Cooking oil theft 'costs Treasury £25m a year in lost duty'

It has long struck me that everything else in the UK on which duty is ridiculously high is already smuggled, so oil must be...but how? We know about agricultural red diesel fraud, but biodiesel theft is a new one on me. Somewhere there is an organisation smuggling petrol...or at least evading duty on it. So how is it being done?

Calling him a liar to his face - How Sir John Pease of Standard Chartered has been forced to eat his words about sanctions busting!

Rowan's blog. Always worth a read, but fine use of criminological theory to explain banker behaviour in the UK in this particular post.

Silk Road: the online drug marketplace that officials seem powerless to stop

Now hang on here..."Tor"..."Bitcoin"...we need to know about these. Anonimisation software disguising identity and place together with an accepted international currency. Cybercrime moving on, but partially facilitated by US attempts to undermine a variety of governments...unanticpated consequences indeed.

UNODC Transnational organised Crime in West Africa; Threat assessment

Link at foot of press release to full document.

Are Russian killers on the streets of Britain?

Update on the Hermitage Capital fraud in Russia. Mysterious deaths and dark hints. Good stuff for a dismal Sunday!

Even Mafia fails to escape grips of recession

Story of slimming down of Sicilian Mafia welfare operation in Palermo area

Police from Ulster and Irish Republic target smugglers in joint operation

IRA remnants, dissidents and traditional organised crime targetted in operation on both side sof border against agricultural diesel fraud. Same network dealing in Chinese tobacco and counterfeit vodka.

How Facebook could get you arrested

Extract from new book by Evgeniy Morozov "Click here to save everything: technology, Solutionism and the urge to fix problems that dont exist." Algorithmic surveillance.

The map of 'Ndrine in the world

Ndragheta and its links in a graphic. Always fun to get a map!

Briton hunted as police crack IRA and Mafia fraud scheme

Bit of a jumble of a story. Torygraph interested in the dissident Republican angle, but having difficulty shoehorning it into what appears to be primarily a Spanish-Italian operation. Ndrangheta allegedly involved, but journalist manages to mentioned Camorra too. The only clear piece of information is that Italian police want to find a Belfast based individual and have arrested a couple of Italians in Spain. Oh and some villas have been built in the South of Italy. The book and film will no doubt follow. Maybe there's a better article in the Italian press.