Transnational organized crime: an

imminent threat to the nation-state?

 
Transnational organized crime has been a serious problem for most of the 20th
century, but it has only recently been recognized as a threat to the world order. This
criminality undermines the integrity of individual countries, but it is not yet a threat
to the nation-state. Failure to develop viable, coordinated international policies in
the face of ever-growing transnational criminality, however, may undermine the
nation-state in the 21st century. The "global mafia" has been sensationalized by an
international press eager for exciting copy, and intelligence organizations are
assessing the dimensions of international drug trafficking. (2) Furthermore, in
November 1994 the United Nations sponsored an international conference to
develop strategies to combat organized crime.(3) The European Union is also taking
numerous initiatives in this area. Attention to such a serious international problem is
long overdue.

The seriousness of the problem lies in the complexity of these organizations and their
activities, their global penetration and the threat they pose to democracy and
legitimate economic development - these organizations clearly undermine the
concept of the nation-state. For the purposes of this article transnational criminal
organizations will be considered as organized crime groups that 1) are based in one
state; 2) commit their crimes in one but usually several host countries, whose market
conditions are favorable; and 3) conduct illicit activities affording low risk of
apprehension.(4)

The complexity of transnational organized crime does not permit the construction of
simple generalizations; there is no prototypical crime cartel. Organized crime groups
engage in such widely publicized activities as drugs and arms trafficking, smuggling
of automobiles and people and trafficking in stolen art. They also engage in such
insidious activities as smuggling of embargoed commodities, industrial and
technological espionage, financial market manipulation and the corruption and
control of groups within and outside of the legal state system. Money laundering
through multiple investments in banks, financial institutions and businesses around
the globe has become a central and transnational feature of these groups' activities,
as they need to hide ever-larger revenues.(5)

Given this level of complexity and the political dynamics of the post-Second World
War period, it is hardly surprising that no comprehensive international effort against
organized crime has been initiated until recently. Transnational organized crime has
been problematic for the last couple of decades, but it is only since the end of the
Cold War that it has been addressed by so many countries and international bodies.
The recently mounted attack on transnational organized crime is, indeed, partly a
consequence of the need for security bodies (such as the CIA, KGB and the Mossad)
and international organizations (such as the U.N. and the Council of Europe) to
develop new missions in the post-cold War era. While the world focused on such
highly visible problems as the superpower conflict or regional hostilities, the
increasingly pemicious and pervasive transnational crime that now threatens the
economic and political stability of many nations was ignored. Long-term neglect of
this problem means that the world now faces highly developed criminal
organizations that undermine the rule of law, international security and the world
economy and which, if they are allowed to continue unimpeded, could threaten the
concept of the nation-state.

Factors in the Growth of Transnational Organized Crime

The fundamental forces underlying the growth and increasingly international

character of organized crime are the technological explosion and economic boom of
the post-second World War period as well as the current geopolitical situation, which
has been rapidly evolving since the collapse of the socialist world. The 1960s
represent the benchmark for many of the technological and economic changes
affecting transnational crimes, whereas the political changes contributing to the
spread of transnational crime emerged in subsequent decades.

The growth in transnational illegal activities is largely due to the increasingly

international scope of legitimate business and the ease with which it is conducted.
Significant technological advances most affecting the growth of transnational crime
include the rise of commercial airline travel, telecommunications (including
telephone, fax and computer networks) and the use of computers in business. For
example, between 1960 and 1974, the passenger volume on international flights
increased sixfold. By 1992, it had increased more than four times from 1974 levels.
This rise has contributed to an increasingly mobile world population, a mobility
equally enjoyed by carriers of illicit commodities and illegally obtained currencies.
Concomitantly, between 1970 and 1990, global trade increased ten times.(6)
Included in the increased flow of commodities are illicit commodities, as cargo is
loaded and unloaded at numerous points around the globe to avoid detection.
Advances in telecommunications and satellite technology, the development of fiber-
optic cable and the miniaturization and complexity of computers have resulted in a
communications explosion of international telephone calls, fax transmissions and
wire transfers. Crime groups benefitting from the "global village" and its instant and
anonymous telecommunications are able to operate without frontiers in
unprecedented ways. With such a volume of travel and trade, criminals or traffickers
are less easily distinguished from their fellow travellers or legitimate
businesspersons.

This leads to another factor underlying the increase in international crime - the
growth of international business. Organized crime groups follow the trends of
international business. The increasing economic interdependence of the world
requires both licit and illicit businesses to think internationally. Global markets have
developed in both legitimate goods and illicit goods, the most notable of which is the
international narcotics trade. Just as legitimate multinational corporations establish
branches around the world to take advantage of attractive labor or raw-materials
markets, so do illicit multinational businesses. Furthermore, international
businesses, both legitimate and illicit, also establish facilities worldwide for
production, marketing and distribution. These enterprises are able to expand
geographically to take advantage of these new economic circumstances thanks to the
aforementioned communications revolution.

The transnational character of organized crime means that these groups are now part
of the global political agenda. As they develop from their domestic bases, their
members establish links with fellow nationals living abroad. Tribal links among
similar ethnic groups in different countries may facilitate international illicit activity,
such as that seen across borders in Africa, the Golden Triangle and along the
southern frontier of the former Soviet Union (the Azerbaijani-Iran and Tadzhik-
Afghan borders).(7)

The collapse of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe and the dissolution of the USSR,
along with the rise of the European Union (E.U.), have resulted in loosely controlled
borders stretching from Europe to the Pacific Ocean and along a lengthy frontier
with Asia. Not only do indigenous crime groups operate with near impunity in these
areas, but a lack of coordinated policy facilitates illicit commerce in goods and
human beings as well as large-scale money laundering. The fall of communism has
lessened the ability of the border police and the ministries of internal affairs of the
successor states to strictly enforce former borders between the Asian successor states
and their neighbors. With these porous borders, the geographical boundaries of
individual countries are less important. For example, one goal of the E.U. - the free
movement of peoples and goods among its member-states - has benefitted these
states but has also been exploited by European criminals as well as numerous crime
groups from Asia, Africa, Latin America and, most recently, Eastern Europe.

Large-scale ideological confrontations have been replaced in recent decades by

hundreds of smaller ethnic conflicts in many regions of the globe. These small-scale
wars contribute to transnational organized crime by increasing the supply of
narcotics and by feeding the trade in arms. Developing countries with poor
economies that are dependent upon agricultural commodities are, with falling
agricultural prices, often attracted to drug cultivation as a means of obtaining cash.
This money can then be used to purchase arms for use in small-scale clashes.
Weapons for such purposes are often bought on the illegal arms market, which is
supplied by transnational organized crime groups.

However, despite the veritable explosion in illicit trade, the hegemony of global
international crime is exaggerated. Increasing links exist among different
international organized groups, but the idea advocated by Claire Sterling of a pax
mafiosa is premature.(8) The cooperation among organized crime groups from
different regions of the world enhances drug-trafficking capacities and permits the
smuggling of nuclear materials as well as trafficking in human beings, but it does not
yet present a consolidated threat to the established political order. An emerging pax
mafiosa is precluded because many parts of the world are not under the domination
of a particular organized crime group. The violence that exists in many Westem
European cities, particularly Berlin, is evidence that there is strong competition
among different organized crime groups for control.

Pernicious Consequences of Organized Crime

The costs of transnational organized crime are not exclusively monetary.
Transnational organized crime undermines political structures, the world economy
and the social order of the countries in which the international crime groups are
based and operate. The resulting instability invites more crime, and may preclude the
institutionalization of democratic institutions, the rule of law and legitimate markets.

Transnational organized crime undermines civil society and human rights. Through
intimidation and assassination of journalists in different countries, it limits freedom
of the press and individual expression. Transnational organized crime also
undermines the creation of civil society by dominating independent philanthropic
organizations and by intimidating citizens in movements that challenge organized
crime.(9) The infiltration of these groups into labor unions violates citizen labor
rights. International trafficking in prostitution and pomography demeans both
women and children, and the illegal smuggling of individuals to work in situations
where they are often exploited raises serious human rights concerns.

Transnational Crime, the State and World Order

The world political order becomes increasingly stable when more nations establish
democratic forms of government based on respect for the rule of law and government
through consensus. International organized crime is detrimental to existing
democracies and to societies in transition to democracy. Transnational crime
undermines the rule of law and the legitimacy of democratic government through its
corruption of individuals and the judicial process. Organized crime groups often
supplant the state in societies undergoing a transition to democracy, as their
representatives assume key positions in the incipient legislatures, which are
responsible for crafting the new legal framework for the society. Their presence
within legitimate state institutions undermines political stability because their goals
are to further their own criminal interests (illicit profits), not the interests of the
populace at large.

Transnational organized crime groups in both developed and developing

democracies seek to corrupt high-level government officials both on the groups'
home turf and in the countries where tbey operate. But these groups are often more
successful when their efforts are conducted in nation-states that are in political
transition, because the controls over the legal process do not yet function as they do
in a stable democracy.

Transnational organized crime groups also threaten states through their trafficking
in nuclear materials. Now the world no longer worries about nuclear conflict between
the world's superpowers. Instead, today the nuclear threat comes largely from the
arms trafficking of organized crime, a new and highly pemicious form of illicit
activity. The smuggling of nuclear materials may enable some country or crime group
to independently produce a nuclear weapon, therefore raising the potential for
nuclear blackmail.
Traditional scholarship applies the concept of the criminalized state to Nazi
Germany. Yet it is equally valid to apply the term to a state apparatus used to further
the goals of organized crime groups. This is evident in Italy where, for more than a
century, a symbiotic relationship has existed between crime and politics.(10) The
seven-time prime minister, Giulio Andreotti - the stalwart of the preeminent post-
war Social Democratic Party - has twice been deprived of his parliamentary
immunity for charges of collaboration with the mafia. Another former prime
minister, Bettino Craxi of the Socialist Party, has been officially charged with
corruption.(11) The consequences of the criminalization of the state in this way have
deprived Italy of influence commensurate with its role as a major economic power
and part of the G-7. As a noted mafia commentator has remarked, "Italy is
distinguished in Europe today by the penetration of organized crime into the
state."(12)

In Colombia, the relationship between the government and the drug cartels is not as
long-standing as in Italy, but its impact on the state and its democratic institutions
has been devastating . The democratic process and the rule of law have been severely
undermined in both the legislative process and the administration of justice. In the
former Soviet Union, the infiltration of organized crime into the political process may
lead to political clientelism and controlled markets, a variation on the old ways of
Soviet government, only without the official state ideology. As political campaigns
are financed by organized crime groups and their representatives or emissaries are
elected to parliament, the possibilities of producing the legal structure needed to
move a society from authoritarian to democratic rule are diminished.

Both Italy and Colombia have discovered that once organized crime penetrates the
state, the latter will not be able to disassociate itself from the former - even with the
investment of significant human and economic resources, the application of intense
repression and the sacrifice of many well-meaning individuals. The states of the
former Soviet Union that lack both the resources and the will to combat organized
crime as well as a history of uncorrupted government will be even more susceptible
to penetration than Italy or Colombia. While it is premature to classify any of the
successor states to the Soviet Union as mafia-run governments, some regions of
Russia as well as other newly independent states have already fallen under the
influence of criminal organizations.(13) The consequences of penetration by
organized crime into the state sector are devastating because the penetration
effectively prohibits the state from combatting these groups in their home territories,
thereby undermining legitimate democracy.

Transnational Organized Crime and the World Economy

The impact of international organized crime groups on the world economic order is
equally disturbing. Much has been written about the pernicious effects of
multinational corporations that transfer operations outside their domestic base,
often in order to elude domestic legal controls. A typical critique concludes that their
"exploitative effects on rich and poor nations remain unchecked."(14) International
law lacks the legal enforcement power necessary to control the behavior of such
international corporations. The innate obstacles to regulating the abuses of
multinationals (i.e., the diversity of laws among nations, the lack of extradition
treaties and the desire of developing nations to attract foreign capital at any cost) are
only amplified when replaced by illicit multinationals - transnational organized
crime.

The practice by transnational criminal organizations of large-scale money

laundering, of corrupting of key officials in economic and customs positions and of
utilizing banks, stock exchanges, venture capital opportunities and commodities
markets, all undermine the financial security of world markets. The pensions and
savings of ordinary citizens are also jeopardized when banks and stock funds collapse
because of illegal manipulation of the financial sectors by international organized
crime groups. The BCCI affair may be the most notable of these scandals, as its
fallout affected citizens in many different countries. But BCCI is unique only in its
complexity, the scale of its losses and the fact that it was uncovered, not in its
occurrence.(15)

Social Consequences of Transnational Crime

The social consequences of transnational organized crime are often understated. The
most visible manifestations - violence, drug trafficking, gambling, prostitution and
the spread of AIDS - all have a very direct effect on quality of life. Not only do
international crime groups run these illicit markets, but they coerce women and
children into prostitution and develop drug dependencies among millions of
individuals in order to create a market for their narcotics.

Furthermore, the control of illegal markets by international organized crime has a

ripple effect throughout the economy, thereby affecting the quality of life of even
those who do not participate in the market of illicit goods and services. Extortion
activities and the monopoly of markets increase the costs of consumer goods. As a
consequence, citizens pay more for food, housing and medical services.(16)

Because organized crime groups are oriented toward immediate profits, their
activities (cultivating drugs on unsuitable soil, harvesting and selling of protected
species and illegally overfishing sturgeon for the lucrative caviar trade) often lead to
serious environmental damage.

The Complexity of Organized Crime

Transnational organized crime groups thrive in different political environments,
functioning with diverse internal structures and in various areas of activity.(17) They
can be based in a collapsing superpower, the less-developed region of a developed
democracy and in a formerly stable democracy (see chart, p. 475). These groups vary
broadly in size as well as in their strategies for avoiding detection. International
organized crime groups are based on every continent, and their activities, while
probably most pronounced in the regions closest to their home country, are
increasingly conducted across continents, often in conjunction with organized
criminals from other parts of the world. Divergent legislative and enforcement
policies among nations permit these transnational crime groups to more easily elude
authorities by exploiting a particular environment. For example, the favorable
banking laws and the lack of enforcement have made several Caribbean islands
havens for money laundering.

The complexity and transnational nature of organized crime is probably most

apparent in the area of drug trafficking. But this activity is not confined only to the
distribution of narcotics, as these same networks can be (and have been) used to
smuggle weapons and may be used to smuggle nuclear materials with equal facility.
(18) Indeed, the trading and sale of drugs and weapons are often interrelated when,
as indicated above, drugs become the most easily obtainable currency.(19)

The multinational character of the drug trade is revealed in major cases detected by
law enforcement. For instance, one unmasked network involved criminals from
Pakistan, Africa, Israel, Eastern Europe and Latin America.(20) The drugs (hashish)
originated in Pakistan and were delivered to the port of Mombasa (Kenya), where
they were added to a cargo of tea and reshipped to Haifa (Israel) by way of Durban
(South Africa). At Haifa, the cargo was put onto a ship of a company that ships to
Constanza (Romania) every 15 days. From there, it was to have been shipped by an
Israeli-Romanian company to Italy, via Bratislava (Slovakia). The head of the
network was a German citizen of Ugandan origin who worked for a Romanian
company. This complex network was only disclosed because the perpetrators were
apprehended in Constanza.(21)

In contrast, another large drug seizure of 517 kilos of cocaine at a Polish port linked
Poles with Ecuadorians, members of the Cali cartel of Colombia and members of
Italian organized crime.(22) This drug network illustrates the collaboration of three
of the most important transnational organized crime groups - the Colombian, Italian
and the recently emergent Eastern and Central European (unlike the previous case,
which involved only a limited number of participants from these major crime
groups).

Apart from these three major transnational organized crime groups, the Chinese
Triads, Japanese Yakuza and various Nigerian groups are also significant players in
transnational organized crime.(23) Indeed, after the collapse of its oil boom, Nigeria
became one of the largest drug-trafficking nations in the world, strategically placed
as it is along ancient trade routes that link Asia and Europe as well as the Americas.
At present there is not one region in the world without an indigenous transnational
organized crime group or that is not plagued by the activities of an international
organized crime group.(24)

Structural Analysis of Three Transnational Organized Crime Groups

In order to illustrate the diversity and complexity of transnational organized crime,

three transnational organized crime groups - the Italian, Colombian and Post-soviet
mafias - are examined here according to similar key criteria. In fact, these three cases
show that the emergence of such groups is not a natural stage in the political and
economic transition from socialism to democracy, nor an inevitable stage in the
development of a third world economy. These three cases from different parts of the
world were chosen because they reveal the variety of political and economic
conditions under which organized crime groups can operate.

Analysis of the three transnational crime groups is based on the following criteria:

(1) longevity as an actor in organized and transnational crime

(2) stage in the country's development during which the group moved from domestic
operations to the international scene
(3) political structure of the country in which the group is based
(4) economic structure of the host country
(5) form and strength of legal authority in the host country
(6) forms and variety of illicit activities
(7) organizational structure of the criminal group and
(8) investment of the proceeds from organized crime

Italian Organized Crime

Italian organized crime groups among the oldest in the world and some of the first to
operate transnationality. They spread abroad more than a half century after they rose
to prominence on their home territory. Long-confined to the developing region of a
developed country, they have corrupted the democratic process in their society.
Engaging in a range of illicit activities, their strict hierarchies and codes of honor
have helped them resist law enforcement efforts. Only in the past 15 years has the
Italian government acquired the political will and the legal capacity to combat this
criminality - an attack that has been facilitated by the fact that much of organized
crime's wealth has remained on Italian territory.
Italian organized crime consists of four major groups, but the Sicilianbased mafia
(also known as the Cosa Nostra) is the most widely known and significant of these
groups. The Sicilian mafia also assumes the most important role in the economic and
political life of Italy.(25)

The origins of the Italian mafia at a particular moment in Italian state development
are reflected in the present-day relationship between the Italian mafia and the
government. In mid-19th century Sicily there was a simultaneous collapse of
feudalism and decline of the landed aristocracy, with the emergence of a new
bourgeoisie and the unification of Italy under a centralized state. The period in which
the mafia emerged (in the first half of the 19th century) was one of crisis in state
authority.(26) The mafia provided the protection that the central state was incapable
of giving to the emergent businesses and the new landholding class.(27) By the latter
half of the 19th century the mafia in Sicily had usurped many of the functions of the
state, resulting in a symbiotic relationship that has continually existed between the
mafia and the government, first at the regional level and, since the end of the Second
World War, at the national level.(28)

Italian organized crime developed and flourished because there were weakly
developed legal institutions and little respect for legal norms among the citizenry in
the four southern regions where organized crime was concentrated. The legal
apparatus of the Italian state was not able to penetrate the closely structured
organized crime groups, which are based an family ties.(29) The corruption of state
authorities by organized crime groups has undermined efforts to combat such
criminality.(30)

In the period before the Second World War, Italian organized crime groups began to
expand their influence outside their regional base in southern Italy and to adapt to
new markets. Italian organized crime, as a whole, was exporting members to the
United States, Latin America and North Africa.(31) There was another period of
migration in the 1960s to the United States, Canada, Germany and Australia to
pursue economic opportunities and to escape repression in Italy. There is now also
movement abroad in order to replace depleted cadres, reflecting the institutional
flexibility of these groups.(32) The Cosa Nostra has benefitted enormously from the
collapse of the socialist bloc in Eastern Europe, with its weak and easily penetrable
markets, and from the unification of Europe, which has reduced border controls and
has made movement of people (including criminals) and capital within Europe
easier.(33)

Mafia activity began in the early and mid-nineteenth century with extortion and the
provision of protection.(34) The Cosa Nostra accumulated great wealth by exploiting
state contracts and by participating in traditional illicit activities, such as prostitution
and gambling. The mafia moved into large-scale international activities through
cigarette smuggling in the 1960s, but soon moved into the much more lucrative
heroin market. In the mid-1980s, the mafia (the Camorra and `Ndrangheta groups
together) entered the cocaine trade.(35)

Nevertheless, the Italian government has been engaged in a major effort since the
1980s to rid the state of the criminality that has penetrated to the core of its political
process.(36) This recent attempt to fight the mafia has been a costly effort in tenus of
both human lives and economic resources. The state has made strides against
organized crime through new anti-mafia legislation, the establishment of a national
anti-mafia investigative board, laws against money laundering and the
implementation of a witness-protection program, which have led to the emergence of
hundreds of pentiti (mafia turncoats) and the freezing of the illegal assets of these
crime groups. By confronting these organizations through the legal process, its
finances and its "men of honor," the Italian state has crippled the mafia.

Colombian Organized Crime

Colombian organized crime has developed in what was once a stable democracy. Its
development into a major actor in international criminality in the past 20 years has
been very rapid and has been facilitated by the corruption of domestic law
enforcement. Its range of activities is limited and it has shown enormous flexibility in
entering new markets, forging critical alliances with other crime groups and using
sophisticated techniques to launder its money.

Colombian organized crime is quite different from the other organized crime groups
because it operates as a cartel - its business is the monopolization of the illicit
international narcotics trade. A cartel takes advantage of a monopoly position in the
market to artificially control prices and access to particular commodities. Trafficking
in illegal substances lends itself to monopoly control because there is no legitimate
commerce in these goods. Thus, cartel organizers control not only the availability of
the product, but its price and quality as well.(37)

Colombian organized crime - the Medellin and Cali cartels - emerged in the 1970s;
the cartels were, almost from their inception, international organizations. Initially,
drug traffickers from Colombia supplied cocaine to other criminal groups such as the
Cosa Nostra and various Mexican and Cuban gangs. The profitability of cocaine led
these traffickers to decide to run their own smuggling and distribution operations.
(38) Their producers were the less-developed countries of Latin America and, in the
initial stages, their primary market was the United States. In the 1980s, the
Colombian drug traffickers expanded their market to include Europe, and they
developed ties to the Italian mafia as well as such international criminal
organizations as the Nigerian mafia and the Chinese Triads. More recently, links
have been established with Eastern European and post-Soviet organized crime
groups.(39)
Before organized crime became such an integral part of the Colombian economy,
Colombia was one of the most stable democracies in Latin America. Presently, the
government and its legal institutions have been seriously undermined by corruption
and violent threats against members of the judiciary. Colombia, like other countries
in Latin America, has lost its political autonomy, as the United States has declared a
"war on drugs" and intervened by sending personnel to train local troops in anti-drug
operations.(40)

In Colombia, as in other countries in Latin America, the organized crime groups

spend large sums on financing electoral campaigns at the local and national levels,
and major drug figures in Colombia have campaigned for public office. Carlos
Lehder, a major drug lord, even organized a political party named the Latin
Nationalist Movement. This party's visible entrance into politics backfired because of
its close association with the drug dealers and, for the last decade, the crime groups
have participated more covertly than overtly.(41)

The criminal activity of the Cali and Medellin cartels is much more focused than that
of other international crime groups because they have managed to achieve
prominence in such a lucrative area. They trade in illicit drugs, but to accomplish
their objectives - which involve so much cash - they must also engage in large-scale
corruption and money laundering. The organizations are headed by family groups,
but membership is not restricted to family members, thereby permitting them to
acquire expertise as needed. The monopoly cartels are organized with strict internal
hierarchies, much as one would find in a large multinational corporation. However,
the two cartels are quite different in operating style. The Medellin cartel relies
heavily on violence, while the Cali group has been more concerned with penetrating
the legitimate sectors that allow its activities to be more sustainable.(42) The Cali
cartel's strategy has been more successful and, therefore, it presently enjoys
predominance.

Billions of dollars in profits from drug sales by the Colombian cartels have been
returned to the country, thus raising prices of both rural and urban real estate.
Approximately a third of the profit is also returned for the further development of
narcotics production.(43) Yet, the capital from organized crime activity has not led to
industrial development nor to a developed and diversified economy. This is because a
very significant share of the cartels'proceeds remains abroad, laundered into banks,
foreign real estate, securities and businesses throughout the world. Money
laundering is most often carried out in the Caribbean and in such international
banking centers as London, Switzerland and Hong Kong.(44) By the late 1980s, the
Medellin syndicate was reputed to have at least $10 billion worth of fixed and liquid
assets in Europe, Asia and North America.(45)

Post-Soviet Organized Crime

Post-soviet organized crime, operating in a declining superpower, has emerged in the
international arena with an intensity and diversity of activities that is unmatched by
most other transnational crime groups. Its international development has been
recent and rapid, but its roots date back at least 30 years. Emerging from a post-
socialist economy where the resources of the state are being rapidly redistributed,
particularly in Russia, these groups have the ability to capitalize on this
redistribution of wealth. Unlike Italy or Colombia, where crime groups have
reinvested significant resources in their countries, most of the wealth of post-soviet
organized crime groups lies in foreign banks and is beginning to be invested in
foreign economies. The law enforcement structures and the military, as shown in the
Chechnya conflict, are unable or unwilling to deal with this criminality.

While many crime groups specialize in a particular area such as drug trafficking,
prostitution rings, gambling or weapons smuggling, post-soviet organized crime is
involved in a full range of illicit activities, including large-scale penetration into the
newly privatizing (legitimate) economy.

Organized crime existed in the post-Stalinist period yet went unrecognized by the
Soviet authorities until the final years of the Soviet state. In the 1960s and 1970s,
individuals with access to socialist-state property embezzled raw materials and
consumer goods from the state and resold it at a profit to satisfy the extensive
consumer demand. These crimes linked them with corrupt state and Party
functionaries and members of the law enforcement community.(46) Just as the Cosa
Nostra spread to the United States from Sicily through the emigration of its
members, the emigration of hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens in the 1970s
and 1980s to Germany, the United States and Israel (some of them with criminal
records or ties to the underground economy) was the first stage in the
internationalization of Soviet organized crime.

The collapse of the Soviet state also provided a tremendous impetus for the growth of
these criminal organizations. With the opening of borders to Europe and Asia as well
as within the former USSR, criminals from Russia and the other successor states (in
conjunction with organized crime groups in Eastern Europe as well as in Asia) have,
in the past five years, taken advantage of this new freedom of mobility to become
major actors in transnational illicit activity.

In fact, privatization of the former Soviet economies invites participation by

organized crime. Privatization presumes the need for a large influx of capital,
transparent financial services and banking systems and increased international
trade. Because the capitalist infrastructure is not yet in place, however, a situation
exists that can be exploited by domestic and foreign organized crime groups, which
are more readily prepared to take capital risks than are legitimate investors.
Organized crime groups exploit the privatization of the legitimate economy by
investing illicit profits in new capital ventures, by establishing accounts in banks that
have little regulation or do not question the source of badly needed capital and by
utilizing new (and ancient) trade routes for movement of illicit goods.(47)

Organized crime exploits the legitimate economy while simultaneously limiting the
development of certain legitimate forms of investment and of open markets that
benefit a cross-section of the population. Thus, the economy becomes dependent on
illegitimate rather than legitimate economic activity, and illicit commodities become
central to the state's participation in international markets.[48] This is probably the
greatest threat to the post-Soviet economies - developing an economy such as those
of southern Italy and Colombia, which are heavily dependent on their illicit
commerce in drugs.[49] Russian organized criminals are trading valuable raw
materials and military equipment, the supply of which is not unlimited, and reliance
on this illegal commerce is already clear for many in the labor force. Furthermore,
many of the successor states are dependent on the foreign currency acquired through
this illicit trade.[50]

Despite the already active presence of Colombian and Italian organized crime in
Europe, post-Soviet groups have been able to exploit their strategic ports in the
Baltics, their long-standing links to Eastern Europe and the large number of military
and organized crime contacts and personnel in Germany to develop bases of
operation there. The links with foreign businesses, banks and communications
companies of members of the former Soviet security apparatus and the extensive
foreign deposits of the Communist Party (which these personnel know how to access)
have given post-Soviet organized crime groups the capital to initiate and run illicit
businesses.[51]

Post-Soviet organized crime exploits the world market for illicit goods and services
(prostitution, gambling, drugs, contract killing, supply of cheap illegal labor, stolen
automobiles, etc.) and extorts legitimate businesses in the former USSR and emigre
businesses abroad. These groups are also involved in such diverse activities as the
illegal export of oil and valuable raw materials, the smuggling of conventional
weapons, nuclear materials and human beings as well as the aforementioned
manipulation of the privatization process.

This unusual coalition of professional criminals, former members of the

underground economy and members of the Party elite and the security apparatus
defies traditional conceptions of organized crime groups, even though much of its
activity is conducted with the threat of violence. Yet, with the exception of the post-
Soviet narcotics trade, there is no cartel operating within the former Soviet Union.
[52] Different ethnic groups have formed loose associations within the former Soviet
Union and with compatriots abroad to market goods and launder money. They are
particularly active along the old silk routes, where drugs are transported from the
Golden Triangle, Pakistan and India. There are approximately 4,000 to 5,000
organized crime groups in the former USSR, of which several hundred have
international ties.
The penetration of the state by organized crime extends from the municipal level up
to the federal level, as organized crime has financed the election of candidates to, and
members of, the new Russian parliament as well as those of other countries of the
Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).[53] Russian organized crime groups
have in many ways supplanted the state in providing protection, employment and
social services that are no longer available from the government due to the
relinquishing of the socialist ideology and the state budgetary crisis.

The former Soviet Union has neither the legal infrastructure nor the law enforcement
apparatus capable of combatting organized crime; its centralized law enforcement
apparatus collapsed along with the USSR in 1991. The dissolution of the USSR into
numerous separate countries resulted in a lack of border controls, no consistent legal
norms and limited coordination among the justice systems of the successor states.
Criminals who maintain their ties from the Soviet period benefit from the lack of
legal regulations to launder their money both at home and abroad, as well as in
providing services to foreign criminal groups to help them launder money in the
former USSR.

The most lucrative element of post-Soviet transnational criminality lies in the area of
large-scale fraud against government. In the United States, organized criminals from
the former Soviet Union with links to Russia have perpetrated gasoline tax evasion in
the New York-New Jersey area on a mass scale.[54] In Germany, they have exploited
the subsidies the German state provides Soviet military troops.[51] Their
international prostitution rings, nuclear smuggling, counterfeiting rings, narcotics
trafficking and money laundering all make post-Soviet organized crime groups
increasingly visible actors on the international crime scene.[56] The increased
visibility of these groups, in particular, has triggered the beginning of a significant
international response by law enforcement groups, the banking community,
legislative bodies and international organizations, who have begun to share
information and conduct joint operations.

Case Analysis: Conclusions

As this case analysis has shown, policy solutions cannot be simplistically

homogeneous, since transnational organized crime groups can develop under a
variety of political and economic conditions. All benefit from weaknesses in law
enforcement in their home countries, and each exploits conflicting criminal, banking
and investment laws among nations. There is no form of government that is immune
to the development of a transnational criminal organization, no legal system that
seems capable of fully controlling the growth of transnational organized crime and
no economic or financial system able to resist the temptation of profits at levels and
ratios disproportionately higher than the licit system offers. The challenge is to use
this knowledge to develop a new policy approach to combatting transnational
organized crime.
As has been shown, transnational crime groups vary broadly as to their formation,
development and the stage of development at which they become international, as
well as the means chosen for carrying out their activities and exercising their power.
This diversity makes a policy response extremely difficult. Any policy must address
the similarities among such groups - their organizational flexibility, adaptability to
new markets and cross-group coordination.

Why, indeed, attempt such an effort? The remainder of this article will explore the
costs to our global society of transnational crime and argue that these costs are too
high to be ignored. International cooperation in developing an effective policy to deal
with transnational organized crime should be made a high priority for all nations.

Combatting Transnational Organized Crime

The very nature of transnational organized crime precludes any one country from
launching an effective campaign against transnational organized crime groups. The
extensive penetration of such groups into the state sector has immunized most
transnational groups from the law enforcement controls of their home countries.
These groups seek to corrupt the legal institutions in their host country or render
them impotent through targeted attacks on judicial personnel.[57] A criminal
organization that evolves into a transnational organized crime group has typically
been successful in controlling local law enforcement efforts against it. Once it does,
indeed, become international, the likelihood of enforcement diminishes radically.

Transnational organized crime groups are now so multinational that no state can be
fully responsible for their control. Moreover, even if one state cracks down on
members of a particular group, these members can frequently find refuge in another
country. The enforcement net, therefore, has too many holes. A successful policy
must seek international harmonization in legislation combatting crimes in the areas
of banking, securities law, customs and extradition in order to reduce the
opportunities for criminal activity and minimize the infiltration of transnational
organized crime groups into legitimate business. Extradition treaties and mutual,
legal assistance agreements among the broadest number of signatories would best
protect against the ability of transnational criminals to elude detection. All nations
must engage in a coordinated law enforcement campaign to ensure that criminals do
not exploit differentiated enforcement strategies.

International covenants established to address the human rights violations of

individual countries should be attuned to the threats to human rights caused by
international crime groups. Measures against transnational crime must be adopted
at the national level as well as at the level of regional organizations and international
organizations. Some such efforts to address this issue have already been made. For
example, the adoption in 1988 of the United Nations Convention Against Illicit
Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (referred to as the Vienna
U.N. Drug Convention) requires mutual legal assistance for signatories to the
convention. At the regional level, the Financial Action Task Force was created at the
Economic Summit of Industrialized Countries in 1989 to help develop an
international approach to combatting money laundering. Also, in late 1988 the
Group of Ten countries formed the Basel Committee on Banking Regulations and
Supervisory Practices, and the Council of Europe has a draft convention on money
laundering.[58] In 1990, the European Community adopted the European Plan to
Fight Drugs, which it expanded in 1992.[59] All of these efforts are important in
combatting the proceeds of international crime, but more must be done to attack the
illicit activities of organized crime.

Law enforcement coordination must also include the sharing of intelligence

concerning the activities of transnational organized groups. Law enforcers from over
100 countries recently met in Naples to share information gained by those working
on transnational organized crime (or the activities of particular regional crime group,
such as those originating in the former Soviet Union). International protocols to
further this type of intelligence sharing should be developed.

But limits to such efforts exist both at the national and international levels. The
United States, for example, is currently vulnerable to the activities of transnational
crime groups because federal law prohibits the CIA from sharing with the FBI
intelligence that it collects abroad. Many legal protections of the American citizenry,
particularly relating to rights of the accused, are exploited by the sophisticated
transnational criminals.[60] Other gaps between intelligence gathering and law
enforcement are similarly exploited by transnational groups throughout the world
and need to be addressed by legal reforms.

In its policy proposals for the 1994 Ministerial Conference on Organized

Transnational Crime, the United Nations suggested that the fight against these
groups could be enhanced if more nations adopted legislation on the criminalization
of participation in a criminal organization (which does not exist in many criminal
codes), the criminalization of conspiracy, the prohibition of laundering of criminal
profits and the implementation of asset forfeiture laws.[61] The U.N. proposals also
advocated the adoption of a convention specifically targeting transnational organized
crime.[62] While an increasing number of countries is likely to participate in such
international efforts, there will always be countries whose governments are too
corrupted, or whose legal infrastructures are too primitive, to allow them to actively
participate in such arrangements. Gaps will invariably remain in the international
legislative framework and, consequently, in the enforcement capacities of different
states.

Conclusion
Transnational crime is growing rapidly and represents a global phenomenon that is
penetrating political institutions, undermining legitimate economic growth,
threatening democracy and the rule of law and contributing to the post-Soviet
problem of the eruption of small, regionally contained, ethnic violence. The
disintegrative effect on the world political, economic and social order transcends the
enforcement ability of the nation-state. Indeed, the post-Soviet proliferation of
nations, each with its own legal system, and the lack of adequate border controls in a
vast geographical area (that now stretches from Western Europe to the Pacific
borders of the former Soviet Union) alter profoundly the previous world order, based
on relatively stable, unified nation-states.

Another example of this geopolitical change is the European Union, which seeks the
free movement of people and goods on a regional, transnational basis. In addition,
the weakness of many states in Africa, parts of Latin America and Asia that are
unable to control their existing boundaries or establish proper internal legal
institutions, creates vast areas in which boundaries are no longer delineated by walls
- these borders have become webs of netting through whose holes passes the
business of organized crime.

The threat to nation-states is not that of a single monolithic international organized

crime network. Rather, the multiplicity of politically and economically powerful
crime groups operating both regionally and globally is what truly threatens to
undermine political and economic security as well as social well-being. In many
countries, the infiltration of organized crime into political structures has paralyzed
law enforcement from within. Moreover, in many parts of the world where organized
crime groups have supplanted the functions of the state, they impede economic
development and the transition to democracy.

There is no economic incentive for transnational organized crime to diminish, and

thus it will continue to threaten the world order into the 21st century. The
international community must act now to abate the pernicious social, political and
economic consequences of transnational crime, but with the understanding that it
will never be able to achieve fully consistent policies and enforcement that will
eradicate transnational organized crime, though such efforts can constantly thwart it.
Internationally coordinated legislative and law enforcement efforts must be
supported, because in their absence transnational crime threatens to penetrate to the
core of democratic states. The corrupting influences of organized crime on the
democratic governments of Colombia and Italy make this all too clear. Unless
countries are willing to make a concerted effort against organized crime, they
threaten their own institutions and the stability and longevity of their governments.

(1) The author wishes to thank Karen Telis for her perceptive comments on this
manuscript and Ernesto U. Savona for many of the ideas on the enforcement policies
needed to combat transnational crime.

(2) See, for example, the cover story by Michael Elliott et al., "The Global Mafia,"
Newsweek (I 3 December 1993) pp. 18-31; and Claire Sterling, Thieves' World (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).

(3) Giuletto Chiesa, "Piovra, tentacoli sul mondo," La Stampa, 20 November 1994, p.
12; Ottavio Lucarelli and Conchita Sannino, "Ecco I'internazionale anticrimine," La
Repubblica, 21 November 1994, p. 9; Giovanni Bianconi, "A Napoli la Babele
antimafia," La Stampa, 22 November 1994, p. 13; Alan Cowell, "Crime Money
Troubles the U.N.," New York Times, 25 November 1994, p. A17.

(4) Phil Williams, "Transnational Criminal Organizations and International

Security," Survival, 36, no. 1 (Spring 1994) pp. 96-113. Examples of illicit activities
with low risk of apprehension include smuggling, money laundering and
international drug trafficking.

(5) Ernesto U. Savona and Michael Defeo, Money Trails: International Money
Laundering Trends and Prevention/Control Policies, Helsinki Institute for Crime
Prevention and Control (HEUNI) Report prepared for the International Conference
on "Preventing and Controlling Money Laundering and the Use of Proceeds of Crime:
A Global Approach" (Courmayeur: June 1994).

(6) See Williams, "Transnational Criminal Organizations and International Security."

(7) On Africa, see Tolani Asuni, "Drug Trafficking and Drug Abuse in Africa," in
Criminology in Africa, ed. Tibamanya mwene Mushanga (Rome: United National
Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, 1992) pp. 117-9. Alain Labrousse
and Alain Wallon, eds., La Planete des drogues: organisations criminelles, guerres el
blanchiment (Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1993) discusses the international trafficking in
drugs. The Afghan-Tadzhik border also sees a very significant illegal arms trade.

(8) See Sterling, Thieves' World.

(9) In Sicily, organized crime has intimidated the heads of civic organizations that
challenge the mafia, and in Russia, it is infiltrating the emergent charitable
organizations.

(10) Paolo Pezzino, Una certa reciprocita difavori mafia e modernizzazione violenta
nella Sicilia postunitaria (Milano: Franco Angeli, 1990) p. 39.

(11) Alan Cowell, "Italians Voting Today, with Mafia's Role a Top Issue," New York
Times, 27 March 1993, p. 10.

(12) Pino Arlacchi, "La grande criminalith in Italia," La rivista dei libri (April 1993) p.
38.

(13) See for example, "Authorities Deny Existence of Anti-Sobchak `Center' in St.
Petersburg," Foreign Broadcast Information Service (hereafter called FBIS), 17 June
1993, pp. 101-2.
(14) William Greider, Who Will Tell the People: The Betrayal of American Democracy
(New York: Simon and Schuster Touchstone, 1993) p. 377.

(15) For more information on the 1992 Bank of Credit and Commerce International
(BCCI) affair, see Nikos Passas, "I Cheat, Therefore I Exist: The BCCI Scandal in
Context," in International Perspectives on Business Ethics, ed. W.M. Hoffman, et al.
(New York: Quorum Books, 1993).

(16) As a result of one medical fraud case perpetrated by international groups of

criminals, the insurance premiums of each citizen in the state of California rose by 15
percent. In Russia, it is now estimated that prices are 20 to 30 percent higher
because of organized crime control of consumer markets. Housing costs are also
raised as organized crime groups acquire real estate in the capital and many other
cities. See for example, "Crime, Corruption Poses Political, Economic Threat,"
Current Digest of the Soviet Press, 46, no. 4 (23 February 1994) p. 14.

(17) Robert J. Kelly, "Criminal Underworlds: Looking Down on Society," in

Organized Crime: A Global Perspective, ed. Robert J. Kelly (Totowa, NJ: Rowman
and Littlefield, 1986) p. 14. Some groups, such as the Cosa Nostra, are based on a
pyramidal, hierarchical structure. Others are based on clan structures, such as some
of the Caucasian groups, which are looser confederations. Some avoid detection by
corrupting law enforcement structures, while other groups hire sophisticated
professionals to develop complex paper trails and money laundering strategies.

(18) A Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) program is forthcoming that will document
the alleged involvement of organized crime groups in the smuggling of nuclear
weapons.

(19) See Williams, "Transnational Criminal Organizations and International

Security"; and Labrousse and Wallon, eds., La Planete des drogues.

(20) Alain Labrousse and Alain Wallon, eds., Etat des drogues, drogue des etats:
observatoire geopolitique des drogues (Paris: Hachette, 1994) p. 252. (21) ibid.

(22) ibid., p. 258.

(23) "Problems and Dangers Posed by Organized Transnational Crime in the Various
Regions of the World," background Document for World Ministerial Conference on
Organized Transnational Crime (Naples, 21-23 November 1994).

(24) At first the Nigerian government was tolerant of this activity. See Asuni, "Drug
Trafficking and Drug Abuse in Africa," p. 120. Attention should also be paid to the
American mafia, the Turkish, Pakistani and Golden Triangle drug-trafficking
organizations (Burma-Thailand-Laos). For a discussion of these groups see
Labrousse and Wallon, Etat des drogues, pp. 139-62, 289-95. There are also smaller
Australian groups that operate on a more regional basis. For a discussion of these,
see Ian Dobinson, "The Chinese Connection: Heroin Trafficking between Australia
and Southeast Asia," Criminal Organizations, 7, no. 2 (June 1992) pp. 1, 3-7; A.W.
McCoy, Drug Traffic: Narcotics and Organised Crime in Australia (Sydney: H&per
and Row, 1980).
473 (25) The four major groups are: the mafia or Cosa Nostra in Sicily, the
Neapolitan Camorra, the `Ndragheta based in Calabria and the lesser-known Sacra
Corona in Apulia. Furthermore, the Cosa Nostra may have the greatest longevity of
all these crime groups, although the origins of the Camorra can be traced to more
than a century ago. For a discussion of these groups, see Adolfo Beria di Argentine,
"The Mafias in Italy," in Mafia Issues: Analyses and Proposals for Combatting the
Mafia Today, ed. Ernesto U. Savona (Milan: International Scientific Professional
Advisory Council of the United Nations Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
Programme [ISPAC], 1993) pp. 22-3.

(26) Anton Blok, The Mafia of a Sicilian Village, 1860-1960: A Study of Violent
Peasant Entrepreneurs (New York: Harper & Row, 197 5) p. 10.

(27) For a fuller discussion of this, see Louise I. Shelley, Mafia and the Italian State:
The Historical Roots of thc Current Crisis," Sociological Forum, 19, no. 4 (1994) pp.
661-72. Raimondo Catanzaro, Men of Respect.- A Social History of the Sicilian Mafia
(New York: Free Press, 1992); Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia: The Business of
Private Protection (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).

(28) Nicola Tranfaglia, La mafia come metodo nell'Italia contemporanea(Bari:

Laterza, 1991); Nicola Tranfaglia "L'onorevole e cosa nostra," La Repubblica, 13 May
1994, pp. 28-9.

(29) The state also had difficulty penetrating the Cosa Nostra because it has strict
initiation rights, a pyramidal structure and organization tied to a specific territory.

(30) Shelley, "Mafia and the Italian State; The Historical Roots of the Current Crisis."

(31) Marie Anne Matard, "Presenza mafiosa in Tunisia?," presented at a conference

entitled "Interpretazioni della mafia tra vecchi e nuovi paradigmi" (Palermo: 27-29,
May 1993); Dennis J. Kenney and James O. Finckenauer, Organized Crime in
America (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1995) pp. 89-109, 230-55.

(32) In Guido M. Rey and Ernesto U. Savona, "The Mafia: An International

Enterprise?," in ed. Ernesto U. Savona, Mafia Issues (Milan: ISPAC, 1993) p. 74, the
authors discuss the fact that there was movement from Sicily to the U.S. in the 1960s
and again more recently. The same is occurring in Germany.

(33) Giovanni Falcone, "PM: Una carriera da cambiare," MicroMega (March 1993) p.
45.

(34) See Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia.

(35) The wealth of the mafia is disbursed in four different ways. The smallest portion
is used to buy drugs to further its transnational criminal activity. A second, more
sizable part is deposited in foreign banks or is invested in Latin America, and more
recently in the Eastern bloc because of the possibility of investing funds without
detection. A third portion is invested in the Sicilian economy in housing
construction, agriculture and tourism. The last portion lies in Sicilian banks. See
Arlacchi, "La grande criminalita in Italia," pp. 209-10; and Rey and Savona, "The
Mafia: An International Enterprise?," pp. 74-5 regarding development of the drug
trade.

(36) See Tranfaglia, La mafia come metodo nell'Italia.

(37) Labrousse and Wallon, La planete des drogues, p. 32.

(38) See Kenney and Finckenauer, Organized Crime in America, p. 263.

(39) This is the major theme of Sterling's Thieves' World, and she documents these
links extensively throughout the book.

(40) For a discussion of this, see several articles in the collection of Ana Josefina
Alvarez Gomez, Trafico y consumo de drogas: una vision alternativa (Mexico City:
Universidad Nacional de Mexico, Escuela Nacional de Estudios Profesionales
Acatlan, 1991); Ethan A. Nadelmann, Cops Across Borders (University Park, PA:
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993); Alan A. Block, "Anti-Communism and
the War on Drugs," in Perspectives on Organizing Crime: Essays in Opposition
(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991) pp. 209,218-22; and Labrousse and
Wallon, Etat des drogues.

(41) See Rensselaer W. Lee III, The White Labyrinth: Cocaine and Political Power
(New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1990) pp. 130-9.

(42) ibid, p. 111.

(43) ibid, p. 3.

(44) See Savona and Defeo, Money Trails, p. 65.

(45) See Lee, The White Labyrinth, p. 3.

(46) Vyacheslav Afanasyev, "Organized Crime and Society," Demokratizatsiya, 2, no.

3 (Summer 1994) p. 438.

(47) Research by the Russian Academy of Sciences Analytical Center indicates that
55 percent of joint-stock companies, and 80 percent of voting shares, were acquired
by criminal capital, according to Ninel Kuznetsova, "Crime in Russia: Causes and
Prevention," Demokratizatsiya, 2, no. 3 (Summer 1994) p. 444. (48) For a fuller
discussion of the economic consequences, see Louise I. Shelley, "Post-Soviet
Organized Crime: Implications for Economic, Social and Political Development,"
Demokratizatsiya, 2, no. 3 (Summer 1994) pp. 344-50. (49) See Rensselaer Lee and
Scott MacDonald, "Drugs in the East," Foreign Policy, no. 90 (Spring 1993) p. 96;
Lee, The White Labyrinth; and Pino Arlacchi, Mafia Business: The Mafia Ethic and
the Spirit of Capitalism (London: Verso, 1986) pp. 187-210. (50) Seija Lainela and
Pekka Sutela, "Escaping from the Ruble: Estonia and Latvia Compared," paper
presented at the Third EACES workshop on "Integration and Disintegration in
European Economies: Divergent or Convergent Processes?" (Trento, Italy: 4-5 March
1993). (51) For a discussion of the participation of some of the security apparatus in
money laundering, see Vladimir Ivanidze, "Kto i kak otmyvaet `griaznye' den'gi i chto
izvestno g-nu Zhirinovskomu ob etoi `stiral'noi mashine," Liternaturnaia Gazeta, 5
October 1994, p. 13. (52) "Increased Drug Trade Expected, Antidrug Campaign
Urged," FBIS Daily Report, 29 May 1992, pp. 48-50. (53) "Duma Adopts
Anticorruption Bills," FBIS Daily Report, 16 May 1994, p. 32; A. Uglanov,
"Prestupnost' i vlast'," Argumenty i Fakty, no. 27 (July 1994) pp. 1-2. (54) Russian
crime groups, in collaboration with Italian organized groups in the U.S., found ways
of selling gasoline without paying the required federal taxes. "The Russian Con Men
who Took California," Newsweek (13 December 1993) p. 28; State of New Jersey
Commission of Investigation, Motor Fuel Tax Evasion (Trenton, NJ: State of New
Jersey Commission of Investigation, 1992). (55) "Alarm, jetzt kommen die Russen,"
Der Spiegel, no. 25 (1993) pp. 100-11. (56) On narcotics trafficking, see Dimitri De
Kochko and Alexandre Datskevitch, L'Empire de la drogue: la Russie et ses marches
(Paris: Hachette, 1994). On money laundering, see Ivanidze, "Kto i kak otmyvaet
`griaznye' den'gi i chto izvestno g-nu Zhirinovskomu ob etoi `stiral'noi machune," p.
13. (57) In Colombia and Italy, famous judges have been assassinated, and in Russia
there are currently 1,000 vacancies in the judiciary, many of them unfilled due to
intimidation of judges by members of organized crime groups. (58) See Savona and
DeFeo, Money Trails, pp. 32-7. (59) Labrousse and Wallon, La Planete des rogues, p.
162. (60) For example, wire transfers made by money launderers cannot be easily
followed up by law enforcers because of legal protections on bank accounts.
Therefore, a transfer that goes through four different countries in four hours would
take American law enforcement one year to trace. (61) "National Legislation and Its
Adequacy to Deal with the Various Forms of Organized Transnational Crime:
Appropriate Guidelines for Legislative and Other Measures to be Taken on the
National Level," background document for the World Ministerial Conference on
Organized Transnational Crime (Naples, 21-23 November 1994) p. 23. (62) "The
Feasibility of Elaborating International Instruments, Including Conventions, Against
Organized Transnational Crime," background document for the World Ministerial
Conference on Organized Transnational Crime (Naples, 21-23 November 1994) pp. 7-
12.