Offender structures, generallyspeaking, serve one or more of three functions: economic, social, andquasi-governmental. Economic criminal structures aim at material gain. Thiscategory comprises entrepreneurial structures in a broad sense, including, forexample, drug-smuggling rings and burglary gangs. These entrepreneurialstructures have to be distinguished, analytically, from criminal structuresthat serve social functions. These noneconomic, associational structuressupport their members' illegal economic activities only indirectly. Forexample, they facilitate contacts, give status, reinforce deviant values, andprovide a forum for the exchange of information. Examples for structuresserving these social purposes include criminal fraternities such as theSicilian Mafia and outwardly legal associations such as so-called outlawmotorcycle gangs. A third type of criminal structures serves quasi-governmentalfunctions. These illegal governance structures support illegal economicactivities in a more abstract way by establishing and enforcing rules ofconduct and by settling disputes in a given territory or market. A textbookexample forthis kind of criminal structure is once again the Sicilian Mafia. Thishighlights the fact that the three functions may empirically overlap.

Entrepreneurial,associational, and quasi-governmental structures are not linked to a particularform of organization. Criminal structures may be formal or informal, and theinteractions between offenders may vary with the degree to which they areintegrated in long-term relationships. Following a three-fold typology ofmarkets, networks, and hierarchies, borrowed from economics, three basic formsof cooperation between offenders can be distinguished. Interactions may involve independent actors engaged in market-based transactions. In other cases, offendersmay be integrated in networks that provide some level ofcommitment beyond a single transaction. Finally, in the case of criminal organizations in the narrow sense,coordinated action is the result of authoritatively assigned tasks. What formof organization emerges depends on various factors, including the specifics ofthe criminal activity offenders are involved in and the social environment theyoperate in.

Criminal structures,irrespective of their form and function, can be transnational in differentways. They may temporarily cross borders, they may establish a permanentpresence in two or more countries, or they may migrate from one country toanother.

IllegalEntrepreneurial Structures

Fairly complex criminalorganizations have been reported in the area of cross-border predatory crime.These organizations operate from bases in Eastern Europe and engage in crimes suchas serial burglary or pickpocketing in Western Europe. They typically consistof a management level and an operative level that may comprise several teamscharged with separate tasks, such as casing a target, committing a burglary,and disposing of the loot.

One example is the so-calledKoszalin gang (also known as “hammer gang” and “rolex gang”), named after atown in North-Western Poland. The gang comprised about 200 members and existedover a time span of about 10 years until it was dismantled in 2004. It engagedin robberies of jewelry stores in Western European countries, using eitherstolen cars to gain entry into stores by brute force, or entering stores duringbusiness hours to then, within minutes, smash show cases with sledge hammersand remove high-value merchandise such as luxury watches. Gang members weretypically recruited for the execution of these crimes from among unemployed menin their mid-20s to mid-30s. They operated in teams under the direction of“group leaders” who cooperated with “residents” in the target areas andreported to the gang leadership in Poland.

Predatory crime groups tend toretreat from an area of operation after committing a certain number of crimes.They constitute what may be called “transnationally mobile criminalorganizations”. In some cases, however, including the Koszalin gang, they relyon individuals who permanently reside in the country of operation and assist inthe selection of targets and provide logistical support. Such residents, whomay have been sent or recruited by a criminal group or who may operate asindependent entrepreneurs, can also be found in other areas of crime—namely,drug trafficking.

In contrast to transnationallymobile criminal organizations with little or no permanent presence abroad,there are also criminal organizations with branches in two or more countrieswhere similar tasks are completed in each country or a division of labor existsbetween branches in different countries. In these cases, one may speak of“multinational criminal organizations.” For example, in the case of traffickingin stolen motor vehicles it appears to be more common for offender structuresto extend across international borders on a more permanent basis. This meansthat tasks such as the stealing of cars and the changing of the identity ofthe stolen cars is typically done in one country, while the overall managementof the operation, including the selling of the stolen cars, is handled inanother country.

However, Gounev and Bezlovargue with regard to Bulgarian car traffickers that in recent years there hasbeen a tendency away from complex, multinational illegal enterprises. Theyfound that offenders involved in this type of crime—such as car thieves,mechanics, document forgers, courier drivers, and intermediaries—now tend toflexibly cooperate in changing combinations of individuals and small groupswithin larger transnational networks of criminally exploitable ties.

In fact, such fluidstructures, rather than vertically and horizontally integrated organizations,appear to be common for many other transnational criminal activities. Drugtrafficking, human trafficking, and alien smuggling, it seems, tend to involvechains of individual offenders, partnerships, and small clusters of criminalslinked up by more or less temporary cooperative arrangements.

UnderlyingAssociational Structures

Illegal entrepreneurialstructures are in many cases embedded in underlying social network ties thatfacilitate both the creation and the maintenance of entrepreneurial structuresby providing a basis of trust.

Ethnicity is often mentionedin this respect. In most cases, however, it appears that ethnic homogeneity isa superficial characteristic of criminal networks based on family, friendship,or local community ties. As a result of migration, these close social ties mayspan great geographical distances. For example, heroin trafficking fromproduction in Eastern Turkey to sale in Western Europe maybe handled by membersof the same family.

Ritual kinship ties canpotentially provide a similar support infrastructure for transnational criminalactivities. This is true for various criminal fraternities with membershipspread across different European countries, such as the Sicilian Mafia (or CosaNostra), the Camorra, the Calabrian ‘Nrdangheta, the Russian and Georgian Vory v Zakone, and the Chinese triads, as well as outlaw motorcycle gangs such asthe Hells Angels and Bandidos.

How this plays out in practicehas been shown by Campanain his analysis of a Camorra clan that included somemembers who had relocated to Scotland and the Netherlands. The members residingabroad assisted members in Italy in a number of ways—namely, in the launderingof money, by providing refuge, and by sharing investment opportunities in legaland illegal businesses.

Criminal Networks NotEmbedded in Associational Structures

While kinship ties and ritualkinship ties provide a basis for illegal entrepreneurial structures, closebonds of that nature are not necessarily a precondition for the emergence oftransnational criminal networks. Relatively weak social ties such as childhoodacquaintance or contacts established in the context of legitimate businessrelations can be sufficient grounds for criminal cooperation.

Prisons are an incubator sui generis of transnational criminal networks. An illustrative case is RonaldMiehling who went from pimp and smalltime criminal to one of Germany's majordrug traffickers as a result of meeting a cocaine dealer from the DutchAntilles in a German prison. At a Christmas party in Amsterdam, Miehling wassubsequently introduced to a drug trafficker from New York City who eventuallybrought him in direct contact with cocaine suppliers in Colombia.

The Christmas party Miehling mentions is an example forconvergence settings that bring transnational criminals together withoutpreexisting ties. It also underscores the special role that the city ofAmsterdam plays for transnational organized crime in Europe and, in particular,the drug trade. Amsterdam has been identified as an important European meetingplace for drug traffickers involved in the trade of cannabis, cocaine, andheroin as well as synthetic drugs.

A different kind ofinternational offender convergence setting has been pointed out by Kleemans andvan de Bunt. They describe a case of financial professionals who regularly metat international tax conferences and under the guise of “tax seminars” andconspired in the commission of large-scale tax fraud. This example underscoresthe importance of legitimate social network ties and of “routine activities ofeveryday life” in the creation of transnational criminal structures. Whilecertain patterns in the organization of transnational offenders exist,reflecting, for example, flows of migration and the direction of traffickingroutes, the multiplicity of factors that shape criminal structures almostinevitably results in the diffuse patchwork of activities and actors thatcharacterizes transnational organized crime in Europe.

IllegalGovernance

The discussion in this sectionso far has focused on the commission of transnational profit-making crimes andon the organization of offenders involved in these crimes. This leaves oneissue to be examined that ranks prominently in the public debate on organizedcrime in Europe: the transnational expansion of the spheres of influence of“mafia” organizations. In this context, mafias are not addressed as fraternalassociations of criminals but as illegal governance structures that exercisesome level of control over illegal and possibly also legal activities in acertain territory. The controversial question is to what extent thesestructures, which historically are local in nature, can replicate theirposition of power in another country.

Concerns that Italianmafia-type organizations such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Neapolitan Camorra,and the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta or Russian criminal groups such as theMoscow-based Solntsevskaya might colonize Europe have been a recurring themefor decades. These concerns typically surface in the wake of spectacular actsof violence such as the killing of six men outside an Italian restaurant inDuisburg, Germany, in August 2007. However, these events tend to be misleading.The victims in Duisburg, it turned out, were members of a ‘Ndrangheta clan;however, they were murdered not in a quest for power in Germany, but in thecourse of a long-standing blood feud that pitted two families from theCalabrian town of San Luca against each other. The Duisburg murder was reportedlycommitted in revenge for the killing of a woman in San Luca a few monthsearlier.

According to one view, mafiasare unlikely to expand their territorial control across borders because of thespecific sociopolitical context within which they have emerged. According toanother view, mafias are able to establish themselves in new territoriesprovided a demand for criminal protection exists that is not met by domesticcriminal organizations.

Research on this issue isscarce and only two studies exist on the question of mafia transplantationwithin Europe that suggest that mafia organizations indeed tend to be unable toestablish territorial control abroad. The first study is Campana'sabove-mentioned investigation of members of a Camorra clan residing in the Netherlandsand the United Kingdom. He foundthat while the clan provides illegal protection services at its home base inItaly in the form of, for example, protection against competitors and thieves,dispute settlement and debt collection, no evidence exists of any suchactivities being carried out abroad. The second study, by Varese, investigatesthe presence of members and associates of the Moscow-based Solntsevskaya inItaly and Hungary. In the case of Italy, Varese found a picture similar to thatdescribed by Campana. Russian “mafiosi” residing in Italy aided members ofSolntsevskaya in the laundering of money, but they made no attempt to establishany form of territorial control or to engage in any form of criminal protectionin Italy. In contrast, Varese argues that a successful “transplantation” ofSolntsevskaya has taken place in Hungary in the 1990s citing evidence that agroup led by a Ukrainian-born businessman with solid connections with theSolntsevskaya's leaders extracted protection payments from criminals and ownersof legitimate businesses. From the evidence presented by Varese, however, it isnot clear whether this can be attributed to Solntsevskaya as an organizationalentity or is better interpreted as the work of individuals and groups operatingwithin the context of Hungary's transition economy.

In the latter case, theexample of criminals from the former Soviet Union operating in Hungary wouldbetter fit a more general pattern of multiethnic underworlds that appear to becharacteristic of most if not all European countries. Criminals of particularethnic and national backgrounds may achieve prominence in certain localitiesand certain illegal markets that would be more reflective of general migrationpatterns than of the migration of criminal organizations.

A separate issue is theexpansion of outlaw motorcycle gangs in Europe. Organizations with origins inthe United States—namely, the Hells Angels and Bandidos—have establishedchapters in Northwest Europe since the 1970s and 1980s. More recently,recruitment efforts have extended to Southern and Southeastern Europe,including Turkey and Albania. Outlaw motorcycle gangs are fiercely territorial.However, it seems that territorial control is primarily sought within thecontext of the biker subculture in terms of the hegemony or exclusivity of onebiker club in a given geographical area. Violent conflicts between outlawmotorcycle gangs have broken out as a result of territorial conflicts, forexample, in Scandinavia in the 1990s (the “Nordic Biker War”) and in centralEurope in the 2000s.

Conclusion

This section has examinedtransnational organized crime in Europe with regard to criminal activities,offender structures, and illegal governance. Transnational crimes connectEurope with other parts of the world and different countries on the Europeancontinent. The picture that emerges is that of a patchwork of traffickingroutes and crime hotspots, involving criminals of different ethnic and nationalbackgrounds. Offender structures take on a variety of forms, from purelymarket-based interaction to networks of criminally exploitable ties and, insome cases, more integrated criminal organizations. Mafia-like organizationssuch as the notorious Sicilian Mafia have a presence in various Europeancountries as a result of the migration of individual members. However, in theirrole as illegal governance structures these mafia organizations tend to beconfined to their territories of origin.

2. OrganizedCrime in North America

The Godfather, The Sopranos, Goodfellas, Scarface, The Gangs ofNew York, and American Gangster are a few of the hundreds of films, television shows, and booksthat depict organized crime in North America. But few can separate which ofthese is fact and which is fiction (in fact, most are fiction). The blurring offiction and reality makes it difficult to have an accurate understanding oforganized crime, but greater accuracy is crucial if public opinion,legislation, and the criminal justice system are to properly respond to theactual threat of organized crime in North America. North America includes thecountries of Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Each is a large countrysharing long land borders and massive coastlines that provide access to boththe Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Therefore, the three countries of NorthAmerica are very accessible not only to each other but also from many locationsaround the world. Mexico, in particular, is strategically positioned, linkingSouth and Central America to the United States and up into Canada as well. Thelong Mexican land and water borders provide ideal launching points forsmuggling people and products to both the United States and Canada, which havelarge consumer populations that enjoy a high standard of living and income. Asa result, North America's geographic location, land and water border access,links to Central and South America, and high standard of living combine tocreate an attractive environment for organized crime. The requirements for bothsupply and demand are met in spades.

HistoricalContext

Organized crime in NorthAmerica is not a singular phenomenon. It has always been composed of a varietyof groups, both large and small, that emerged to exploit particular criminalopportunities. If the terminology of organized crime had been in use 200 yearsago, early European settlers in North America might have been accused ofinvolvement in organized crime activity for avoiding European taxes, engagingin planned thefts from public transport, and bribing government officials tosecure favors. Organized crime, indeed, is characterized by planned illegalacts involving multiple offenders who engage in ongoing or recurrent criminalactivities.

Traditional crimes associatedwith organized crime include illegal gambling, prostitution, loan-sharking,drug trafficking, selling stolen property, and extortion. But this list isexpanding dramatically with changes in the global economy, technology, andcommunication. For example, arrests in Long Island, New York, revealed a modesthome being used to produce 10,000 bootlegged CDs each week and homeownersconnected to known organized crime groups who allegedly helped in the illegaldistribution of these CD copies. In another case, it was found that criminalgroups in Canada (and Malaysia and Europe) had tapped into data cables fromdepartment stores to copy credit card information and transmit it overseas; itwas then used to produce fake cards that were imported back into Australia. Ina third instance, seizures of 150 website domains occurred after US undercoveragents made purchases of counterfeit professional sports jerseys, golfequipment, handbags, sunglasses, and shoes that were shipped to the UnitedStates from suppliers in other countries. These cases demonstrate that thetypes of offenses associated with organized crime change as opportunities forcrime change. Wide access to the Internet and ease of international air traveland shipping are as important to the expansion of human trafficking and fraudas was the invention of the automobile 100 years ago in creating newopportunities for smuggling goods by land and for various types of carregistration and ownership frauds.

DescribingOrganized Crime in North America

Organized crime can bedescribed in terms of the activities it engages in or by the groups involved init. There are advantages and disadvantages to each approach. The offensesusually involve some variation of provision of illicit goods (e.g., stolenproperty, drugs), provision of illicit services (e.g., prostitution, gambling,loan-sharking), the infiltration of business (e.g., extortion and protectionrackets), or some combination of these. The history of criminality in a region,its economic standing, geographic location, national and ethnic customs andbeliefs, and political climate are all important factors in shaping the kindsof organized criminal groups that develop in a country or region. Theseorganized crime groups usually form and change over time in response to theavailable criminal opportunities.

Of the myriad forms oforganized crime in North America, five major categories are selected forexamination here. Although other kinds of organized crime can be found in NorthAmerica, such as outlaw motorcycle gangs, the five classifications chosen hereare well documented and have been subject to study by many researchers and criminaljustice practitioners. The five types described here are Cosa Nostra groups,Russian groups, Chinese groups, Mexican groups, and Canadian groups.

Cosa Nostra

La Cosa Nostra or LCN—alsoknown as the mafia, the mob, the outfit—is a collection of Italian-Americanorganized crime “families” (which include many members who are not related)that has been operating in the United States and parts of Canada since the1920s. Beginning during the time of Prohibition and extending into the 1990s,the LCN was clearly the most prominent criminal organization in the UnitedStates. Indeed, it was synonymous with organized crime. In recent years, theLCN has been severely crippled by prosecutions, and over the past two decades,it has been challenged in a number of its criminal markets by other organizedcrime groups. Nevertheless, LCN remains a viable organization. The LCN stillhas greater capacity to gain monopoly control over criminal markets, to use orthreaten violence to maintain that control, and to corrupt law enforcement andthe political system thandoes any of its competitors. As Jacobs and Gouldin have pointed out, no othercriminal organization [in the United States] has controlled labor unions,organized employer cartels, operated as a rationalizing force in majorindustries, and functioned as a bridge between the upper-world and theunderworld. This capacity to infiltrate and corrupt business and governmentagencies distinguishes the LCN from all other criminal organizations in theUnited States.

Each of the so-called familiesthat make up the Cosa Nostra has roughly the same organizational structure.There is a boss who exercises general oversight of the family and makesexecutive decisions. There is an underboss who is second in command. There is asenior adviser or consigliere. And then there are a number of “capos”(capo-regimes) who supervise crews made up of “soldiers,” who are “mademembers” of Cosa Nostra. There are also many “associates” who are careercriminals, but who are not “made members,” who conduct illegal activities inconjunction with Cosa Nostra groups. The capos and those above them receiveshares of the proceeds from crimes committed by the soldiers and associates.The illicit operations of the soldiers and associates are not run by the bossesor capos, but the latter are paid a percentage of the profits for “protection”services (often by the power of reputation alone) and for their affiliationwith the enterprise.

Made members, sometimes called“good fellows” or “wise guys,” are all male and all of Italian descent. Theestimated made membership of the LCN is somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 inthe United States, with roughly 80% of the members operating in the New YorkCity metropolitan area. Five crime families make up the LCN in New York City:the Bonanno, the Colombo, the Genovese, the Gambino, and the Lucchese families.There is also LCN operational activity in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, andthe Miami/South Florida area, but much less so than in New York. In other previousstrongholds such as Buffalo, Cleveland, Detroit, Kansas City, Las Vegas, LosAngeles, New Orleans, and Pittsburgh, the LCN is now weakened or nonexistent.In addition to the made members, there are as many as 10,000 associate memberswho work with the families. Until the recent demise of much of its leadership,a commission of the bosses of New York's five LCN families coordinated controlof labor unions, construction, trucking, and garbage-hauling companies andresolved disputes between families. In Canada, the influence of Cosa Nostra hasbeen felt primarily in the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Some of this is“spillover” influence from US families across the border, but Hamilton,Toronto, and Montreal have a history of separate Cosa Nostra groups that havebeen known to communicate with groups in the United States.

Violence

Cosa Nostra, over many years,established its reputation for the ruthless use of violence. This violence hasoccurred mostly in the form of threats, beatings, and killings. Personalviolence and, to a lesser degree, violence against property—bombings, arson,explosions—is the typical pattern of the systematic use of violence as a toolof doing business. The business often involved extorting money from legitimatebusinesses, as well as drug dealers, in addition to collecting payments fromthe customers of loan shark operations. Violence, and subsequently just thethreat of violence, was the means by which the LCN gained monopoly control overits various criminal enterprises. Violence discouraged and eliminatedcompetitors, and it reinforced the reputation and credibility of the LCN.Violence was also used for internal discipline. Murder, and conspiracy tocommit murder, has often appeared as one of the predicate offenses in organizedcrime prosecutions.

The history of violence andthe LCN demonstrates the importance of reputation in this respect. Peter Reuter has madethe point that when there is sufficient credible evidence of the willingness touse violence, actual violence is rarely necessary.This is especially true when the targets are not professional criminals. TheCosa Nostra personifies this principle.

Economic Resources

One of the LCN's major assetsis its general business acumen in being entrepreneurial, opportunistic, and adaptable.They find ways to exploit market vulnerabilities while at the same timemaintaining the necessary stability and predictability that business requiresto be profitable. One of the ways they do this is by taking over only a pieceof a legitimate business—and providing a service in return—rather than takingover the whole business. The latter would, of course, require a managementresponsibility that they do not want to handle.

LCN's illegal activities covera wide range. Gambling and drugs have traditionally been the biggestmoneymakers. Loan-sharking is linked to these activities, because the moneyloaned is often first obtained through gambling and drug transactions.Extortion of businesses for “protection” from damage (by the extortionist) is anexample of how the reputation for violence is important in order to instill thenecessary fear in victims so they will pay extortion demands. When the fear ishigh enough, of course, actual violence is not needed (and sometimes can impairthe victim's ability to pay).

The specialties of the fiveNew York LCN families include labor racketeering, various kinds of businessracketeering, bid rigging, business frauds, and industry cartels. In theseareas, the LCN demonstrates its most effective penetration of the legitimateeconomy. Labor racketeering involves organized crime control of labor unions.With this control, gained by the threat and use of violence, large sums ofmoney are siphoned from union pension funds, businesses are extorted in returnfor labor peace and an absence of strikes, and bribes are solicited forsweetheart contracts. Another specialty, business racketeering, has occurred inNew York City in the construction, music, and garbage industries. The LCNcontrols unions, bars, strip joints, restaurants, and trucking firms. The fivefamilies have also controlled at various times the Fulton Fish Market, theJavits Convention Center, the New York Coliseum, and air cargo operations atJFK International Airport, among other targets. Again the principal tools ofcontrol are bribery and extortion.

Partly in reaction toeffective law enforcement and prosecutions in recent years, the Cosa Nostra hasdiversified its activities and extended its penetration in legal markets byswitching to white-collar crimes. It has carried out multimillion dollar fraudsin three areas in particular: health insurance, prepaid telephone cards, andvictimizing small Wall Street brokerage houses. Professional know-how isdemonstrated in each of these scams.

LCN's control over variousillegal markets, and its diversification into legal markets, has so far notbeen matched by any other criminal organization in the United States. This isso despite its having been substantially weakened over the last three decades.

Political Resources

In its heyday, the LCNexercised its political influence mostly at the local level, through itsconnections with the political “machines” in which bribery was the commonmethod of operation, in US cities such as New York, New Orleans, Chicago,Kansas City, and Philadelphia. With the demise of these machines came theadvent of political reforms stressing open and ethical government andincreasingly effective law enforcement. Many of the avenues for corruptinfluence were subsequently closed. Today, the LCN exercises politicalinfluence only in certain selected areas, where politicians remain open tobribery and kickback schemes.

With respect to police andjudicial corruption, there is much more evidence of this in the past than thereis today. In recent years, there have been a handful of corruption casesinvolving law enforcement and one or two involving judges linked to LCNfamilies.

Responses of LawEnforcement Agencies to LCN

Law enforcement, andparticularly US federal law enforcement, has been tremendously successful incombating LCN over the past 20 years. Crime families have been infiltrated byinformants and undercover agents, and special investigating grand juries havebeen employed in state and local jurisdictions. The techniques employed in thesecases include electronic surveillance, the use of informants, the witnessprotection program, and the RICO law (Racketeer Influenced and CorruptOrganizations). The RICO statute has clearly been the single most powerfulprosecution tool against the LCN. There are now state RICO statutes (toprosecute state crimes) in many states as well as the federal law. RICO enableslaw enforcement to attack the organizational structure of organized crime andto levy severe criminal and civil penalties, including forfeitures of illegallyobtained assets. The threat of these penalties has convinced many made membersof the LCN to become informants or to seek immunity from prosecution in returnfor becoming cooperating witnesses. If their life is in danger, they are placedin the witness protection program and relocated. Civil remedies have includedthe court-appointment of monitors and trustees to administer businesses andunions that had been taken over by the LCN, to ensure that these enterprisesremain cleansed of corrupt influences.

Two of the latest weaponsagainst LCN penetration of sectors of the legitimate economy are regulatoryinitiatives. These are administrative remedies designed to expand a localgovernment's ability to control public services such as waste hauling andschool construction.

“Russian” Organized Crime in the United States

An example of the transbordernature of a kind of organized crime involving Canada, Mexico, and the UnitedStates is the human-trafficking case of the Botsvynyuk brothers and theircriminal colleagues. This group allegedly lured about 30 victims from Ukraine,between 2000 and 2007, smuggling them to Philadelphia through Mexico. Victimswere housed in deplorable conditions and had to work for years until they hadpaid off smuggling debts of $10,000 to $50,000. By night, the victims cleanedbig-box stores and supermarkets, including Target, Kmart, Wal-Mart, andSafeway. They slept five to a bedroom on dirty mattresses or on floors. Someescaped despite numerous threats. Law enforcement authorities accused one ofthe brothers of raping one of the victims and threatening to force the youngdaughter of another victim into prostitution back in Ukraine if she fled.During the investigation into the case, two suspects fled to Canada and foughttheir extradition back to the United States, thus bringing Canadian authoritiesinto the matter.

In the manner of this case, Russian organized crime (ROC) is anumbrella label that captures a variety of crime groups and criminal activities.Often, the criminal groups in question are small and loosely structured as inthe above case and may not actually be Russian. The Botsvynyuks are fromUkraine.

In some instances, the crimesand the forms of criminal organization in the United States differ from thoseof ROC in Russia or elsewhere in the world. This may be a result of differingexternal environments and criminal opportunities. Because of the proliferationof groups, there is no specific organizational structure that can be delineatedas if it described one criminal organization. And the characterization“Russian” is used generically to refer to a variety of Eurasian crime groups as illustrated bythe case cited above.

Among the active criminals inthe United States are Armenians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, and persons from theCaucasus region of the former Soviet Union (Chechens, Dagestanis, andGeorgians). The media and law enforcement call these groups variousnames—Russian mafia, Russian mob, Organizatsya, Bor, or Bratva. Some of thegroup names refer to geographical locations in Russia—Izmailovskaya,Dagestantsy, Kazanskaya, and Solntsenskaya. The latter are indicative of thelocal geographically defined roots of some Russian crime groups.

The segment of ROC mostsimilar to traditional forms of Italian-American organized crime—in terms ofhierarchy, internal codes of conduct, recruitment, and internal conflictresolution—is what is known as the vory v zakone or “thieves-in-law.” Otherthan a belief that certain Russian criminals in the United States havethemselves been vor, there is little evidence ofany organized presence of the vory v zakone in North America.

Violence

The threat and use of violenceis a defining characteristic of ROC. Violence is used to gain and maintaincontrol of criminal markets, and retributive violence is used within andbetween criminal groups. The common use of violence is not surprising, becauseextortion and protection rackets are staples of Russian criminal activity. ROChas engaged extensively in contract murders, kidnapping, and arson againstbusinesses whose owners refuse to pay extortion money.

The Tri-State JointSoviet-Émigré Organized Crime Project looked specifically at violent crimes inthe New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania region. Their report indicated thatgeneric Russian criminals were implicated in numerous murders, attemptedmurders, assaults, and extortion. As evidence of their intimidation effect,witnesses to crimes often cannot be found, or both witnesses and victimsrefused to cooperate in investigations. Of 70 murders and attempted murdersover a 15-year period, all suggested that the victim, the perpetrator, or bothwere involved in ongoing criminal activity. In some cases, there was evidenceto indicate the victim was attacked as a result of a dispute between twoindividual criminals or gangs or in retaliation for a prior violent act. Thehomicides in some cases appeared to have been well planned, and assassins orhit men were used. The report concluded that a great deal of the violenceattributable to ROC in the United States was a result of the unregulatedcompetition that exists in their criminal ventures; New York State OrganizedCrime Task Force et al.

Russian CriminalBusiness

With the principal exceptionsof extortion and money laundering, ROC has had relatively little or noinvolvement in some of the more traditional crimes of organized crime, such asdrug trafficking, gambling, and loan-sharking. On the other hand, these variedcriminal groups are extensively engaged in a broad array of frauds and scams,including health care fraud, insurance scams, stock frauds, antiquitiesswindles, forgery, and gasoline tax evasion schemes. Russians have recentlybecome the principal purveyors of credit card fraud in the United States,supplanting the West African scams.

ROC is very adept at changingcriminal activities and diversifying into new criminal markets. For example,financial markets, banks, and various corporate entities have become newtargets of criminal opportunity for ROC. A recent case in point is SemionMogilevich, a Ukrainian “businessman,” who was added to the FBI's Ten MostWanted Fugitives list for his alleged participation in a multimillion dollarscheme to defraud investors in the stock of YBM Magnex International, a companyhe controlled that is incorporatedin Canada. The company was supposed to manufacture magnets but instead bilkedinvestors out of $150 million. Mogilevich has been charged with more than 40counts of racketeering, wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and othereconomic crimes carried out in dozens of countries around the world. Otheralleged crimes include weapons trafficking, contract murders, extortion, drug trafficking,and prostitution on an international scale. Mogilevich and his criminalenterprises are described in detail by Glenny.

Contrary to its pervasive corrupt political influence in Russiaand the other republics of the former Soviet Union, ROC has had little or nopolitical influence in North America. Although they have the financial capacityto do so, Russian criminals have not cultivated the political and lawenforcement contacts necessary to corrupt them. There have been no reportedcases of police or judicial corruption. There is no evidence that ROC hasattempted to manipulate either politicians or the political process, that theyhave managed to get criminals elected or appointed to political office, or thatthey have influenced media coverage of issues. Similarly, there is no evidenceof any connections between ROC and political terrorism in North America.

Combating RussianOrganized Crime

The US law enforcementstrategy for combating ROC (as well as all forms of transnational organizedcrime) includes expanding the US presence in other countries and building thenew relationships needed to attack transnational crime. That presence includesboth law enforcement personnel overseas and attorneys to facilitate requestsfor mutual legal assistance and extradition, provide substantive legal guidanceon international law enforcement and treaty matters, and increase cooperationwith foreign police and prosecutors. With respect to ROC and other jointcriminal matters, the US Department of Justice has stationed resident legaladvisers, who provide training and technical assistance to foreign prosecutors,judges, and police, in a number of countries, including Russia, Ukraine,Latvia, and Georgia.