Transnational Organized Crime (Catch All)

[Stan]

Jed,
Thanks for the interesting posting !
I work with most of Estonia's various LE agencies and we often attend conferences and seminars together, due in part to Estonia's unique structure. EOD and post blast falls under Rescue, not LE and demining falls under Rescue, not the military.

We used to do several Marcus Evans' seminars/conferences. Not that they were bad (contacts are also considered a good thing), but not relative to our cultural problems and not cheap either.

Estonia is among the few success stories. Most of our OC are in hiding or returned to the 'mutha land'. Going from an IED or military ordnance-related explosion a day in 95 to less than 2 a year in 2006. Latvia and Lithuania are dealing with this 10-fold as we type.

We really never had the sex slave problems; most of those were volunteers from due east.

I will gladly pass on this info to our LEs if you could send me the link(s).

Regards, Stan

[Jedburgh]

I will gladly pass on this info to our LEs if you could send me the link(s).

Stan - check your PMs.

[Jedburgh]

UNODC, 17 Jun 10: The Globalization of Crime: A Transnational Organized Crime Threat Assessment

In the past quarter century (namely, since the end of the Cold War), global governance has failed to keep pace with economic globalization. Therefore, as unprecedented openness in trade, finance, travel and communication has created economic growth and well-being, it has also given rise to massive opportunities for criminals to make their business prosper.

Organized crime has diversified, gone global and reached macro-economic proportions: illicit goods are sourced from one continent, trafficked across another, and marketed in a third. Mafias are today truly a transnational problem: a threat to security, especially in poor and conflict-ridden countries. Crime is fuelling corruption, infiltrating business and politics, and hindering development. And it is undermining governance by empowering those who operate outside the law....

[Bill Moore]

Some updates that are relevant to old and emergent security challenges, and the nexus between irregular adversaries and organized crime.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100952225

Organized crime: World’s most lucrative criminal activities

Cross-border organized crime is big business, worth about $2.1 trillion per year, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC), equivalent to 3.5 percent of world GDP in 2009. That's more than six times the world's development aid budget for that year, and equivalent to about 7 percent of global exports of merchandise.


Perhaps unsurprisingly, trafficking illegal drugs is the most lucrative form of illicit business, constituting about half of all proceeds from transnational organized crime. However, plenty of money is also being made from less high-profile enterprises, such as smuggling natural resources such as timber, oil, and gold and other precious metals.

To learn more about this, and other highly profitable criminal activities, read on.

Crime gangs cash in on Europe's budget flights

This type of organized crime group flies gang members to a country in the morning to carry out a succession of quick-fire robberies, before flying out in the evening. They hand over their ill-gotten gains to criminal partners in the local area, and regularly take a different flight to a different country the following day. Private homes, businesses, high-value cars, machine parts and increasingly commodities like metal are all targets

.

We need to make sure there is a swift exchange of intelligence - so we can get ahead of the game and identify these gangs before they strike, or at least get on the back of them as soon as they have done," he said. And make sure we have the means possible by which we can coordinate multinational arrest operations in the end... not working at a national level, but as a connected community.

http://www.stripes.com/news/middle-e...ships-1.245154

Terrorism newest worry for cargo ships

“A rocket fired by suspected al-Qaida terrorists at a COSCO container ship as it transited the Suez Canal in August apparently hit a container crammed full of smuggled cigarettes,” the JOC article said, citing a report by the Irish Independent.

The illicit cargo, with an estimated street value of nearly $6 million, was headed to a phony furniture company in Dundalk, Ireland, part of a smuggling operation supposedly run by businessmen with links to the former members of the Irish Republican Army.

According to Irish press reports, the cigarettes were believed to have been acquired in Vietnam and were heading for Rotterdam, the Netherlands, when the ship was attacked. A tracking device was placed on the container at the Port of Rotterdam and tracked by satellite through Dublin Port and on to a village near Dundalk in County Louth, where four men were arrested.

This is serious, but on the lighter side it appears AQ exposed an international cigarette smuggling operation. Do they get reward money for this?