Security and Organized Crime

The historical process of combating violence, is crime prevention and control and minimization of risk.

Within this context, studies originated and developed by the military and civilians tried to achieve the state of the art necessary for combating violence can be efficient and thus achieve tolerable levels for the welfare of the community.

In the international arena from the 1960s, there was the emergence of various initiatives to combat the increasing violence and the consequences resulting from this situation. Among several attempts, it was observed that the solution was increasing police-community interaction, specially focusing on respect with society.

The new idea of a police connected directly to the needs of stakeholders, seeking further integration and recognizing that the citizen who lives in an area of social risk, should be seen so respectful. Community policing was born then.

Technological innovations, operational base of economic globalization, were quickly adopted by criminal organizations.The mafias have held its own “globalization”, in which the labor force comes from the preferential migration, sometimes clandestine, possibly in working conditions similar to slavery. Two factors contributed decisively to the new world order of organized crime.

The unification of the European Community (EC), which is materialized in the 1990s (now called the European Union – EU), and the end of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR ).

The end of borders, in countries that joined the EU and the absolute lack of political and military control over the vast territory of the former Soviet Union, opened a corridor from the Baltic to the Pacific, for the disposal of the products of organizations as the Sicilian Mafia (Cosa Nostra), the Russian Mafia, the Chinese Triads, the Yakuza (Japanese) and the Colombian Cartel.

This movement, the world, involved agreements and understandings, taking into account a “support bank” already prepared by the ‘tax havens’, and prospered in the financial markets under the brand of three circumstances:

a) The fall in business profitability of traditional products;

b) the excess of dollars from the existence of payments deficit and domestic debt increased in the U.S. for at least 50 years, the same extent as the dollar took over the condition of world currency.

c) The process of privatization of the economy of the former USSR in the 1990s under the government of Boris Yeltsin, through which the Russian mafias began to dominate 70% of the financial system of the Russian Federation.

Holders of equity, available, opened the Russian mafia a ‘gateway’ extremely relevant in the global financial system. The crossing with the global activity of organized crime in its version less shocking occurred in successive operations, balance sheets and accounts of fraud. Other two also note the phenomenon: the deployment of a system of e-commerce, based on operations of the Internet and the privatization of postal services international – in which the largest is FedEx, based in the U.S..

In this context there are other macro-elements to be considered: the issue of patents and control of biodiversity – from the battle scenes of international diplomacy to the ends of the Amazon.

The shadow of the state, officials criminals operate a policy of biopiracy strongly linked to organized crime circles. From a geopolitical view, Miami and Los Angeles (USA) appear as’ capital ‘of organized crime strategy for Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia, especially in the two most relevant aspects: – the trafficking of drugs and weapons.

Among the countries that are more wash money the U.S., where they give 50% of all financial transactions that have as source drug trafficking, terrorism, kidnapping, smuggling, corruption and other illegal activities. The different global networks and connections, which operate with the support of ultrasound technology flee, even for now, the scope of calls of Financial Intelligence Units (FIU – Financial Intelligence Unit), which act globally articulated in the so-called Egmont Group.

In its last report, the group notes: the delay in investigations of money laundering means that were presented few settings involving new technologies or techniques – such as washing Internet, smart cards (smart cards) or banking transactions online. We anticipate that, over the years, more and more cases involving these technologies come to the knowledge of the forces of repression against crime.

The available literature on organized crime are only now beginning to meet the cases of laundering of capital ‘dirty’ schemes based on high tech. As the money grows in volume transactions in the real economy, more organized crime networks and we passed by the vast network of virtual money. Precisely at that size there are difficulties in identifying the “dirty capital”, obtained through the sale of drugs and weapons, for example, that is” washed “daily and receive the blessings of the market, breaking the economies of countries of central capitalism, and so-called emerging countries, without being bothered by anyone.

The money laundering activity is presented as either mean performance of acts concatenated in time and space, perspective is reached determined purpose. These actions are linked to concealment and integration. From a strategic action of organized crime, conceal and disguise are movements background the action of integration, when the ‘dirty money’ return in the economy as a legitimate investment market. In this stage, is rarely possible to recover the assets generated by illegal activities.

In a worsening of the socio-economic conditions of countries classified as ” emerging” on all continents, there are three elements that can be highlighted:

a) The fall in profitability of traditional businesses, a world in which products are produced and services are provided, so-called real economy;

b) The increase in poverty in world, with the deconstruction of the growing world of work;

c) Lack of control of financial markets and the flow of capital, by states and multilateral bodies such as the World Bank (IBRD), International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Trade Organization (WTO) and of multilateral organizations tied to the United Nations (UN).

Drug Trafficking comes in first rank hierarchy in markets controlled by organized crime the first is that drugs, mainly cocaine, heroin and synthetic, such as ecstasy and amphetamines. It is estimated that the business moves from $ 300 to 500 billion.

The second is the trafficking of weapons. Further, trafficking in human beings for prostitution, organ trade, slave labor. Then there are other sectors such as corruption and money laundering that permeate all the work of organized crime. A very acceptable number, calculated by the United Nations, is 400 billion dollars (more than the global oil industry), employing nearly 20 million people and serving 70 to 100 million consumers.

Perhaps half of these consumers are in the United States, the largest market for drugs in the world – and the largest market for everything else. Authorities and experts that deal with different ways of combating organized crime, from multilateral bodies such as the United Nations (UN) bodies, intelligence and repression of democratic, non-governmental organizations see the “lords of crime ‘with a kind of ‘holding’. The concept is taken from the modern theory of government and was appropriated by mafias and cartels to manage and maintain the mega-business in high.

And all this, regardless of the war and repression still concentrated in the hands of the state, today extremely weakened by the reduction and dismantling of the state machinery, the world, a result of the policies led to the end of the 1980s by the U.S. and Great Britain.

It operates as a holding company. The group that comes to drugs is often linked to arms trafficking, mainly because it is a business that involves no money, only goods: I give you 20 kg of cocaine in exchange for a gun. This happens on the border between Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil and Paraguay, especially with the proceeds of the theft of cargo, cars and trucks. Often there is no money in the middle. Therefore, organized crime operates as holding more than as a business sector.

The Trafficking of Weapons The smuggling of weapons, the operation part of a perfectly legal transaction (the purchase of weapons in trade for export), is a hidden level, but still ‘legal’ and returns to the country illegally, smuggled by criminal organizations engaged in the resale slums and outskirts of large Brazilian cities. There is also an aggravating factor in the world of trafficking in weapons, the arsenal of Russia, whose economy is totally dominated by the mafia: ‘According to the Minister of Interior of the Russian Federation, approximately 5,700 mafia groups control 70% of the banking sector of the country and most of its exports of oil, natural gas, of strategic minerals and raw materials.

We must distinguish, preliminarily, the trafficking of weapons of illicit arms trade.

The first, practiced by drug traffickers linked to criminal organizations, and has assumed the sale in bulk, or in quantity and type (quality) that involves big money. But the illegal trade, typically retail, thrives in the shadow of their own unconventional bodies and authorities responsible for public safety, more than the arms trafficking, illegal arms trading business is nonsense. The police seized a 38 to someone, a small gun, near the heavy weaponry that exists today. This gun remains lodged in the judiciary, the police for years, and the state often loses control over it.

The scheme of trafficking in weapons operates in reverse of the drugs, in general: first a purchase is made, legally, then the product is exported to finally return smuggled in the country, going directly up in the hands of criminal organizations. In early 1991, a fact revealed to the international community the size of the problem, especially the control exercised by the Russian mafia in such sensitive sectors of the economy of that country, such as the financial system.

The nuclear issue – never be emphasized enough – is one of the most serious problems. In 1991. For $ 250 thousand he could buy a nuclear warhead for medium size (approximately 700 pounds). ” What probably prevents the use of nuclear weapons by organized crime is on the one hand, the volume of destruction caused and possible violent retaliation, and, secondly, the lack of a strategic reason.

The main risk, therefore, involves groups and religious fanatics. The numbers of world production of weapons, despite the secrecy surrounding the trade war industry, for alleged reasons of state, indicate that the five permanent members of UN Security Council United – United States, China, Russia, France and the UK – totaling nearly 85% of the world stock of weapons. The United States exports nearly 15% of its production, the United Kingdom and France, 25% and 20% respectively.

Nearly 80% of sales go to smaller and poorer countries, especially for problem areas in the developing world.

What feeds the traffic on a global scale, many times is the production of small arms, whose manufacturing technology is simple and relatively affordable cost. Unlike the complex weapons systems such as missiles: “To give an idea of numbers, the development of a new air-to-air missile leaves around $ 1.5 billion to $ 2 billion dollars.