constitutes a trend. Infact,penalties for
some types of trafficking (e.g., wildlife and cigarette trafficking) are low, making this a low risk,
and high reward illicit activity (Maras, 2016; Décary-Hétu, Mousseau, Rguioui, 2018).
Technological solutions can (and have been) implemented to counter cyber organized crime. Software
has been used to detect language in advertisements that points to trafficking. This software needs to be
updated regularly to anticipate the measures that traffickers take to evade detection by this
software. For example, human traffickers use emojis (e.g., growing

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heart) to depict a minor being advertised and wildlife traffickers “misspell… or use creative words
for their goods, for example, for the word “ivory,” a reseller might use ‘ivoree,’ ‘ivori,’ ‘i v o ry’ or
‘iv*ry’” or use the terms “white plastic” to refer to ivory or “black plastic” to refer to a rhino horn
(IFAW, 2008; Maras, 2016; Maras, 2018).
Facial recognition technology has also been deployed to identify trafficked persons, and sexually
exploited children (see Cybercrime Module 12 and Module 14 of the E4J University Module Series on
Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants). Image recognition software has further been
utilized to identify child sexual abuse material (see Cybercrime Module 12 on Interpersonal
Cybercrime). Image recognition software can also be used to identify wildlife and illicit goods in
images, such as drugs or firearms. This software can speed up the identification of illicit goods online
and flag illicit content for review by moderators of the online platforms (Drange, 2016).
Education campaigns have been used as a tool of (cyber) crime prevention and have focused on raising
awareness on cyber organized crime, by for example, informing the public about the ways in which
individuals can protect themselves from cybercrime, such as fraud, malware (e.g., remote access
Trojans, spyware, and ransomware), social engineering tactics (e.g., Europol’s Public Awareness
and Prevention Guides ), and the risks, warning signs, and consequences of being a money mule
(e.g., Europol’s Money Muling Guide ). With regards to cyber-facilitated crimes perpetrated by cyber
organized criminals (e.g., malware distribution and hacking), practical cybersecurity measures have
been proposed that are designed to identify vulnerabilities and prevent exploits of vulnerabilities,
such as strong authentication measures and intrusion detection and intrusion protection systems (see
Cybercrime Module 9 for further examples of cybersecurity measures).
Education campaigns have also focused on the adverse impacts of cyber organized crime. Cases in
point are the UNODC “Counterfeit: Don’t Buy Into Organized Crime” campaign (mentioned in
Cybercrime Module 11 on Cyber-Enabled Intellectual Property Crime) that covers the negative
impact of counterfeit trafficking (UNODC, 2014) and Europol’s Public Awareness and Prevention
Guides and awareness campaigns on online counterfeit goods (e.g., #dontfakeup ). INTERPOL’s
#StopIllicitTrade offline and online awareness campaign, which is part of its Trafficking in Illicit Goods
and Counterfeiting programme , not only provides information about the threats posed by the trade of
illicit goods but also on the links between this trade and organized crime.
Public awareness and education campaigns also focus on certain forms of trafficking. For
instance, the United Nations Blue Heart Campaign , seeks to raise awareness on human

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trafficking through advertisements online (e.g., social media, international organization websites
and government websites) and in person (e.g., billboards) (US Department of States, 2018), and
the United Nations #WildforLife campaign, raises awareness of wildlife trafficking issues and
seeks to mobilize public action to end this form of trafficking.
Case study (Uganda Revenue Authority Electronic Fraud)
In 2011, the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) discovered its computer system had been
compromised after finding a suspicious entry in the vehicle registration database. It followed an
internal investigation that uncovered one of the biggest cybercrimes the country ever experienced,
with losses calculated by the Public Prosecutor in Shs 2,4 billion (over 500,000 US dollars).
Preliminary investigations discovered that more than 150 cars had number plates, but none had paid
taxes. The bank receipts, which tax collectors had used to clear the vehicles, were forged. Investigators
followed the trail to establish ownership of the vehicles. According to URA documents, three of
them, which were supposed to be re-exported to Burundi, were in the hands of a company trusted to
Mr. Nsubuga.
The police arrested Mr. Nsubuga, together with three other persons (one of whom was later released), in
a car parked nearby the URA premises. Three laptops, an inverter, an external hard disk and other
electronic gadgets were seized. Within one week of the arrest of the suspects, a fourth man, Mr.
Byamukama was picked up at his place of work at MTN – a Ugandan major telecommunication
company – and his work computer was seized.
Forensic analysis of the electronic devices discovered that they had been used to gain access to URA
computers and servers. Specific programs used for vehicle registration and foreign trade procedures, as
well as staff user’s login access information, were also found in one of the sized laptops.
The four defendants were indicted on four charges derived from the Computer Misuse Act and two
charges drawn from the East African Community Customs Management Act.

The Anti Corruption Division of the High Court of Uganda sentenced Mr. Nsubuga and Mr.
Byamukama to 12 years of imprisonment on count II (Electronic Fraud, contrary to section 19 of the
Computer Misuse Act), 8 years of imprisonment on counts I,III, and IV (count I: Unauthorized use
and interception of computer services, contrary to sections 15(1) and 20 of the Computer Misuse Act;
Count III: Unauthorized access to data, contrary to sections 12(2)

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and 20 of the Computer Misuse Act; Count IV: Producing, selling or procuring, designing and being in
possession of devices, computers, computer programmes designed to overcome security measures
for protection of data, contrary to sections 12(3) and 20 of the Computer Misuse Act), and a fine of
4.500 US dollars. The other two defendants were acquitted.
MODULE 7. GENDER AND ORGANISED CRIME.
What is sex? What is gender? What is intersectionality? Why should we care?
In their ground-breaking article “Doing Gender” published in 1987, West and Zimmerman wrote:
“Gender is the range of mental and behavioural characteristics pertaining to, and differentiating
between and across, masculinity and femininity. In Western societies, the accepted cultural
perspective on gender views women and men as naturally and unequivocally defined categories
of being with distinctive psychological and behavioural propensities that can be predicted from
their reproductive function. (…) The structural arrangements of a society are presumed to be
responsive to these differences. (…) gender is used to structure distinct domains of social experience”
(128).
What West and Zimmerman argued back then along with many other gender scholars who have
followed since, is that people are not born with a specific gender that is in line with their sex. Sex refers
to the anatomical and physiological characteristics which differentiate between men and women.
Gender is instead learned and performed through social interactions. Expressions like ‘be a man’ or
‘act lady-like’ reveal the social construction (see definition in glossary ) of gender. Men and women
are expected to abide to specific yet gendered social practices and expectations. Gender is “a
socially organized achievement” (West and Zimmerman, 1987: 129). We expect and demand boys to
show “manly” traits, or for girls to dress or act “like ladies.” Not doing so has social implications.
Line with these views, the United Nations consider “gender” as referring to “the social attributes
and opportunities associated with being male and female and the relationships between women and
men and girls and boys, as well as the relations between women and those between men. These
attributes, opportunities and relationships are socially constructed and are learned through socialization
processes. They are context-, culture- and time-specific as well as changeable. Gender determines what
is expected, allowed and valued in a woman or a man in a given context. In most societies, there are
differences and inequalities between women and men in responsibilities assigned, activities undertaken,
access to and control over resources, as well as decision-making opportunities” (UN OSAGI, 2001).

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Gender and criminology scholars have also identified that these gendered expectations may lead people
to participate or engage in certain behaviours – for men, for example, to act violently or tough; for
women, to take on roles as care-takers. In general, gender is simply seen as a natural, inherent or
unquestionable fact that is also rooted in our biology. Many societies take the differences between
men and women for granted and see them as constants that do not change or evolve. Some societies,
however, have different approaches to gender, further demonstrating its socially constructed nature.
Some Native people in North America, for example, have used the term “Two Spirit” to
acknowledge the existence of multiple gender identities and expressions. The term does not refer to a
specific definition of gender or sexual orientation (see definition in glossary ). It is instead an
umbrella term that that brings together the specific names, roles and traditions Native people have for
their own two-spirit people. For the Navajo people, for example, two-spirit men and women carry
both a male and female spirit within them and are blessed by their Creator to see life through the eyes of
both – they are the perfect embodiment of two genders in one person (Enos, 2017). In other
communities, gender fluidity is completely tolerated, if not celebrated and gender equality is
considered part of the standard social norms. For instance, in the small indigenous territory of Guna
Yala – an archipelago off Panama’s eastern coast also known as San Blas
-, boys may choose to become Omeggid, literally ‘like a woman’, where they act and work like other
females in the community. This ‘third gender’ is a completely normal phenomenon on the islands,
and while female transitions to male are extremely rare, they are equally accepted (Gerulaityte, 2018).
Similarly, in the Istmo de Tehuantepec region in Mexico’s southern state of Oaxaca, three genders
exist: female, male and muxes. A muxe is any person who was born a man but does not act
masculine and they are not only respected but also an important part of the community. This third
classification has been acknowledged and celebrated since pre-Hispanic times and some legends
narrate that they fell out from the pocket of Vicente Ferrer, the patron saint of Juchitán de Zaragoza
(a small town in this region that celebrate the “Vela de Las Intrepidas” – Vigil of the Intrepids -, the
annual celebration of muxes each November), as he passed through town, which, according to
locals, means they were born under a lucky star (Synowiec, 2018)
Why do we mention these examples? Some scholars have argued that to understand men and
women’s experiences and impact on society we must move from focusing on [sexual] difference to
focusing on relations, on the claim that “gender is after all, a matter of the social relations within which
individuals and groups act (…) (Connell, 2004: 11). To put it informally, gender is not a mere
natural, inborn trait, but rather one that is learned and performed.

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Furthermore, the ways we perform gender can also be connected to our personal experiences as people
who have endured long standing, multiple, intersectional forms of discrimination.
Kimberly Crenshaw, an African American legal scholar, coined the term “intersectionality” in her
seminal article “Mapping the margins: intersectionality, identity politics, and violence against
women of color” (1989) to theorize the ways in which individuals may be subjected to multiple and
compounding forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia,
ableism, xenophobia, classism, etc.) that are interconnected. According to Crenshaw, these cannot
be examined separately from one another (for more in-depth reading on intersectionality, see Module
9 on Gender Dimensions of Ethics of the E4J University Module Series on Integrity and Ethics).
Since the term allows to combine different, intersecting experiences, it is an important and often used
concept in criminology. Intersectionality allows us to focus on the areas in which multiple, intersecting
forms of inequality affect people who have historically been disadvantaged and allows to bring into
the discussion on crime their experiences and perspectives (Castiello Jones, Misra, McCurley, 2013).
Crenshaw conceived the term aware of the need, articulated by other African American women, “to
think and talk about race through a lens that looks at gender, or think and talk about feminism
through a lens that looks at race” (Adewunmi, 2014). In other words, intersectionality describes
the overlapping and interconnecting social identities that often affect and inform how we move
within society (being female and poor and migrant; being male, foreign and disabled, etc.).
Intersecting identities are not mutually exclusive, but rather work together to construct how one is
perceived in society. Crenshaw proposed that our identities need to be considered simultaneously
so to reflect and analyse how power hierarchies shape our experiences (Cooper, 2016).
Why talk about intersectionality in a Module on gender and organized crime? Around the world,
the number of men and women in detention for their involvement in drug trafficking activities has
increased exponentially (UNODC (c), 2018). This phenomenon, however, cannot be explained only
by looking at the gender of those incarcerated. In many countries, men and women from indigenous
communities or ethnic minorities are overrepresented in the detention system. But many of them are
from countries that endured colonial traditions that created social hierarchies and contributed to
making those communities more vulnerable. Intersectionality brings forth the role gender,
ethnicity/race and other factors play in people’s dealings in front of the law. It also shows us how the
stereotypes we often construct regarding men and women, who also are from other races, nationalities
or who are part of other social and/or economic class, have an impact and shape their encounters with
the law. For example, using intersectionality we can provide improved explanations of the
increasing number of

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women serving time in prison, including for low-level drug dealing offences. Some
criminologists, and most media coverage, attribute the trend to women’s relationships with men.
Intersectionality allows us to provide a more nuanced explanation. Women are less likely than men to
be able to afford fines or to pay the surety required for bail, as generally speaking, women earn less
than men and have unequal access to educational and/or employment opportunities. Consequently,
they may also be less likely to be eligible for consideration for non-custodial sanctions and measures if
their economic and social vulnerability are assessed as risk factors (UNODC (c), 2018). While this is
clearly a generalization, the same trends hold true also for women in organized criminal groups.
Women in organized criminal groups, however, tend not only to be poorer or less educated. They are
also more likely to be immigrant, indigenous, disabled, and elderly (WOLA et al, 2013).
Furthermore, organized criminal markets tend to be highly gendered – that is, roles and tasks tend
to be assigned primarily along gender lines. This also translates into most positions of power or
control being held by men. Women are more likely to perform some of the lowest paid, riskier and
peripheral tasks in organized crime. This often means that they are more visible to the police and
therefore more likely to be detained. Furthermore, excluded from the circles of power, women are also
less likely to have knowledge or intelligence that would allow them to negotiate lesser sentences or less
strict terms (WOLA et al, 2013).
It is important to remember that intersectionality is not only about gender. It is about how multiple
systems interlock to create and perpetuate inequality. For example, many indigenous, aboriginal or
native people charged with crimes may be unable to communicate in languages different than
their own; this may limit their ability to get a fair trial. Unprecedented numbers of people are
moving as migrants, at times becoming entangled in criminal activities as a way to survive. The
inaccessibility to quality interpreters or to justice mechanisms that recognize these structural
challenges people face translate into a lack of access to justice (WOLA et al, 2013). In sum,
intersectionality can help us see how men as well as women are impacted by multiple and layered
forms of discrimination; it helps us provide more nuanced understandings of the reasons and
contexts behind crime. Not considering these multiple factors and layered forms of discrimination
exacerbates people’s vulnerabilities.
Why do we know so little about gender in organized crime?
Perhaps you are wondering: why have I not heard about gender and organized crime before? One
answer is that organized crime is clandestine, hidden and must remain that way to succeed.
Criminal actors consistently seek to protect their activities from detection by law

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enforcement, but also from competitors or any other actors who could uncover or dismantle them (see
Module 5 on this issue). These factors have resulted in researchers having limited access or ability to
conduct empirical work on organized crime and to fully understand the role of gender in organized
crime.
Having this in mind it should not come as a surprise that empirical, evidence-based research on
organized crime is limited. The over-representation of male researchers in organized crime research in
many countries has also shaped the agenda. For example, most studies on organized crime focus on
the experiences of men, and tend to explore their roles as leaders, heads or bosses (think of the many
reports on El Chapo, Pablo Escobar, Toto Riina, Al Capone or the numerous mobsters of the past).
Work on the experiences of men performing tasks considered of lesser importance or seen as less
charismatic or visible are much less common, as are women’s experiences. If present, women are
depicted primarily in function of their relationships with men – in other words, primarily as their
romantic interests (see Sanchez, 2016). Ethnographies that explore women’s experiences and
perspectives from a different angle are quite limited. Furthermore, perceptions of criminal activities and
spaces as dangerous may also limit the access granted to women researchers to study criminal
practices, on the grounds that their integrity or safety may be at stake. Fears over the potential risks
female scholars may face, however, also restrict women’s participation in and perspectives on
organized crime scholarship, which in many countries continues to be characteristically a male
dominated field.
There is also of course, the role played by the media in the way we think about gender. The general
public enjoys the stories of organized crime, even though they often provide stereotypical
assumptions concerning the people who participate in criminal markets. While many of these movies,
television shows, or documentaries are certainly entertaining, it is also important to be aware of the
messages that are conveyed by these representations and to find ways to engage with them
critically.
Political contexts and funding also play a role in the topics that become studied, and in the ways
these are included in policy and practice. A useful example is gang research, which is largely based on
data collected by the criminal justice systems, and in particular, law enforcement investigations.
For law enforcement, gangs constitute serious security threats and top enforcement priorities.
Agencies worldwide use significant human and financial resources to identify, target and eradicate
gang activity. Much of this effort has been focused on their identification, the documentation of
forms of inter-gang violence, and on the development of initiatives aimed to control and
dismantle them. Over the years, the gang

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phenomenon has been primarily understood as male and investigated as such. In the face of the
overwhelming violence often characterizing the world of gangs, it is all too easy to overlook the women
who are also stranded in this unsafe, unstable environment, even though around the world women also
participate within and do form their own gangs (Miller, 2001). Combined, these factors have led to
women’s experiences with and within gangs and their experiences with the criminal justice system to be
understudied.
Gender and organized crime
Bringing gender into the study of organized crime means more than just talking about how men
engage in some crimes or roles while women engage in others. It also means understanding how
gender itself is organized and performed by people and the implications thereof. As the examples in
this Module show, racism, sexism, classism (see definitions in glossary) and other long-standing
forms of discrimination shape people’s interactions with one another and the law. The use of an
intersectional, gender-based approach allows to provide more nuanced explanations of the
participation of men and women in crime, and the ways their roles are often connected to the long-
standing, structural conditions they face. People do not become involved in crime just because of
their gender or because of their place of birth or class. As discussed earlier, bringing intersectionality
to the analysis of crime can help further unpack the reasons behind criminality, and how men and
women are impacted differently by enforcement and control.
A useful approach in the study of organized crime is one that considers the gendered dynamics of
organized crime as well as how gender is operationalized in the organization and structure of organized
criminal groups. In this context, the different experiences of men and women within the realm of
organized crime deserve closer attention.
Drivers of recruitment and gender roles in organized criminal groups
If it is true that organized crime is often a men’s business and much of what is known has been
written by men and about men, it is equally true that better awareness is needed regarding the
construction of masculinity and how that affects men’s participation in organized crime. Masculinity –
the set of attributes, behaviours, and roles associated with boys and men
– is another social construction, which describes the qualities and attributes regarded as a
characteristic of men. The traditional unhealthy masculinity ideology is sometimes also called toxic
masculinity. Toxic masculinity includes, for example, suppressing emotions or masking distress,
maintaining an appearance of hardness and violence as an indicator of power. Toxic masculinity
emphasizes dominance, strength and sexual prowess.

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Much like for women, men’s decisions and behaviours are also profoundly shaped by rigid social
and cultural expectations. Broadening the discussion about how gender norms affect both women and
men helps us to better understand the complex ways that these norms and power relations burden our
society, and to more effectively engage men and boys in reflections about inequalities and change.
Men represent the overwhelming percentage of perpetrators of violent crimes and the reason for this
phenomenon is complex and cannot be explained by hormones or inherent gender-linked characteristics.
The reason might lie instead in a complex and layered construction of toxic masculinity,
encompassing the importance placed on physical strength and aggression, which can result in
partaking in criminal behaviour.
For instance, the work of Robert Henry (2015) (see the case study “Performing Masculinity: Indigenous
Street Gangs” in the exercise section) has shown how indigenous street gangs do reproduce a notion
of the ideal gang member: a tough, independent, emotionless and powerful man. However, men are
not simply born with those traits. Henry’s work shows that those behaviours are not a mere
consequence of being a man but are instead the reflection of high levels of violence and trauma,
also rooted in the colonial experience of Native Canadians. Gang members do engage in hyper-
violent activities. Yet, his research indicates, these actions are mechanisms developed to protect
themselves from further victimization.
While a focus on masculinity and crime has been an ongoing feature of popular culture and the topic
has received a great deal of academic attention (see, for instance, Messerschmidt and Tomsen, 2016),
not the same can be said about the gendered aspects of women's participation in criminal activities
and in organized crime. Women's involvement in organized criminal groups can take many forms. For
years, their role was narrated as that of mothers, sisters, wives or lovers of members or leaders of
organized criminal groups, often forced into a life of crime because of their proximity with the men in
their milieu. It is only in recent times that their involvement in organized illicit activity has been
recognized - and studied - in its own right. There is a growing number of examples of - or, perhaps,
growing attention paid to - women holding various positions in organized criminal groups, including
organizers, leaders, traffickers, recruiters and other participants in criminal organizations, such as
lawyers, messengers and accountants (see e.g. Arsovska and Begun, 2014; Sanchez, 2016).
While limited, research on women in organized criminal groups reveals the unique dynamics they face.
A study conducted by the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime and based on more
than 30 interviews with young girls and women, who participated in gangs in Cape Town, South
Africa, show that women and girls tend to be excluded from leadership

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positions. It also identifies the prevalence of sex and sexual violence in their interactions with other
gang members and with the criminal justice system. Furthermore, it shows that while they are not at the
forefront of "gang wars," women and girls are often the ones who face their consequences - for
example, incarceration, family separation, deprivation of their parental rights, etc. (Shaw and
Skywalker, 2017). This study also sheds some light on the factors that drive women to join an
organized criminal group. These findings are not necessarily representative of wider female
involvement in organized crime. Nonetheless, they provide very relevant elements for
reflection.
Drivers of recruitment of women into organized crime: Women in gangs in Cape Town, South Africa
The interviews conducted with girls and women who participated in gangs in Cape Town, South
Africa (Shaw and Skywalker, 2017) revealed several factors that can be understood as drivers of
women’s recruitment into organized crime:
Feeling of belonging and family
Many of the females interviewed noted that they joined the gang scene because it provided them with a
sense of belonging that they felt was missing from their often violent and dysfunctional biological
family life. Being part of these gang families also provided the women with security, such as
protection, and resources (e.g., money, clothes, and jewellery). Many of these females joined the
gangs through romantic relationships with male gang members.
Protection
A common reason for joining the gangs mentioned by the women was that the gangs offered them
protection. Being part of the gang “families” provided them with security in an often- dangerous
environment, in which women were particularly vulnerable to sexual and domestic violence. However,
many women noted that they were still subject to such violence from within the gang (e.g. their
partners who were gang members).
Resources
The gangs also offered these women resources they would otherwise be unable to afford or access, such
as jewellery, cars, and clothing. Access to these goods was often through the women’s boyfriends and
gang bosses.
“The path of least resistance”
Some women reported that joining a gang was easier than resisting – it was the path of least resistance.
Joining the gang also provided them with “immediate rewards” as a result.

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Under- and unemployment in the licit economy
Several of the women noted that the gangs offered more exciting opportunities with larger
rewards compared to the jobs available to them in the licit economy. The few ordinary
employment opportunities the women found, often in the retail sector, were described as “boring
and poorly paid”.
Substance abuse
According to some women interviewed, they saw joining gangs as one of the only options left to them
because of their struggle with substance abuse. Their addictions made it difficult to find steady and
licit employment and made them particularly vulnerable to violence. Gangs offered not only protection
(to a certain extent), but access to substances as well.
The use of a gender lens allows us to see that the experiences of women in organized crime are not
limited to being the romantic interests of men, and that men are not merely the heads of criminal
organizations. Many women and men, including many of whom are indigenous, migrant, or low-
income, often opt to engage in criminalized activities to support themselves and/or their families amid
a structural lack of opportunities like employment or education. Many women convicted for their
participation in organized crime have long histories of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, in
addition to having endured harassment and discrimination. Young men also tend to describe
experiences of physical abuse, lack of employment and educational options, criminalization as a
result of their class, race and gender (UNICEF 2017). Around the world young men are those
most likely to experience violence and, as numbers show, they account for the vast majority of
homicides globally, with almost half of all homicide victims aged 1529 and slightly less than a
third aged 30-44 (UNODC, 2013). At the time of the 2013 UNODC Global Study on Homicides, the
homicide rate for male victims aged 15-29 in South America and Central America was more than four
times the global average rate for that age group, likely because of the higher levels of homicide
related to organized crime in those regions. At the same time, women and girls accounted for 21%
of all the homicide victims, almost half of which were killed by their intimate partners or family
members. As these data highlight, intimate partner/family-related homicide disproportionately affects
women (UNODC, 2013).
This pattern of violence and discrimination was identified by another study focusing on women in gangs
in a different part of the world, the so-called Northern Triangle in Central America, comprising El
Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. This research, which also results from a series of interviews with
gang members conducted over three years, highlights that there are multiple economic, social and
personal factors to be considered in the decision to join a gang,

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but often their common backdrop – for men and women alike – is a context of social inequality, sexual
violence, child abuse, unemployment and easy access to drugs and firearms, generally combined with
an upbringing in gangs-ridden neighbours (Interpeace, 2013).
Men and women rituals of initiation into gangs (MS-13 and Barrio 18) in Central America
For their ritual of initiation – known as “chequeo” in some Central American gangs like Barrio 18 and
Mara Salvatrucha MS-13 – men are asked to endure a beating by gang members, the duration of which
varies and depends on the gang one wishes to join (for instance, the procedure would last 13
seconds if one were to join MS-13 and 18 for Barrio 18). Women, on the other hand, are given two
options: the first one is the beating, while the second one is to sustain sexual relations with multiple
gang members for an equal amount of time. Nonetheless, as gang members report, choosing the
second option would result in an immediate loss of respect, as enduring a beating shows strength,
honour and courage, thus reproducing a model of masculinity that is extremely important for the group.
Those women who opt for the sexual abuse will never be truly considered full members of the gang. A
third way to join the gang is by proximity, or in other words, when the woman is the girlfriend or
wife of the gang member. In such case, and if the member is important enough in the group, the woman
would not have to endure either ritual of initiation. These women are treated respectfully by the rest
of the gang, although they are expected to tolerate frequent infidelity and if they reciprocate the
practice, their punishment can be death.
Source: Interpeace, 2013
As these empirical studies show, women in gangs are often destined to cover that role of care- takers
that is typical of patriarchal societies: they look after the children as well as the sick and wounded,
cook for the group, take care of the needs of their man and stay loyal to him. At the same time,
organized criminal groups learned to take advantage of the lack of attention law enforcement and rival
gangs used to pay to women and started using them as arms and drugs traffickers, spies and messengers.
Their roles as messengers is particularly relevant when the leader of the group is a fugitive or put
behind bars. In some countries, organized crime-related offences carry with them a particularly
strict regime of detention, which limits visiting rights to family members and spouses (see, for
instance Article 41-bis of the Italian Prison Administration Act, a security regime for persons
convicted for particularly serious crimes, such as mafia-related crimes or terrorism, which aims to
ensure that they cannot keep contact with the criminal network they belong to. See also Panama’s
Executive Decree No. 72 of 2018, which created “Centres of Preventive Detention for Persons
Deprived of their Liberty Qualified as Extreme Dangerous” in connection with organized crime
offences: the

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first one of these centres was created in Punta Coco, an island off the Panamanian shore, declared
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Justice of the country and reopened in February 2019).
In such cases, women become their proxies and their role can range from simple message delivering to
handling the day-to-day operations of the group and, in some cases, they become the ad-interim leaders
of the group. At times, they manage to keep this position even when the man is released from prison.
Women from different parts of the world have been known to run successful organized criminal
groups. For some of them, crime is part of their family business - not seldom, for generations.
Others come in contact with it because of their personal experiences and the choices in their life.
The boxes that follow recount only few of their stories.
Women as leaders of organized criminal groups: Raffaella D’Alterio
Raffaella D’Alterio (see also the exercise section of Module 6) was the daughter of a Camorra boss
(one of the Mafia-type organized criminal groups having their base in and around Naples) and
later got married to one. She took over the leadership of the group when her husband, Nicola
Pianese, was arrested in 2002 and after his release, they started a bloody feud over control of the
criminal organization. Allegedly, the family war ended when Raffaella arranged to have her husband
killed. She remained the leader of the group until 2012, when the Italian Carabinieri arrested her
together with other 65 members of the group and confiscated property valued over $10 million.
The court brought over 70 criminal counts against them, including of criminal association,
extortion, drug trafficking and illicit arms possession.
Source: Di Meo, 2012
Women as leaders of organized criminal groups: Sister Ping
Cheng Chui Ping, also known as Sister Ping, ran a successful human smuggling operation between
Hong Kong and New York City from 1984 until 2000.
To the authorities, Ping was the “mother of all snakeheads,” a ruthless businesswoman who smuggled
what is believed to be thousands of Chinese people into the United States. US Prosecutors said
her smuggling ring amassed millions in profits in the two decades she operated, taking advantage of
the desperation of migrants. Furthermore, prosecutors said, for those who made the trip safely but could
not pay, Ping sent vicious gangs to abduct and beat, torture or rape them until they paid off their debts.
When the “Golden Venture,” a rusty freight ship loaded with 300 immigrants, ran aground off the coast
of New York in 1993, 10 people died. The accident was traced to Sister Ping, who

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became the enduring symbol of migrant smuggling. Her case also helped popularize the term snakehead,
from the Chinese translation for human-smuggler.
Source: United States Attorney Southern District of New York, 2006 Women
as leaders of organized criminal groups: Sandra Ávila Beltrán
Sandra Ávila Beltrán is a Mexican woman known for her involvement in the trafficking of cocaine
from Colombia through Mexico to the United States. Arrested in 2007 after several years of activity,
she was charged for her involvement in a conspiracy to commit drug trafficking and sentenced to
10 years in prison. By 2012, after serving a few years of her sentence in Mexico, she was
extradited to the United States, where she also faced charges for drug trafficking. In 2013, she was
deported from the United States and sent back to Mexico to face additional charges for money
laundering. She was finally released in 2015.
Ávila Beltrán gained notoriety given her leadership role. Known as “La Reina del Pacifico” – the
Queen of the Pacific – she was believed to run a successful cocaine trafficking operation in
cooperation with Colombian nationals through Mexico. Money laundering charges were also
filed against her.
There are two aspects important to consider in Ávila Beltrán’s criminal experience. One, the fact that
she occupied a position of power in a predominantly male business. Men are more likely than women
to perform leadership activities in drug trafficking. Yet Ávila Beltrán benefited from her own
family’s lengthy history in drug trafficking, and her multiple connections to establish a
successful and long-lasting operation along Mexico's western coast. Second, her role as a mother.
She could have remained successful and perhaps undetected by the authorities hadn't it been for
the kidnapping of her son, presumably by rivals. Fearing a negative outcome, Avila Beltran
contacted the authorities following the disappearance and her inability to come up with the ransom
that the kidnappers demanded. While Ávila Beltrán's son was released in a few days, the authorities
became suspicious of her and the reasons behind the kidnapping, leading to her becoming the target of
a long-term investigation into her drug trafficking activities that culminated with her arrest. For a video
of Ávila Beltrán reflecting on her life after prison, watch this video published by The Guardian.
Source: BBC, 2015
Motherhood has historically played a decisive part in defining the role and career of women involved in
mafia-type criminal groups. Typically, the woman has the pivotal role of custodian of the mafia-
cultural code as well as the task of transmitting those values to her children and encouraging them to
avenge the family when need be (Ingrascì, 2007). In addition, they have

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also covered two passive roles that are of undiscussed importance for the economy of the
organized criminal group: that of defenders of their man’s reputation as well as bargaining chips
for the establishment of new alliances through arranged marriages. Traditionally, mafia women were
completely dedicated to family and represented the architype of obedient wives and exemplary mothers.
To discuss the effective engagement of women in mafia-like criminal organizations, it is necessary to
recognize the “institutional” barriers they had to face to join the group. The active membership of
women in these criminal associations has developed unevenly across different groups as some, such
as La Cosa Nostra in Sicily, have a more rigid honour code, which did not allow women to cover
roles of relevance in the organization. Concurrently with the societal emancipation of women and
the tightening of the legislative system against organized crime in many States, the mafias opened
their ranks to women who today are found to be covering multiple roles, even some of fundamental
importance and recognized to bring value for these groups, such as financial managers of the
organizations (Ingrascì, 2007).
The examples highlighted in this section point to the fact that in different types of organized criminal
groups across the world women are assuming more prominent positions. At the same time, these
organizations often maintain patriarchal structures and are built on traditional masculine values.
Women need to adapt to succeed and often their fate remains connected with that of the man in their
life. Concurrently, as they are believed to be less suspicious in the eyes of authorities, they are often
doing a lot of the “dirty work” of the organization (e.g. moving drugs, transporting arms, gathering
intelligence on rival gangs), therefore taking many of the risks. Lacking knowledge of the
intelligence or insider information on the groups or people they work with also translates into them
being unable to negotiate reduced sentences during their criminal processes, in jurisdictions where
mitigation in exchange for cooperation is possible (Malinowska and Rychkova, 2015). This
phenomenon contributes to the rising female incarceration rates across the world.
In recent years, the number of women and girls in prison worldwide has increased by some 53% since
about 2000, a rise that cannot be explained in terms of global population growth (global population
rose by 21% between mid-2000 and mid-2016) (Walmsley, 2016). Worldwide, more than 700,000
women are held in penitentiary institutions, either as pre-trial detainees or sentenced prisoners. Many
of these women come from marginalized and disadvantaged backgrounds and are often characterized
by histories of violence, physical and sexual abuse (van den Bergh, Brenda J., Gatherer, Alex, Fraser,
Andrew and Moller, Lars, 2011). Disadvantaged ethnic minorities, foreign nationals and indigenous
people constitute a larger proportion of the female prison population relative to their proportion within
the general

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community, often due to the specific problems these vulnerable groups face in society (van den Bergh,
Brenda J., Gatherer, Alex, Fraser, Andrew and Moller, Lars, 2011).
For a more detailed analysis of the topic of gender in the criminal justice system, see Module 10 on
Gender in the Criminal Justice System of the E4J University Module Series on Crime Prevention and
Criminal Justice.
Gender and different types of organized crime
Organized crime takes many forms and manifestations. What are the gender dimensions and
considerations when it comes to some of the most commonly discussed forms of organized crime: drug
trafficking, smuggling of migrants, and trafficking in persons? Can some of the lesser explored
forms and manifestations of organized crime, such as trafficking in wildlife, cybercrime and
trafficking in cultural property, have a gender dimension? In the following we consider how the use of
a gender lens may help us better understand the gendered experiences of the men and women who
are charged with these offences.
Trafficking in persons
Trafficking in persons is primarily represented as a crime affecting women – specifically, young,
foreign women. There is also a tendency to equate trafficking in persons with sex trafficking. A
quick online search of the term will reveal thousands of webpages, movies, videos, books, and a
vast body of official, grey and academic literature outlining examples of sexual exploitation endured
by women and young girls.
And yet, as both informed consumers of information and organized crime enthusiasts we must be
critical of these characterizations. First, we must identify how they characterize gender. Trafficking
in persons does not only impact women. Furthermore, it involves a vast range of forms of exploitation,
not only sexual exploitation. Many victims of trafficking are men working in industries other than sex,
like agriculture or construction (Zhang, 2012). Recent data points to the fact that more than half of the
victims of trafficking for forced labour are men, while most of the detected victims of trafficking for
sexual exploitation are females (UNODC (a), 2018). As for other forms of exploitation, trafficking for
the removal of organs remains very limited in terms of numbers of detected victims. About 100 victims
of trafficking for organ removal were detected and reported to UNODC during the 2014-2017 period.
All of them were adults and two-thirds of them were men. While most of the victims detected
globally are trafficked for sexual exploitation, this pattern is not consistent across all regions.
Trafficking for forced labour is the most commonly detected form in sub-Saharan Africa and in
the Middle East, while in Central Asia and South Asia, trafficking for forced labour and sexual
exploitation are

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near-equally detected. An intersectional approach can guide us into uncovering how men and women
encounter and deal with exploitative labour conditions, the kinds of labour that are more likely to
lead to exploitation (UNODC (a), 2018).
Engaging critically with representations of crime can also help us see how they frame or
stereotype men and women from other parts of the world. For example, there is an abundant number of
reports on the cases involving women from the Global South who are victims of sex trafficking.
While sex trafficking does impact men and women, stereotypes concerning women often depict
them as sexually unrepressed and/or overtly sensual. They may also be characterized as naïve, unable to
make their own decisions, or easy to trick. Nigerian women, for example, have often been the subject of
reports and documentaries on sex trafficking in a way that portrays them as gullible, ignorant women
who are under the control of their captors, who have cast spells on them (juju), resulting in the
women being terrified of escaping situations of exploitation or abuse.
The experience of Nigerian women involved in sex work
Sine Plambech, a Danish researcher, has conducted extensive research among migrant women
from Nigeria, documenting their experiences of migration and sex work. Plambech’s work
demonstrates that debt, family pressures, limited employment and educational opportunities,
combined with the personal desire to travel to other destinations and/or countries rather than
witchcraft, are behind Nigerian women’s decisions to enter and remain in sex work (EASO, 2015).
Official figures also support the need to debunk stereotypes on the role of women in organized crime.
An analysis of the sex of those reported to have been investigated or arrested, prosecuted, and/or
convicted of trafficking in persons shows that most traffickers continue to be males. Nonetheless, in
2016, over 35 per cent of those prosecuted for trafficking in persons (of a total 6,370 people) and 38%
of those convicted (of a total 1,565 people) were females.
According to available data on crime, female involvement in trafficking in persons is higher than
for other types of crime (UNODC (a), 2018). Indeed, according to the United Nations Survey of
Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems (2006-2009), the average share of
reported female offenders for all types of crime is around twelve per cent (of convictions) (as cited in
the UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, 2012).
For an in-depth analysis of the topic of trafficking in persons and gender, see Module 13 on Gender
Dimension in Smuggling of Migrants and Trafficking in Persons of the E4J University Module Series
on Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants.

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Smuggling of migrants
In contemporary narratives of migration, smugglers occupy a special place. They are often
portrayed as black African, Muslim or Latin American men who exploit migrants’ vulnerability. Media
characterizations often singlehandedly blame them for the deaths and disappearances of migrants in
transit, or for sexually assaulting women.
It is true that the majority of those prosecuted for migrant smuggling are men. In the United States, and
according to figures from the US Sentencing Commission, men constitute about 70 percent of those
convicted at the federal level for smuggling (US Sentencing Commission, 2017). This number alone,
however, suggests the rest of those who are convicted – or approximately 30 percent – are women.
A closer look at these figures also shows that most of those who are convicted for the crime are
residents of the US-Mexico border area, where communities tend to have some of the highest levels of
poverty in the United States.
When we disaggregate official data in terms of gender and place of residence we can obtain a richer
picture of who the people behind smuggling are and the challenges they may face. Victoria Stone-
Cadena and Soledad Alvarez-Velasco (2018), for example, have found that indigenous Quichua
people from Ecuador are often among those working as smuggling facilitators. Their participation
in the market is derived from a long history of migration: because of discrimination, many
indigenous people were not allowed access to markets where they could sell and/or trade their
goods; furthermore, they also had limited rights to the land. This increasingly led them to opt for
migrating abroad – primarily to the United States - and in the process to become acquainted with
smuggling routes and mechanisms.
Not only do we see in Ecuador a market where indigenous people – rather than transnational organized
networks – facilitate and/or coordinate smuggling activities. We also find that smuggling is quite
gendered: tasks are divided primarily along traditional gender lines. Women provide room and
board for migrants in transit and care for those who become injured or sick during their journeys, while
men guide groups across remote or isolated areas, watch over migrants and drive them across
checkpoints (Sanchez 2016). Research conducted by DHIA – a human rights organization in Ciudad
Juarez, Mexico (2017) -, by the International Organization for Migration in Alexandria, Egypt
(2015), and by Antje Missbach and Wayne Palmer in Indonesia (2016), have also identified how
adolescent men are quite active in smuggling markets. While many of these young men become
involved in the facilitation of smuggling to pay off their own migrant journeys, for many others
participation in smuggling is a way to fulfil gender roles that they have not been able to exert, given the
lack of occupational and educational options in their communities (Sanchez, 2018). Many of these
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report their participation in smuggling allows them to provide for their families financially and to be
recognized as heads of the household and in the process, they gain access to social roles reserved
primarily for men.
This division of tasks along gender roles also results in the fact that women are more likely to be
convicted of smuggling friends and family members. Data from UNODC’s SHERLOC knowledge
management portal indicates smuggling cases with network-like operations are less common when
compared against smallscale, individual efforts to facilitate the smuggling of migrants. While men are
more likely to be involved in the first, women most often facilitate the smuggling of small numbers of
migrants, smuggling cases with network-like operations are less common when compared against
small-scale, individual efforts to facilitate the smuggling of migrants. While men are more likely to
be involved in the first, women most often facilitate the smuggling of small numbers of migrants,
including their own children and/or family members (Sanchez, 2018). In this context, it has to be
remembered that the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol - one of the three Protocols supplementing the
United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime and the principal legally-
binding instrument in this field - clearly identifies as a constituting element of the crime of
migrant smuggling the obtaining, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit (see
UNODC, 2017). As the Interpretative Note to this definition states, the reference to "a financial and
other material benefit" was included "in order to emphasize that the intention was to include the
activities of organized criminal groups acting for profit, but to exclude the activities of those who
provided support to migrants for humanitarian reasons or based on close family ties. It was not the
intention of the Protocol to criminalize the activities of family members or support groups such as
religious or non-governmental organizations" (UNODC, 2006). Nonetheless, some States around
the world have not included the "financial or other material benefit" element in their national
legislation and prosecute men and women for smuggling also in those cases. In such
circumstances, women can be charged with smuggling for providing room and board for their
children, husbands or partners, or for assisting people with whom they have long-standing relationships
leave countries afflicted by conflict or violence.
There is no statistical analysis on smuggling of the same extent than what we can access on trafficking
in persons. Nonetheless, UNODC published in 2018 the first Global Study on Migrant Smuggling,
which presents some estimates of the global number of migrant smuggled and offers some limited
disaggregation of data by sex and age. The study shows that most smuggled migrants are relatively
young men. That is not to say that women and children are not smuggled or do not engage in smuggling.
On some routes, notably in parts of South-East Asia, women comprise large shares of smuggled
migrants.

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Many smuggling flows also include some unaccompanied or separated children, who might be
particularly vulnerable to deception and abuse by smugglers and others. Unaccompanied or separated
children have been particularly detected along the Mediterranean routes to Europe and the land
routes towards North America (UNODC (b), 2018). For an in-depth analysis of the topic of
smuggling of migrants and gender, see Module 13 on Gender Dimension in Smuggling of Migrants
and Trafficking in Persons of the E4J University Module Series on Trafficking in Persons and
Smuggling of Migrants. .
Drug trafficking "
When most people picture the illicit drug trade - the traffickers, the gangs, the kingpins - they picture a
world comprised of men. But drugs and drug-related crime affect women uniquely. Understanding
how women fit into thisdynamic is crucial to getting drug policy right," state Kasia Malinowska
and Olga Rychkova in their study on the impact of drug policy on women (2015).
The narrative on drug trafficking tends to focus on the stories of high-profile drug traffickers and/or
dealers. Indeed, some of those high-profile traffickers are women. Simultaneously, it is important to
note that the economy of drug trafficking does not merely depend on the group's leadership. It in
fact relies on vast amounts of physical labour, which is often performed by women and children. In
some cases, women participate in the market having few other employment options in their
communities.
The experience of "cocaleras" in Colombia
For instance, DeJusticia, a think tank in Colombia, has been working with "cocaleras" (i.e.
women who pick coca leaves from which cocaine is extracted), to document their experiences.
DeJusticia's research (2018) has shown that women's income from coca picking is among the lowest in
the country, often not even surpassing the minimum wage. And yet, the women often invest in the
construction of schools, fixing of rural roads, or securing water for their communities. Because of the
war in Colombia, and the pervasiveness of sexism, the women also face discrimination and
harassment. Many of them have been victims of interpersonal violence, sexual assault and other
forms of gendered violence. These are topics that are not generally discussed in the way we talk
about organized crime. To know more about the experience of "cocaleras", see the case study
"The Place that Female Coca Growers Deserve" in the exercise section.
Around the world, the number of women becoming imprisoned because of their participation in drug
trafficking is increasing. While we often glamorize or romanticize women's experiences

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in drug trafficking and tend to explain their involvement because of romantic relationships with men,
the reasons to enter and remain in drug trafficking are quite complex. Not only are women more
likely than men to have limited access to employment and educational opportunities. They are
also more often among those facing financial precarity, in what we call the feminization of
poverty (see definition in glossary). Furthermore, as we have seen earlier, the roles women most
often perform tend to be low paying, high risk tasks that often make them also vulnerable to detection
by law enforcement and in turn, to entering the criminal justice system.
As a result, while the absolute number of men in detention for drug trafficking is high, the
proportion of people in prison for drug trafficking related convictions is higher among women.
Female incarceration in the Americas for drug-related offences
A report from the Organization of American States points to the fact that women in the Americas
are being incarcerated for drug-related offences in alarming numbers, with the highest
incarceration rates anywhere, along with Asia. While the number of men incarcerated is greater,
incarceration of women is growing at a faster pace. In Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, and Peru,
more than 60 percent of women prisoners are behind bars for drug-related offences (OAS, 2016).
None of this is to suggest that the experiences of men do not matter, or that they do not involve
risks for being involved in organized crime. As we have seen, men – particularly young people and
adolescents from low-income sectors – tend to be among those that are disproportionally impacted
by violence related to organized crime. They also tend to be the main target of state actions against
crime, like policing and surveillance.
Analysing the death and disappearance of young men in Argentina
The work of Natalia Bermudez (2016) has shown how crime control efforts have impacted young
men from working class sectors across Argentina. Each one of the deaths and disappearances of
young working-class men involved in drug trafficking that Bermudez documented was indeed tied
to their involvement in organized crime. Yet the violence that led to their deaths was not merely
connected to fights among rival groups or organizations, but also to police responses. Many of the
young men in her study had been killed by police forces. As Bermudez’s work shows, policing and
security also tend to have gendered implications. In sum, policing and criminalization often deepen
the violence and segregation that affect the most economically impoverished sectors of society,
where women and children are overrepresented. As Guerra states in his work on the involvement of
young men on the US-

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Mexico border in drug trafficking, these impoverished communities have become organized crime’s
disposable actors (Guerra, 2015).
Wildlife trafficking
Despite anecdotal evidence that the roles of actors in the wildlife trade are highly gender
differentiated, there appears to be very little attention paid to gender in research, policy and
programming in relation to this crime. In particular, the gender of those who produce, trade and
consume trafficked goods is hardly ever mentioned in the discussions on how to tackle the crime. A
notable exception is Pamela McElwee’s work (2012), which focused on the gender dimensions of
wildlife crime in Vietnam and points at genderbased, social traditions and/or expectations that often
prevent women from becoming involved in wildlife trafficking. According to McElwee, women –
because of tradition or gendered roles – are often prevented from hunting or collecting specific animals
or plants, unable to be away from their households for long periods of time, limiting their roles in
wildlife trafficking, but creating spaces for men. McElwee also points out that religious beliefs may
prevent women from being in contact with specific kinds of flora or fauna, and that some activities
may be perceived as too dangerous for women to be part of and are therefore performed by men
only. These observations, although relevant to understand interactions and dynamics in certain
contexts, would hardly explain the entirety of the phenomenon. There are in fact various cases in which
women have been charged with or found guilty of illegal wildlife trade. The most The most notable
example is perhaps that of the "Ivory Queen".
The "Ivory Queen"
Yang Feng Glan (a.k.a. the "Ivory Queen"), an elderly Chinese woman, may not be most people's
idea of the head of an ivory trafficking ring. Nonetheless, Tanzanian authorities arrested and
charged her with leading one of Africa's biggest ivory smuggling rings, responsible for trafficking
the tusks of more than 350 elephants worth 13 billion shillings ($5.6 million), illegally leaving
Tanzania for Asia. Tanzania's National and Transnational Serious Crimes Investigation Unit tracked
her for more than a year, and she was arrested after a high- speed car chase in October 2015. She was
charged with crimes spanning between 2000 and 2014 (BBC, 2016). In February 2019, a Tanzanian
trial court found Yang Feng Glan guilty and sentenced her to 15 years in prison. She was
convicted on the same charges as two other individuals thought to be key to the smuggling ring; all
three defendants have lodged an appeal against the ruling (Tremblay, 2019).
For a report of the story of the "Ivory Queen", watch this video by ITV News Correspondent John Ray.

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 Another under-studied element of this form of illicit trade is its consumers. Women and men might
purchase (illicit) wildlife products for different reasons. For instance, male consumers might believe that
specific goods can improve their social reputation and prestige or enhance their sexual prowess (e.g.
tiger bone in China) (Torres Cruz and McElwee, 2012). Some women might buy certain products
because they are believed to improve both the quality and quantity of breastmilk in lactating mothers
(e.g. pangolins scales). Both women and men might buy illicit wildlife products because of their
alleged medicinal properties (e.g. rhino horn is believed to be especially efficacious for rheumatism),
their religious significance (e.g. ivory in some cultures) or the status associated with a purchase (e.g.
rhino horn is expensive, can be hard to find and it is considered a valuable gift by some) (USAID,
2017).
Counter-trafficking efforts that do not acknowledge gender dimensions, or that do not incorporate
them into the understanding and development of strategies to fight the illegal trade are likely to fail.
Most reporting on wildlife trafficking focuses on documenting the extent of trafficking and/or its
economic value, but not the underlying reasons creating the demand for the goods or their social and
cultural value. For more information on wildlife crime, see the E4J University Module Series on
Wildlife, Forest and Fisheries Crime.
Cybercrime
Technology, and the proliferation of Internet-based technologies and services has led to the emergence
of new forms of crime. It is not uncommon to hear about people being scammed online, of hackers
breaking through complex security systems, or of online sexual exploitation of children. Many
trafficking and smuggling activities are also carried out online generating deep concern among the
authorities. The cyberspace also hosted various forms of gender- based cybercrimes (e.g., image-based
sexual abuse and sextortion), which are analysed in Module 12 of the E4J University Module Series on
Cybercrime.
There are several challenges to countering cybercrime, one being the very fact that it encompasses
a vast range of criminal activities and actors, who by operating online are better able to conceal their
identity (UNODC, 2017). Our knowledge concerning the people behind cybercrime and their gender is
for this matter limited and often the results are mixed (see, for instance, Module 11 of the E4J
University Module Series on Cybercrime regarding gender in digital piracy). Despite its ubiquity in
our everyday lives, cybercrime research is still scant, furthering our inability to understand how it
really operates and its reach.
Despite some exceptions, women have not been at the core of most ethnographic and/or other
forms of empirical research in the field. Those exceptions generally highlight that cybercrime is
predominantly conducted by males (Hutchings, 2016). The scarcity of reliable

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data has not stopped the media from imagining the world of cybercriminals. Women tend to be
characterized as beautiful, but socially-awkward computer experts, working in isolation, hidden in
a world dominated by men, and attempting to counter the more radical and damaging forms of
online crime (Potter 2016; Yver 2016; Rousseau 2017).
A not so-exciting explanation concerning the limitations on studies exploring the roles of women
in cybercrime involves the fact that around the world, women are underrepresented in science,
technology, engineering and math related occupations (OUS/EA, 2017; Microsoft, 2018). As we have
seen with other crimes, the lack of visibility of women in cybercrime may also be the result of
patriarchal values that permeate all levels of society, including science and technology. The
invisibility of women in cybercrime may not be merely the result of them being hidden, peripheral or
rare, but rather the outcome of the gendered beliefs that have long kept women out of fields
traditionally perceived as male. The lack of women in the field is also correlated to the fact that they
are often the target of discrimination, sexual harassment and hostile work environments. Gender is
perceived “more of an impediment than an advantage to career success” (Funk and Parker 2018).
Having this in mind, it should not come as a surprise that the available research on cybercrime captures
primarily the experiences of men. Back, Soor and La Prade (2018) summarize the motivations of
hackers as described in some of the ethnographic literature on cybercrime: the desire to show
destructive behaviour to release their anger towards other online users or organizations, to show
off their expertise in cyberspace and gain exposure, political goals, personal satisfaction and
monetary gain. Cybercrime may in this sense allow men in cybercrime to fulfil ‘gendered social
hierarchies and expectations, but also [to] reproduce and reinforce them’ (Miller and Lopez, 2015).
For more information on cybercrime, see the E4J University Module Series on Cybercrime.
Trafficking in cultural property
Despite the proliferation of international treaties and their increased endorsement by States, as well as
reports suggesting that the illicit trade in cultural property has escalated, rather than diminished (see
UN General Assembly Resolution 68/186 (2013); UN Security Council Resolutions 2199 (2015)
and 2347 (2017)), empirical research and quality data in the field is scant.
It should not come as a surprise that considering this, research on the gendered dimensions of
trafficking of cultural property is virtually non-existent. Yet some scholars have established
connections between violent conflicts in trafficking-prone areas and the role of women in
protecting the remains of the collective culture (de Vido, 2015). The damage and loss caused

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by armed conflict, however, are also followed by efforts from surviving or remaining residents to
make a living. Research does indicate that the global escalation of this form of organized crime is tied
to the breakdown of state-sponsored forms of security, the absence of which fosters the emergence
of actors that may seek to benefit financially or inkind from the sale of material heritage as a survival
mechanism (Yates and Mackenzie, 2018). Some of the steps connected to this form of trafficking,
however, do not have to be linked to organized crime. Instead, individual decisions that are
entrepreneurial in nature and driven by need seems to be behind a significant portion of the trade
(Yates, Mackenzie and Smith, 2017; Brodie, 2017).

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