Policing the EU’s External Borders: A Challenge for the Rule of Law and Fundamental Rights in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice? An Analysis of Frontex Joint Operations at the Southern Maritime Border

Paper by Luisa Marin in the Journal of Contemporary European Research

http://www.jcer.net/index.php/jcer/article/view/379?goback=.gde_3844619_member_180002782

UNODC's new crime fighting tool turns lessons of the past into policies for the future

Unfortunately I cant find a direct link to the digest. Anyone spotted it?

http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/frontpage/2012/October/unodcs-new-crime-fighting-tool-turns-lessons-of-the-past-into-policies-for-the-future.html

Italy convicts local Mafia in Australia

THREE Mafia figures living freely in Australia and labelled "extremely dangerous" by Italian authorities have been sentenced in absentia to long jail terms for international drug trafficking.
The Saturday Age can reveal that Australian men Nicola Ciconte, Vincenzo Medici and Michael Calleja have been convicted and sentenced in Italy for their role in a plot to smuggle up to 500 kilograms of cocaine into Australia.


Read more:  http://www.smh.com.au/national/italy-convicts-local-mafia-20120615-20fok.html#ixzz1yF88aLM3

Preventing misuse of public funds by criminal organisations

Public funds should be made fully traceable to prevent mafia-style organisations from misusing them, says a resolution approved by the Civil Liberties Committee on Thursday. MEPs also call for a special EP committee to investigate infiltration of the public sector and the legal economy by organised crime.

Organised crime, especially Mafia-style crime, takes advantage of globalisation, the abolition of borders in the EU and differences among EU Member States' laws to make substantial profits and go unpunished. This is possible because criminal organisations have created a support network and consolidated infiltrations into the political world, the civil service and the legal economy, says the resolution.

Gun control in Japan

The Japanese government adopted legislation Tuesday to toughen punishment for firing or owning guns in connection with organized crime activities, a response to a spate of high-profile shootings by gangsters.

Organised crime 'thriving' in Queensland

The "Mr Bigs" of organised crime in Queensland were thriving untouched because law enforcement agencies could not tap phones, a federal parliamentary committee has been told. Criminal investigators were virtually powerless to stop flourishing criminal networks and were forced to rely on interstate policing bodies for phone surveillance, the committee heard.

Queensland is the only state in Australia where crime fighting authorities do not have telephone interception or phone tapping powers, despite more than a decade of lobbying from police and the Crime and Misconduct Commission.

Law-Enforcement Disruption of a Drug Importation Network

Abstract

This study focuses on the structure and evolution of a drug importation network that operated from Montreal, Canada, and that was the target of an extensive 2-year criminal investigation. The investigation was atypical in that it followed a seize-but-do-not-arrest strategy - while 11 drug shipments were seized by police throughout this period, arrests were never made until the final phase of the investigation. Such a case offers a rare opportunity to study the dynamics of a criminal network under intense surveillance and disruption. The reconstruction of the importation network is based on electronic communication transcripts that were intercepted and compiled during the investigation. Findings from analyses of the principal changes that took place within the communication network reveal how network centralization and critical node status are variable, and not static, properties of a criminal network under considerable constraint. The study demonstrates how a criminal network decentralizes and is re-ordered in response to intense law-enforcement targeting. Contributions are made to research on disruption in criminal networks. We conclude with a discussion on how a criminal network's flexibility, a feature generally presented as a sign of resilience, may contribute to a more significant demise within a context of intensive control.

Keywords: criminal network; social network analysis; drug trafficking; law-enforcement; critical node

Carlo Morselli and Katia Petit (2007) Global Crime 8(2): 109-130.

Cocaine and Mr Bigs - crime agency lists first year successes

Britain's equivalent of the FBI has identified 160 underworld "Mr Bigs", seized 73 tonnes of cocaine, and intercepted a shipment of rocket-propelled grenade launchers thought to be destined for Islamist terrorists since its establishment a year ago, the agency said yesterday.

Good cops, bad mobs? EU policies to fight trans-national organised crime in the Western Balkans

When European Union leaders declared in June 1999 that the countries of the Western Balkans were all "potential" EU members, it seemed that the long road to future accession would soon be open to them. But the region is still plagued by the legacy of the past, including trans-national organised crime. This Issue Paper (pdf) from 2005 by Lucia Montanaro-Jankovski examines all the different facets of this problem, assesses the EU's response, and advocates a more comprehensive and coherent approach. Only this, it is argued, will enable the Union to tackle criminal networks at home and abroad effectively, while also improving the Western Balkan countries' 'image' – and, therefore, their chances of joining the EU in the future.

Europol Annual Report

According to the 2006 Europol Annual report organised crime groups in 2006 continued to increase their level of specialisation as well as the use that they make of legitimate business structures. Their internal structure allows them to expand their fields of activity across crime types and international borders. As expected, globalisation is heavily influencing the way organised crime groups communicate and cooperate among themselves. They employ the latest communication technologies to maintain and expand their national and international links. The report is available here.

Canada: Stowaway ship tip may have been organized crime ploy

The Mounties are checking to see if organized crime planted false information to prompt a massive search for stowaways on a container ship that came to Halifax this month.

Australia: new Criminal Assets Confiscation Act allows police to seize more assets

Police figures provided to the Sunday Mail reveal that, since the new Criminal Assets Confiscation Act came into force in April last year, restraining orders have been placed over criminal assets valued at $17,732,167.

Interpol-UNODC Global Congress to address International Financial Crime issues

Money laundering, terrorism financing and corruption are among the key issues scheduled for discussion at the Global Financial Crime Congress jointly organized by Interpol and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.

The three-day Congress aims to identify and assess the latest developments, technologies and strategies which are working in combating financial crime, in addition to finding new solutions and opportunities to enhance co-operation between and among law enforcement and the private sector. Ronald K. Noble, Interpol's Secretary General held the opening speech.

UK: Crime agency chief values partnership in money-laundering fight

A growing partnership between the private sector and the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (Soca) is helping to improve the efficiency of the government's money-laundering controls, Sir Stephen Lander, the agency's chairman, has said.

US: Coordination of information against organised shoplifters

As organized shoplifting costs the industry an estimated $30 billion a year and the involved crime rings are becoming more sophisticated, the FBI and retailers have joined together to support the Law Enforcement Retail Partnership Network, or LERPnet.

Fighting Organised Crime in Israel

Combating Organised Crime in Israel is taken a step further towards a multi-agency approach as the police, Justice Ministry and Tax Authority unveiled a joint intelligence unit at National Police Headquarters to fight organized crime. The center, which will enable the three bodies to pool intelligence, is meant to overcome the difficulties in intelligence collaboration caused by existing legislation. The attempts of investigators from one of these bodies to obtain intelligence from the others have caused long delays that hindered their work. Now for the first time, representatives of the Tax Authority, Money Laundering Prohibition Authority and police will work together under the same roof, pooling resources to fight organized crime.

Meanwhile efforts to combat Organised Crime were hampered by corruption from inside the police ranks.

UK: Crime assets agency scrapped

In an apparent further bid to centralise efforts to combat organised crime the Home office has announces that the Assets Recovery Agency (Ara) will be scrapped and by 2008 will be merged with the Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca). The proposals are however still subject to Parliamentary approval.

The move follows criticism of the performance of the Ara, after it emerged last year that it cost four times as much to run as it recovered from criminals. Meanwhile the Merseyside police's Attacking Criminal Economies (Ace) program seems highly succesful. Liverpool police succesfully confiscated £6.5m last year.