The influence of organised crime on business activities, enterprises and economic sectors is a matter of concern for many policy makers across the world. As a profit driven criminal activity, organised crime operates in an environment which is not limited to the underworld economy alone. Assessments of the threat posed by organised crime and strategic (preventive) actions to tackle this phenomenon require an understanding of the vulnerable spots in the legal economy that are or might be exploited by crime. This book proposes a new methodology to scan economic sectors on their vulnerability to organised crime and provides vulnerability profiles of the transport and the music sector in Europe to which the method has been tested in a case-study. The developed methodological tool and the vulnerability profiles of both sectors are intended as a guide for actions and initiatives to be taken by governments, law enforcement bodies or economic sectors.

In The globalization of crime: a transnational organized crime threat assessment, UNODC analyses a range of key transnational crime threats, including human trafficking, migrant smuggling, the illicit heroin and cocaine trades, cybercrime, maritime piracy and trafficking in environmental resources, firearms and counterfeit goods. The report also examines a number of cases where transnational organized crime and instability amplify each other to create vicious circles in which countries or even subregions may become locked. Thus, the report offers a striking view of the global dimensions of organized crime today.

The influence of organised crime on business activities, enterprises and economic sectors is a matter of concern for many policy makers across the world. As a profit driven criminal activity, organised crime operates in an environment which is not limited to the underworld economy alone. Assessments of the threat posed by organised crime and strategic (preventive) actions to tackle this phenomenon require an understanding of the vulnerable spots in the legal economy that are or might be exploited by crime. This book is the outcome of a study known under the acronym MAVUS II (Method for and Assessment of Vulnerability of Sectors II) which addresses this issue. The study provides a vulnerability profile of the European waste industry based on a new methodology to scan economic sectors for their vulnerability to (organised) crime. Both vulnerability study and methodological tool are intended as a guide for actions and initiatives to be taken by governments, law enforcement bodies and economic players.

Economists explore the relationship between expanding international trade and the parallel growth in illicit trade, including illegal drugs, smuggling, and organized crime. As international trade has expanded dramatically in the postwar period--an expansion accelerated by the opening of China, Russia, India, and Eastern Europe--illicit international trade has grown in tandem with it. This volume uses the economist's toolkit to examine the economic, political, and social problems resulting from such illicit activities as illegal drug trade, smuggling, and organized crime. The contributors consider several aspects of the illegal drug market, including the sometimes puzzling relationships among purity, price, and risk; the effect of globalization on the heroin and cocaine markets, examined both through mathematical models and with empirical data from the U.K; the spread of khat, a psychoactive drug imported legally to the U.K. as a vegetable; and the economic effect of the "war on drugs" on producer and consumer countries. Other chapters examine the hidden financial flows of organized crime, patterns of smuggling in international trade, Iran's illicit trading activity, and the impact of mafia-like crime on foreign direct investment in Italy.

The influence of organised crime on business activities, enterprises and economic sectors is a matter of concern for many policy makers across the world. As a profit driven criminal activity, organised crime operates in an environment which is not limited to the underworld economy alone. Assessments of the threat posed by organised crime and strategic (preventive) actions to tackle this phenomenon require an understanding of the vulnerable spots in the legal economy that are or might be exploited by crime. This book is the outcome of a study known under the acronym MAVUS II (Method for and Assessment of Vulnerability of Sectors II) which addresses this issue. The study, financed under the 2005 AGIS programme of the European Commission, provides a vulnerability profile of the European pharmaceutical sector based on a new methodology to scan economic sectors for their vulnerability to (organised) crime. Both vulnerability study and methodological tool are intended as a guide for actions and initiatives to be taken by governments, law enforcement bodies and economic players.

This book is the outcome of a six-month research contract undertaken by Ghent University's Research Group Drug Policy, Criminal Policy and International Crime for the Belgian Minister of Justice. Since 1996 the Belgian Government has produced Annual Reports on Organised Crime, and while currently this takes the form of a typically descriptive situation report there has always been the intention to further develop the methodology underwriting the report. It has been envisaged that such methodological development will rely upon the use of supplementary non-police data -both qualitative and quantitative - supporting the utilisation of more sophisticated analytical tools. Proceeding from earlier work undertaken by this research group for the Belgian Federal Police's Organised Crime Unit, this book is an elaboration of the ideas found in Measuring Organised Crime in Belgium: A Risk-Based Methodology (in which a method for determining the impact of organised crime in Belgium is proposed) for application in the context of the Annual Reports.Thus, the substance of this book is a discursive analysis of the issues surrounding a risk-based Annual Report on Organised Crime.As the result of applied research, Reporting on Organised Crime offers concrete recommendations and solutions for the analysis of organised crime and its reporting at the strategic level.

The 2020 UNODC Global Report on Trafficking in Persons is the fifth of its kind mandated by the General Assembly through the 2010 United Nations Global Plan of Action to Combat Trafficking in Persons. It covers more than 130 countries and provides an overview of patterns and flows of trafficking in persons at global, regional and national levels, based primarily on trafficking cases detected between 2017 and 2019. As UNODC has been systematically collecting data on trafficking in persons for more than a decade, trend information is presented for a broad range of indicators.