Jane's Intelligence Review - Serious and Organised Crime

Serious and Organised Crime

*On dry land - The onshore drivers of piracy
The surge of pirate attacks off the Horn of Africa has focused greater international attention on the perennial problem of maritime piracy. According to International...
03-Jul-2009

*Fourth column - Italy keeps a rein on smallest mafia group
While Italy's three main mafia groups, the Costa Nostra (Sicily), the Camorra (Campania) and the 'Ndrangheta (Calabria), are frequently the focus of media and police...
16-Jun-2009

Blood in the water - Loan sharks benefit from the economic crisis
Loan sharking has always been a feature of the illegal financial market, but the combination of the ongoing credit crisis and the seasonal impact of...
26-May-2009

*Held to ransom - Kidnapping trends in Latin America
Kidnapping in Latin America is one of the most popular crimes, being carried out both by major criminal organisations and by low-level groups and targeting...
11-May-2009

*Profit and loss - Russian crime network faces business strain
Group profile Group name Tambov, Tambovskaya Level of threat High Status Active Date of founding 1988 Group type Decentralised network While Russian organised crime ...
27-Apr-2009

*Back from the dead - New criminal groups emerge in Colombia
When Daniel Rendón Herrera, alias 'Don Mario', was discovered by Colombian police crouching under a palm tree in a rural region in the northwestern province...
17-Apr-2009

The oldest trade - Sex trafficking into the US
The United States' position as the world's largest economy means that it has long been a destination for human traffickers keen to exploit the various...
23-Mar-2009

*Chasing shadows - Philippine military hunts mystery criminal group
Differentiating perpetrators of violence in Mindanao is difficult given the number of criminal actors in the area. Against the backdrop of Islamist insurgent groups regularly...
05-Mar-2009

*Caught in the web - Brazil continues to be a centre of cybercrime
With criminals increasingly turning to cybercrime as a relatively low-cost, risk-free source of financial gain, Brazil has become established as one of its main global...
23-Feb-2009

*Safety net - Cybercriminals adapt to new security measures
On 16 September 2008, a cybercriminal using the nickname Master Splyntr announced he was closing a forum on the website www.darkmarket.ws, saying: "Recent events have...
09-Feb-2009

*A to Z of crime - Mexico's Zetas expand operations
The Zetas is the first criminal organisation in the Americas to have been formed by former military personnel and defectors from a regular army. Mexico's...
30-Jan-2009

*Piracy's rising tide - Somali piracy develops and diversifies
The alleged payment of a USD3 million ransom and the subsequent release of the Saudi-owned MV Sirius Star on 9 January is the latest ...
16-Jan-2009

*Cocaine coasts - Venezuela and West Africa's drugs axis
A light aircraft registered in Venezuela and bearing Red Cross insignia landed on 3 July 2008 at an unlit runway at Lungi International Airport near...
02-Jan-2009

*Blood flowers - Afghanistan's opium industry remains robust
Despite efforts by international and Afghan forces to crack down on poppy cultivation, the illegal trade remains a major sector of Afghanistan's economy and a...
11-Dec-2008

*Kill or cure - The proliferation of counterfeit medicines
Drugs and pharmaceuticals counterfeiting has increased as a proportion of counterfeit goods. Interpol's Operation Storm, carried out between April and September 2008, co-ordinated more than...
05-Dec-2008

*Prison break - Mexican gang moves operations outside US jails
The Mexican Mafia is the oldest prison gang in the United States. Originally it consisted of young Mexican-American gang members, who organised in a Californian...
02-Dec-2008

*The Italian connection - Calabrian mafia's power base has expanded
Of Italy's four major mafia-like organisations, the 'Ndrangheta is the least well known, despite its global reach and involvement in a wide variety of criminal...
29-Oct-2008

*Gear shift - Drivers of criminal change in Bulgaria
Vehicle theft has been a staple of European crime for decades, encouraged by the different legislation and availability between markets in Western Europe and Soviet-dominated...
27-Oct-2008

*People carriers - Human trafficking networks thrive in Turkey
Despite the current global economic downturn, illegal immigration flows and people trafficking networks are continuing to operate at similar levels. There is evidence to suggest...
23-Oct-2008

*Murder, Inc. Crime and disorder in urban Guatemala
Hopes that Guatemala's security situation would improve following the signing of the Peace Accords in 1996 have proved misfounded. Although the Accords formally ended the...
14-Oct-2008

*Beyond borders - Moldova becomes trafficking hub
The collapse of the Soviet regime facilitated the growth of organised crime throughout Eurasia, but Moldova was one of the countries that suffered least from...
03-Oct-2008

*Family fortunes - The American mafia is down but not out
The Italian-American Cosa Nostra criminal organisation, comprising of a number of largely autonomous 'family' groupings in various locations across the United States, dominated organised crime...
30-Sep-2008

*Old tricks, new dogs - How to regulate cybercrimes
Cybercrime terms Definition Advanced fee frauds (also known as Nigerian or 419 frauds) Deceive victims into paying fees in advance to ...
15-Sep-2008

*Jailhouse stock - Prison gang's criminal authority grows in Brazil
From its foundation as a São Paulo prison gang in 1993, the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital: PCC) has become one of Brazil's...
11-Sep-2008

*Turkish delight - Turkey's drug gangs branch out
Turkey's strategic location and its proximity to opium-producing areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan have long made it an important transit country for drug trafficking and...
29-Aug-2008

*Blood brothers - The rise of Chechen organised crime
Chechen organised crime is not a specific gang so much as a distinctive criminal subculture. Generally known as the bratva ('brotherhood' - although it is...
28-Aug-2008

*Trends in the north - New actors in Italy's drugs market
Historically, the Italian illegal drug market has been divided on a regional basis between the country's four main mafia groupings: the Cosa Nostra, the Camorra, ...
14-Aug-2008

*Black ice - Methamphetamines on the rise in Mexico
Methamphetamines have not garnered the same media attention in the United States as more traditional drugs such as cocaine, marijuana and heroin. This is ...
14-Aug-2008

*Phoenix potential - The Zemun Clan's ongoing influence
On 12 March 2003, Serbian Premier Zoran Djindjic was killed by a high-powered sniper rifle as he moved from his limousine into the government building. ...
15-Jul-2008

*Stricken Kiev - Ukraine emerges as drug trafficking hub
The traditional route for opiates being trafficked from Afghanistan towards Turkey and Europe is through Iran, Pakistan and central Asia. However, increased seizures of heroin ...
15-Jul-2008

*Paradise lost - violent crime in the Caribbean
The Caribbean's image as a holiday paradise is belied by rising rates of violent crime across the region. Data published by the UN Office on ...
23-Jun-2008

*The Italian job - the diversification of Italian crime
While the majority of national and international attention is focused on Italy's four main mafia groupings (Cosa Nostra, 'Ndrangheta, the Camorra and Sacra Corona Unita), ...
17-Jun-2008

*House of Bamboo - Taiwan's criminal folk heroes
When former United Bamboo leader Chen Chi-li, or 'the Duck' as he was also known, died of pancreatic cancer in Hong Kong on 4 October ...
11-Jun-2008

*Bodies of evidence - Decoding tattoos used by criminal gangs
Tattoos date back at least 5,000 years and have been used to identify tribes, classes and identities around the world. Within criminal organisations, they have ...
10-Jun-2008

*Firing line - Tracking Mexico's illegal weapons
The launch of a major security initiative by Mexican President Felipe Calderón in late 2006 may have disrupted the activities of the major drug cartels,...
15-May-2008

intelligence review