Organized Crime in the 21st Century: Motivations, Opportunities, and Constraints 3031215753, 9783031215759

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Hans Nelen Dina Siegel   Editors

Organized Crime in the 21st Century Motivations, Opportunities, and Constraints

Organized Crime in the 21st Century

Hans Nelen  •  Dina Siegel Editors

Organized Crime in the 21st Century Motivations, Opportunities, and Constraints

Editors Hans Nelen Faculty of Law Department of Criminal Law and Criminology Maastricht University Maastricht, The Netherlands

Dina Siegel Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology Utrecht University Utrecht, The Netherlands

ISBN 978-3-031-21575-9    ISBN 978-3-031-21576-6 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

This book is a fourth publication in a Springer series on organized crime that is based on contributions to seminars of the Centre for Information and Research on Organized Crime (CIROC). These seminars and other activities of CIROC are heavily reliant on the participation of its staff members, i.e., researchers working at various research institutions in the Netherlands who share a passion for conducting research on organized crime. All CIROC seminars are organized by two or more of these staff members. They come up with innovative ideas for new sessions and use their international networks to invite organized crime specialists from all over the world to give keynote presentations. Without the input of our colleagues and the organizational support of Sey Lin van Munster-Kan, CIROC would not have been able to become such an important meeting point for academic scholars, policy makers, and law enforcement officials. Of course, we are highly indebted to the authors of the chapters for their willingness to revise their presentations for publication in this book. We also thank the anonymous reviewers for reviewing the second edition book manuscript and for their valuable comments. Last but not least, student-assistant Kendra van der Schans must be mentioned for helping us make the manuscript ready for submission.

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Contents

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Setting the Scene��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 Hans Nelen and Dina Siegel

Part I Markets and Networks 2

Development and Surges of Organized Crime: An Application of Enterprise Theory����������������������������������������������������   11 Jay S. Albanese

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 Organisation of Crime in the Transnational Adoption Market����������   25 Elvira Loibl and Simon Mackenzie

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Drug Crime and the Port of Rotterdam: About the Phenomenon and Its Approach��������������������������������������������   43 Richard Staring, Lieselot Bisschop, Robby Roks, Elisabeth Brein, and Henk van de Bunt

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Drug-Related Organized Crime in the Meuse Rhine Euroregion and the Role of National Borders����������������������������   63 Jessica Noack and Hans Nelen

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 “Clan Crime” in Germany: Migration Politics, Socio-Economic Conditions, and Intergenerational Transmission of Criminal Behavior ������������������������������������������������������������������������������   85 Mahmoud Jaraba

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 Arab Organized Crime in Israel������������������������������������������������������������  103 Dina Siegel

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The h200d Office: The Local Embeddedness of the Dutch Crips Gang��������������������������������������������������������������������������  121 Robby Roks

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Contents

Contract Killings by Organised Crime Groups: The Spread of Deadly Violence ��������������������������������������������������������������  137 Barbra van Gestel

Part II Responses 10 The  Criminalization of the Trade in Wildlife����������������������������������������  155 Daan van Uhm 11 Policing  the Environment: The Prosecution of Wildlife and Environmental Crimes ��������������������������������������������������������������������  171 Angus Nurse 12 Why  The Hague Convention Is Not Enough: Addressing Enabling Environments for Criminality in Intercountry Adoption��������������������  191 Kristen E. Cheney 13 Tackling  Criminal Family Networks in the Netherlands: Observations and Approaches����������������������������������������������������������������  207 Hans Moors and Toine Spapens 14 Are  Dark Number Estimates of Crime Feasible and Useful?��������������  227 Joras Ferwerda Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  237

Contributors

Jay  S.  Albanese  Wilder School of Government & Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University, VA, USA Lieselot  Bisschop  Department of Law, Society and Crime, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Elisabeth Brein  Department of Law, Society and Crime, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Kristen E. Cheney  University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada Joras  Ferwerda  Utrecht University School of Economics, Utrecht, The Netherlands Mahmoud  Jaraba  Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE), Erlangen, Germany Elvira Loibl  Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Simon  Mackenzie  Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand Hans Moors  EMMA, Experts in Media and Society, The Hague, The Netherlands Hans  Nelen  Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Jessica  Noack  Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Angus Nurse  Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK Robby  Roks  Department of Law, Society and Crime, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Dina Siegel  Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

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Contributors

Toine  Spapens  Department of Criminal Law, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands Richard Staring  Department of Law, Society and Crime, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Henk  van de Bunt  Department of Law, Society and Crime, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands Barbra van Gestel  Research and Documentation Centre of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Safety (WODC), The Hague, The Netherlands Daan van Uhm  Faculty of Law, Pompe Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

About the Editors

Hans Nelen  is Professor of Criminology in the Department of Criminal Law and Criminology in the Faculty of Law at Maastricht University, The Netherlands. He has an academic background in both criminology and law. Between 1986 and the beginning of 2001, Nelen was employed as a senior researcher and research supervisor at the Research and Documentation Centre of the Ministry of Justice in the Netherlands (WODC), mainly involved in drug, fraud, organized crime, corporate crime, and police research. Between 2001 and 2006, he was a senior lecturer/associate professor and senior researcher at the Institute of Criminology at VU University Amsterdam. Since January 1, 2007, Nelen has been working as Professor of Criminology at Maastricht University (UM). He is also director of Maastricht Institute for Criminal Sciences (MICS) and chair of the Centre for Information and Research on Organized Crime (CIROC). Nelen published a large number of books and articles on a variety of criminological subjects, i.e., corruption and fraud, organized crime, money laundering, legal professionals, the administrative approach to organized crime, cross-border police cooperation, and sports and crime. Dina Siegel  is Professor of Criminology at the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology at Utrecht University, The Netherlands. She studied sociology and social anthropology at the Tel-Aviv University, Israel, and obtained her PhD in cultural anthropology from VU University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Siegel worked between 2001 and 2008 as an assistant professor at the Institute of Criminology at VU University Amsterdam. From 2009 onwards, she has been working as Professor of Criminology at Utrecht University. Dina Siegel has studied and published many articles and books on post-Soviet organized crime, human trafficking and prostitution, organized crime in the diamond sector, drugs, underground banking, and mobile banditry.

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Chapter 1

Setting the Scene Hans Nelen and Dina Siegel

Introduction Organized crime in the twenty-first century continues to be an intriguing phenomenon. It is related to growing mobility, the emergence of new markets, new products and clients, and advancements in technology. The changes in modi operandi, organization, and facilitation of transnational criminal activities are rapid and unpredictable. Drug traffickers, for example, are looking for more lucrative markets, such as the illicit trade in wildlife or the smuggling of art and antiques. Some organized groups are moving to other countries, thereby creating competition to local criminal groups, for example, Nigerian criminal groups in Italy or Vietnamese gangs in Germany. There is a growing and flourishing market for cybercrime, which remains one of the most difficult challenges for law enforcement worldwide. Criminologists who study these new developments have drawn attention to the high level of mobility and sophistication of organized crime groups. New empirical data are, therefore, highly needed for a better theoretical understanding of and a practical and effective response to these new forms of transnational organized crime. The explicit goal of this book is to offer insights into a wide range of themes and issues in relation to organized crime. The volume contains a variety of findings of criminological studies into organized crime that are relevant not only to a small niche of specialists but to a much broader audience both within and outside H. Nelen Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] D. Siegel (*) Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_1

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academia. Rather than that we want to give the contributors to this book the opportunity to scratch each other’s back, this book intends to contribute to the accumulation of scientific knowledge in the area of organized crime, trigger a debate among scholars and practitioners, and contribute to the development of new approaches to various forms of organized crime and its control. Actually, this starting point has been one of the main pillars of the Center of Information and Research on Organized Crime (CIROC) since its establishment in 2001. CIROC’s mission is to contribute to international cooperation and information sharing about current developments and trends regarding transnational organized crime. The center aims at building bridges between organized crime scholars on the one hand and policymakers and law enforcement officials on the other. One way of doing that is by inviting organized crime specialists from all over the world to give keynote presentations and discuss their findings and ideas with the audience. For more than two decades, CIROC has organized more than 60 seminars on organized crime–related topics—including three online 24th conferences on global organized crime in cooperation with ECPRSGOC, IASOC, and the Global Initiative network—and published dozens of Dutch and English newsletters. The most interesting papers that were presented at CIROC seminars in the last two decades have been published in three previous volumes. This is the fourth publication in a Springer series (after Siegel et al. [eds.] [2003], Global Organized Crime. Trends and Developments; Siegel and Nelen [eds.] [2008], Organized Crime: Culture, Markets and Policies; and Nelen and Siegel [eds.] [2017; second edition in 2021], Contemporary Organized Crime: Developments, Challenges and Responses), in which the most relevant papers that were presented during CIROC seminars are brought together and disseminated among a broad audience. The papers cover the period 2016–2021. The contributors provide up-to-date understanding of various aspects of organized crime and the various responses that have been developed worldwide to contain serious forms of crime. The emphasis of this book is on the ways criminal networking and illegal markets have developed in the first two decades of the twenty-first century and how these developments have mutually influenced the motivations and opportunities to commit organized crime and its containment.

Part I: Markets and Networks In contrast to many other books that deal with organized crime, this volume not only focuses on illegal activities in illegal markets, that is, drugs and human trafficking. Although attention is paid to developments in drug markets and networks in a number of chapters, we have also invited scholars to share their insights of organized crime and deviance in legitimate industries. This already becomes clear in Chap. 2, written by Jay S. Albanese, with which we kick off the first part of this book on markets and networks. Using cigarette smuggling and trafficking in cultural property as examples, both the shifts over time in organized crime activity and the

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responses to them are shown to be the result of interactions between available supply, demand, regulation, and competition in specific illicit markets. Implications of this enterprise perspective are presented for both the short- and long-term prospects for organized crime opportunities and its prevention through an empirical risk assessment approach. The assumption that organized crime is the result of interactions between the aforementioned four mechanisms is also taken as the starting point of Chap. 3, written by Elvira Loibl and Simon McKenzie. Their analysis is related to the adoption industry, a sector that, until recently, was rather underresearched. This market is organized into a structure of relations between kidnappers, orphanages, youth welfare offices, lawyers, doctors, adoption agencies, and sometimes even adopters. The authors present convincing arguments why child trafficking for adoption must be considered as a form of organized crime. Their chapter explores and discusses four features of this kind of trafficking in human beings and draws comparisons with other transnational organized criminal trades. First, they highlight the commodification of what is culturally considered to be separate from the economic sphere. Subsequently, they pay attention to the criminogenic asymmetries, which the transnational adoption market is based on the need for a “laundering process,” and, last but not the least, the concerted ignorance of the stakeholders on the demand side of the market. In the second part of this book on responses, another chapter on the adoption industry is included. We will come back to that chapter (12) in the section below. In that section, two chapters on another legitimate sector will be introduced: the trade in wildlife and the prosecution of wildlife and environmental crimes. However, before we go “into the wild” and explore the world of endangered species, the emphasis will be placed in a number of chapters on the “jungle” of the drug market. Again, this market is approached from different angles. First, contextual conditions will be considered. From the literature, we know that crime opportunities and crime-facilitative circumstances are key in explaining the nature and extent of organized crime in a specific setting. For instance, various studies on the nature of organized crime have shed light on the magnitude of the drug industry in the Netherlands and contextualized why the Netherlands plays such a pivotal role in various drug markets and money laundering internationally. Due to its geographical location, logistics, history, migration flows, policy, and business mentality—the Dutch have always been traders, constantly looking for business opportunities, regardless of whether they are legitimate or not—the Netherlands has become one of the main European centers for the production and trafficking of (mainly homegrown hemp and synthetic drugs) and large-scale trafficking of cocaine. The fact that the port of Rotterdam is the gateway to Europe for both legitimate and illegitimate trade is one of the relevant explanatory factors in this respect. In Chap. 4, Staring et al. discuss the nature, scope, social organization, and logistical process of drug trafficking, with special attention to the vulnerable locations and sectors in the port complex. In addition, it evaluates the approach to drug crime involving both public and private actors in and around the port of Rotterdam. Chapter 5, written by Jessica Noack and Hans Nelen, addresses the relevance of geographical borders. Their chapter takes a multinational approach and is based on

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data collected in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. It addresses the current situation in the Meuse Rhine EU region, a geographically small area in Europe where German, Belgian, and Dutch influences can be found. The main question that will be addressed is how criminal networks, the modi operandi, and “business models” of criminal entrepreneurs in the drug world have developed over the years in this EU region and how criminal networking and criminal activities have been influenced by the presence of various national borders. In their analysis, Noack and Nelen briefly touch upon the phenomenon of “clan crime” in Germany. In Chap. 6, written by Mahmoud Jaraba, this phenomenon is profoundly elaborated. This is the moment in this book where we slowly change the perspective from markets to networks. Jaraba does not take the concept of clans for granted, though. He demonstrates the influence of migration politics, socioeconomic conditions, and kinship dynamics in shaping the structure and character of “clan crimes” in Germany. One of the main arguments of the author is that when a crime is committed by the member of a clan, it usually takes place either within that person’s nuclear family or independently of it and not at a clan level. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, in his fieldwork, the author found no evidence of clans either organizing or supporting organized criminal activity. The analysis of Jaraba is not limited to the drug market but addresses a variety of criminal activities of a specific group in different crime markets. The same applies to Chap. 7 of Dina Siegel and Chap. 8 of Robby Roks. Siegel analyzes the dynamics inside Israel’s underworld, the criminal activities in Arab communities, and the social response from Israeli authorities and law enforcement to the growing power of Arab organized crime. Roks focuses on the activities of and dynamics within a gang, that is, the “Dutch Crips.” He refers to the home base of this gang as an “office.” Building on the “crime as work” perspective (Letkemann, 1973), this metaphor is used to examine the local embeddedness of the Dutch Crips and their criminal activities. The former gang leader of the Dutch Crips was recently convicted by a criminal court to long-term imprisonment because of his participation in a number of contract killings. This case and other examples suggest that the nature of violence in the Dutch crime scene in the Netherlands has changed. The country was severely shocked when journalist and national celebrity Peter R. de Vries was assassinated on 6 July 2021, in broad daylight in the middle of Amsterdam after leaving a television studio. de Vries had become the confidant of a crown witness, who was testifying in the so-called Marengo trial, which is a major court case against the alleged leaders of a drug network. The suspects, which included Ridouan T., the most wanted criminal in the Netherlands during the last decade who was arrested in December 2019 in Dubai, are allegedly the organizers of large-scale drug trafficking operations and the assassination of several people. The brother of the crown witness was killed in 2018, followed by his lawyer, Derk Wiersum, in 2019. These brutal liquidations suggest that the current generation of drug traffickers in North-Western Europe is even more ruthless than previous generations. Of course, violence and intimidation have always been part of doing business in the illicit drug industry. During the last decades, we have witnessed different “waves” of assassinations, but

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what seems to have changed in a Western European context is that criminals increasingly use violence not only as a means to resolve conflicts with their rivals, but now violence is also used to confront and intimidate members of public institutions. Additionally, as Barbra Van Gestel explains in Chap. 9, assassinations are also ordered for irrational, more emotional reasons with the primary aim of taking revenge, showing power and instilling fear. In her analysis, the author also refers to the crude and sloppy methods displayed by today’s hitmen. According to Van Gestel, three explanatory factors are key in understanding their rash and reckless behavior: inexperience, the wide availability of heavy automatic firearms, and the crude and intimidating attitude of their principals.

Part II: Responses Similar to previous volumes in our CIROC series, this book not only focuses on relevant trends in relation to crime phenomena and criminal networks but also addresses the reaction side. What are the current strategies in fighting, containing, and preventing organized crime and what lessons can be learned from the application of these strategies in daily practice? The first question that comes to mind in this respect is whether the criminal law contains a toolbox that can be used to counteract specific behavior? Of course, this question is related to criminalization and decriminalization processes. In Chap. 10, Daan van Uhm demonstrates that until recently, the trade in wildlife was legal, but many activities in this sector are now considered serious forms of organized crime. The author points out that due to this criminalization process, the wild life trade may have become less attractive for some criminal networks as they may face increased risk of apprehension and more severe punishments. However, a negative side effect of this process may be that prices on the black market also rise and, alongside, increase the appeal of involvement in this market for other criminal networks. The simple fact that certain forms of behavior are criminalized does not guarantee that such a prohibition in the criminal law is actually enforced. Chapter 11, written by Angus Nurse, brings together several themes concerning policing, regulation, and prosecution of environmental harms. Its focus is the prosecution of organized environmental crime with a consideration of how varied judicial and regulatory approaches can more effectively address environmental harms. The chapter discusses the potential ineffectiveness of criminal law approaches where wildlife and environmental laws have been designed as administrative, regulatory, and conservation management law rather than as “pure” criminal law. The chapter notes the benefits of civil and administrative mechanisms that focus more on repairing harm and changing behavior, while noting how these mechanisms may be underused. In a similar vein, in Chap. 12, Kirsten E. Cheney addresses the shortcomings of the criminal law and international conventions in relation to containing the excrescences in the adoption industry. Cheney argues that legally binding conventions are not enough to protect children and their families from abuses. Using the concept of

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the orphan industrial complex as a starting point, this chapter explains why, in addition to local law and international cooperation, we must address the various sociocultural and economic factors that create and maintain an enabling environment for such irregularities in intercountry adoption to persist. The chapter also contains suggestions how to influence these factors. Looking at the aforementioned considerations, the conclusion is inevitable that in fighting and containing organized crime, the criminal law is anything but a panacea. In some countries, criminal law enforcement is accompanied by other approaches. Next to criminal investigations and prosecutions of individuals or groups of criminals are the possibilities of putting up barriers and increasing social resilience to organized crime. Such an integrated approach that encompasses a wide variety of tools and interventions with both repressive and preventative dimensions is particularly visible in the Netherlands. Many scholars (among others, van der Schoot [2006] and Nelen [2010]) tend to link this integrated approach with situational crime prevention on the grounds that most of the intervention strategies aim to eliminate opportunities for organized crime, rather than to focus on specific perpetrators. In Chap. 13 of this book, the case of systematic interventions in family-­ based groups is elaborated as an example of an integrated approach. First, the authors of this chapter, Hans Moors and Toine Spapens, address several issues with regard to criminal families, intergenerational transmission of delinquent behavior, and criminal leadership. Subsequently, various evidence- and practice-based approaches of family-oriented interventions are discussed. Many scholars have already emphasized that it is hard, if not impossible, to measure the extent of organized crime, its societal impact, and the effectiveness of counterstrategies in a sound and solid way. The debate on the possibilities and added value of economic calculations of the threat of organized crime was fueled more than 20 years ago when Fijnaut et al. (1998) concluded in one of the first empirical studies on organized crime in the Netherlands that “their excursion into the world of figures on production, quantities seized, market sizes and criminal profits was an overall disappointment.” Later, other scholars, including Naylor (2004), emphasized that it has to be acknowledged that “no one has a clue how much illegal money is earned, saved, laundered, or moved around the world” (Naylor, 2004). Nevertheless, policymakers, politicians, the press, and law enforcement agencies alike keep looking for figures that may help them to substantiate the claim of an “epidemic” of organized crime sweeping through the globalized economy. The need for this kind of quantitative data has only increased throughout the last decade. The fact that most, if not all, estimates in threat analyses are based upon a series of assumptions lacking logical or factual basis and that the quality of the data that these estimates are based upon is flawed seems to be of secondary interest. An example of a report that received much criticism was the report that was published in 2018 by a research group from Utrecht University and Ecorys on the nature and extent of money laundering in the Netherlands (Unger et al., 2018). Estimates of the size of the criminally earned assets were made on the basis of macroeconomic statistics, available crime data, and the worldwide gravity model, as originally

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developed by Walker (1999). In total, the researchers estimated the scale of money laundering in the Netherlands in 2014 at 16 billion euros. The author of the last chapter of this book, Joras Ferwarda, was a member of the aforementioned research group. He took up the challenge to respond to the skepticism among academics about whether these kinds of estimations are valid, reliable, feasible, or even useful. He argues, specifically for money laundering, that whether to conduct dark figure crime estimates should be determined by relevance. Such estimates can be relevant for policy priority setting, policy effectiveness testing, and scientific relevance. Ferwerda acknowledges that there are legitimate concerns about dark figure estimates of crime. However, doubts and uncertainty with regard to the suitability and validity of data, research methods, or models should not hold academics back in trying to coming up with estimations of the volume of complex societal problems. Rather, curiosity, doubt, and uncertainty should be embraced, as they are the main driving forces for research and innovation. We leave it up to the reader whether to agree with this point of view. However, like many other contributions in this volume, the chapter will definitely trigger debate, and that was one of our purposes when we started this endeavor.

References Fijnaut, C., Bovenkerk, F., Bruinsma, G., & Van de Bunt, H. (1998). Organized Crime in the Netherlands. The Hague, the Netherlands: Kluwer Law International. Letkemann, P. (1973). Crime as work. Prentice-Hall. Naylor, R. T. (2004). Wages of crime; black markets, illegal finance, and the underworld economy (Rev. ed.). Cornell University Press. Nelen, H. (2010). Situational organised crime prevention in Amsterdam: The administrative approach. In K. Bullock, R. V. Clarke, & N. Tilley (Eds.), Situational prevention of organized crimes (pp. 93–110). Willan Publishing. Unger, B., Ferwerda, J., Koetsier, I., Gjoleka, B., van Saase, A., Slot, B., & de Swart, L. (2018). Aard en omvang van criminele bestedingen [Nature and extent of criminal investments]. Universiteit Utrecht – Faculteit Recht, Economie Bestuur en Organisatie (REBO). Van der Schoot, C. R. A. (2006). Organised crime prevention in the Netherlands. Exposing the effectiveness of preventive measures. Boom Legal Publishers. Walker, J. (1999). How big is global money laundering? Journal of Money Laundering Control, 3(1), 25–37.

Part I

Markets and Networks

Chapter 2

Development and Surges of Organized Crime: An Application of Enterprise Theory Jay S. Albanese

Introduction The enduring presence of organized crime in the human environment can be difficult to understand. This chapter examines shifts in organized crime activity in the context of enterprise theory, showing how the pressures of the illicit marketplace are similar to those of legal markets. The need for organized crime enterprises to survive and make a profit comes down to four essential considerations: supply, demand, regulation, and competition. These essential elements of enterprise theory are discussed with case examples. The interactions that have occurred in specific historical contexts will be provided here, offering a useful tool to understand and assess the nature and shifts in organized crime activity over time and the prospects for risk assessment in the future. It was a century ago when organized crime in the United States became a national concern. The convergence of politics and economics in society came together in a unique way. The government decided to prohibit the sale and consumption of alcoholic beverages through Prohibition and the Volstead Act in 1920 (Slavicek, 2009; Funderberg, 2014). It was a clear case of eliminating the supply while ignoring the existing demand. The result was foreseeable when applying enterprise theory. The combination of a dramatic drop in supply with an existing high demand resulted in a surge of smuggling, underground speakeasies (saloons), and the rise in associated activities, such as illegal gambling, to keep customers coming to illegal speakeasies (National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, 1931). The enterprise perspective offers a useful tool to understand the important elements underlying these events. The government’s attempt to reduce supply ignored the J. S. Albanese (*) Wilder School of Government & Public Affairs, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_2

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existing demand, and the rule of law that was supposed to prevent illegal distribution and consumption of alcoholic beverages was not effective. Why? The relationship between low (prohibited) supply and high (existing) demand can be expected to create illegal suppliers. The government further underestimated its ability to control the problem because its regulators (the police) were overwhelmingly undertrained, unprofessional, underpaid, and therefore easy to corrupt. The same was true for many local judges during this period. As the Wickersham Commission reported in 1931, the high-profit margin for liquor smuggling, distilling, brewing, and bootlegging “makes possible systematic and organized violation of the National Prohibition Act on a large scale and offers rewards on a par with the most important legitimate industries” (National Commission on Law Observance and Enforcement, 1931, 44). It also provided the means for “lavish expenditure” on the corruption of police, politicians, and judges. Therefore, the rule of law exercised little influence during this historical period, allowing organized crime groups to grow in size, influence, and profit at a fast rate, while also brutally attacking other criminal groups seeking to move into their local territory. The outcome was “mob control” of some large cities, such as in New York and Chicago, where organized crime controlled both local politicians and the police through corruption. It can be said that the influence of organized crime gangs subsequently declined in the 1930s only because the Great Depression crushed the economy, resulting in less money to spend on the vices, which lessened demand for illicit goods and services that hurt organized crime interests. Finally, the repeal of Prohibition (in 1933) ended what was one of the worst experiences ever by a government to control the conduct of its citizens (Hall, 2010; Mappen, 2013; Oliver, 2018; Schaeffer, 2011; Thornton, 1991). It was not for several decades that law enforcement recruitment and training improved through the development of the merit-based civil service system for public sector employment and the strengthening of federal agencies to serve as oversight for corruption problems in various cities and towns. But corruption control requires vigilance; it is never completely “solved” or prevented, as there is a tendency to slide back into self-seeking conduct in business, government, and among citizens (Albanese, 2021a; McCusker, 2006).

Enterprise Perspective Putting together the pieces of the failure of Prohibition as a way to change public behavior and its failure to anticipate its success in provoking a surge of organized crime, which was better organized, larger, and more profitable, requires consideration of the forces at work. John Landesco (1929) wrote a century ago about organized crime in Chicago describing how the operation of organized crime mirrored the activity of the legitimate business world. He was the first to connect business, corruption, and organized crime in a systematic way. As noted by Peter Yeager (2015, 148), Landesco described “the role of gangsters as a means to stabilize highly

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unstable, low-profit businesses such as laundries, linen supply, and the bar and restaurant trade. Through intimidation, violent entrepreneurs served a latent function: keeping labor costs low, restricting competition, and enhancing profit margins in historically marginal enterprises.” Landesco also described the need for corrupt relationships with government officials to ensure the ongoing survival of infiltrated legal and illegal businesses. Subsequent writers and researchers made periodic inquiries and statements about the business nature of organized crime (Schelling, 1967; Sellin, 1963), but it was not fully developed until later. So although the notion of organized crime as enterprise began as an idea with Landesco, it was not built upon systematically until Dwight Smith (1975, 1978, 1980) developed it into a “spectrum-based” theory of enterprise as an explanation for organized crime, which grew out of dissatisfaction with alien conspiracy or ethnic explanations of organized crime. The alien conspiracy perspective saw organized crime as the result of foreign (Italian) actors conspiring to dominate the markets for illicit goods and services. This view became part of US policy when the President’s Crime Commission and its consultants concluded that “Today the core of organized crime in the United States consists of 24 groups operating as criminal cartels in large cities across the Nation. Their membership is exclusively men of Italian descent” (US President’s Commission, 1967; Cressey, 1969). Dwight Smith’s book The Mafia Mystique (1975) set forth a different paradigm to explain the emergence and success of organized crime. Applying general organization theory to criminal activity, Smith found that organized crime stems from “the same fundamental assumptions that govern entrepreneurship in the legitimate marketplace: a necessity to maintain and extend one’s share of the market” (1975, 163). According to this perspective, organized crime groups form and thrive in the same way that legitimate businesses do: they respond to the needs and demands of suppliers, customers, regulators, and competitors. The only difference between organized crime and legitimate business, according to Smith, is that organized criminals deal in illegal products, whereas legitimate businesses generally do not. The enterprise model of organized crime focuses on how economic considerations, rather than hierarchical, conspiracy, or ethnic considerations, lie at the base of the formation and success of organized crime groups and networks. As Smith observed, “while theories about conspiracy and ethnicity have some pertinence to organized crime, they are clearly subordinate to a theory of enterprise” (1980, 370). Therefore, the underlying premise to be confronted is not the individual drug dealer or illegal casino operator, for example, that causes public concern, but how these individuals organize their customers, suppliers, and functionaries to provide illicit goods and services for a profit. The realization that organized crime operates as a business spurred a series of studies to isolate those factors that contribute most significantly to the formation of criminal enterprises (Edwards & Gill, 2002; Gerber, 2000; Liddick, 1999; Paoli, 2002; Schloenhardt, 1999; Southerland & Potter, 1993; Van Duyne, 1993; Williams & Godson, 2002; Yeager, 2012; 2015). Major characteristics of the enterprise model are summarized below.

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1. Organized crime and legitimate business involve similar activities on different ends of the “spectrum of legitimacy” of business enterprise. 2. Operations are not ethnically exclusive and rarely violent to enhance possibilities for profit. 3. Organized crime operations are rarely organized centrally due to the nature of the markets and activities involved. Therefore, it is economic relationships, rather than personal relationships, which form the basis for organized crime activity. Rather than the traditional focus on how organized crime groups are organized, the enterprise perspective focuses on how organized crime activities are organized. These activities are summarized in Fig. 2.1 below. As Fig. 2.1 indicates, the goal of all organized crimes is to survive and make a profit. These two objectives require access to a supply of the illicit product or service and steady (inelastic) demand from customers, while taking measures to avoid regulators (law enforcement, judges, politicians) and ensure that competition from other products and groups is effectively managed. Therefore, the pressures on organized crime operations are similar to those of legitimate businesses. The differences lie in the nature of the goods and services provided. The illegal marketplace carries with it more potential threats, so constant efforts to maintain distance from law enforcement, regulators, and competition are required.

Regulators – ease of market entry, enforcement risk, governm't corruption

Supply – availability of product/service, ease of movement or sale

OC as Enterprise goal: survive and profit

Competition – history of OC in market, profitability, harm

Fig. 2.1  Organized crime as enterprise

Customers – demand level, elastic/inelastic

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Creating Surges in Organized Crime Cigarette Smuggling The lessons of history are often soon forgotten. Prohibition is an important example of poor government decisions adding to the strength and power of organized crime, but this error has been repeated. For example, cigarette smuggling became a problem in the United States and other countries, due to governments seeking to raise funds without raising taxes on citizens (Saba et al., 1995; Van Duyne, 2003; Yürekli & Sayginsoy, 2010). So “user” fees of various kinds became the new way to raise public funds without losing votes. In the United States, individual states have the power to tax citizens beyond what the federal government taxes. This has resulted in wide differences among the states in tax rates. For instance, New York has a comparatively high tax rate, whereas North Carolina (a tobacco-growing state) has very low taxes on cigarettes. This uneven taxation also exists in Europe and elsewhere, creating opportunities for smuggling when the increased costs of the supply create incentives for both legitimate and illicit vendors to smuggle cigarettes between jurisdictions to reduce costs to meet and attract the existing demand (Collin et al., 2004; Griffiths, 2004; Hozic, 2004; Kupka & Tvrdá, 2016). Increasing tax rates on cigarettes in some US states induced substantial black market movement of tobacco products into high-tax states from low-tax states or from foreign sources. For example, it was found that “New York has the highest inbound smuggling activity, with an estimated 53.2 percent of cigarettes consumed in the state deriving from smuggled sources in 2018. New  York is followed by California with 47.7 percent of consumption smuggled” (Boesen, 2020). Depending on the local situation, the scale of the smuggling can range from small storeowners filling vans with cigarettes and driving across borders to large-scale criminal activity involving counterfeit state tax stamps, counterfeit versions of cigarette brands, hijacked trucks, and corrupted officials (LaFaive et  al., 2020; Lallerstedt, 2018; Meneghini et al., 2020). In every case, the intention to raise government revenue is subverted when policymakers fail to account for the disjunction that is artificially created between supply and demand, compounded by the failure to increase the presence and oversight of law enforcement and regulatory agencies over the growth of smuggling (Drenkard & Henchman, 2017; Hock, 2021; Joossens & Raw, 2012; Lovenheim, 2008; Saba et al., 1995; Yürekli & Sayginsoy, 2010).

Trafficking in Cultural Property and Other Goods and Services The development of “new” forms of organized crime and surges in its prevalence continue today. Consider the trafficking of cultural property, illicitly extracted metals and minerals, trafficking in waste, organized illegal fishing, wildlife trafficking, and many other newer manifestations of organized crime (Andreatta & Favarin,

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2020; OECD/EUIPO, 2020; UNESCO, 2018; UNODC, 2019; UNODC, 2020; Zabyelina & van Uhm, 2020). In every case, their emergence can be linked to changes in the balance among supply, the nature of the existing demand, problems in regulation and enforcement, and competition from other products or groups. These are the essential elements of the enterprise perspective on organized crime. Figure 2.2 illustrates how the development of illicit trafficking in cultural property has occurred. Careful examination of known incidents reveals changes in the rapid and unchecked movement of people and goods occurring in the context of chronic poverty exacerbated by conflict and corruption. This context contributes to the available supply of looters and smugglers with unmonitored communication capabilities of suspects. Demand remains high and inelastic, the result of an uneducated, unaware, un-aroused civil society and private sector, together with ineffective monitoring of movement goods and profits derived from them. Regulation lags because laws on exporting, auctions, museums, galleries, extradition, liability, and return of property are not harmonized. Weak rule of law and high levels of corruption are exacerbated by conflict zones and poorly trained or ill-equipped law enforcement (Campbell, 2013; Hauser-Schäublin & Prott, 2016; Manacorda & Chappell, 2011). Competition from other goods, services, or groups does not create pressure on organized crime operations because there is rapid, unchecked movement of people and goods, and legal and illicit markets are existing side by side. In addition, profits are higher and risks are lower compared to other illicit markets, and there exist safe havens for offenders, property, and profits generated. These conditions surrounding illicit enterprises create conditions in which it is possible to survive and make a profit on an ongoing basis.

Fig. 2.2  Modeling the trafficking in cultural property. (Source: Author)

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Trends in Crimes and Groups The conditions described here lead to questions about how to manage them more effectively to prevent the development and surges of organized crime activity. The first step is to identify current markets/activities in which organized crime poses the largest risk. A recent review of published research articles found a focus on 11 different types of organized crime activity. Racketeering/extortion (36%) was the most common focus, followed by corruption (14%), human trafficking (10%), drug trafficking (11%), cybercrime/fraud (8%), wildlife/environmental crimes (9%), and money laundering (5%). All the other types of crimes were present in 2% or fewer studies (Albanese, 2021). A large number of the racketeering/extortion analyses focused on how groups and networks organize, structure themselves, and operate, so they cut across a large segment of different illicit goods and services. These findings display the level of research interest, rather than showing the actual presence of these organized crimes in practice. There is no reliable “count” of organized crime activities, but it is true that the nature of organized crime changes according to the opportunities available and local conditions present. An assessment to determine the correspondence between research analyses and actual prosecutions undertaken examined all US organized crime criminal cases (occurring during 2019). These cases met a burden of proof for inclusion (probable cause for arrest or indictment and proof beyond reasonable doubt for conviction). Interestingly, only 10 percent of US federal judicial districts accounted for nearly half of all cases brought, including both urban and non-urban locations (Albanese, 2021). Table 2.1 summarizes the extent to which these prosecuted cases in the United States had documented connections to other regions of the world. Seventeen percent of all cases prosecuted had connections outside the United States, led by North American connections (45.2%) outside the United States (i.e., Mexico or Canada). The second largest group was Central American countries (30.7%), which could be anticipated because smuggling routes often take the closest, easiest, and most profitable path from supply to demand locations (Karson, 2014; Owens et al., 2014; Table 2.1  Transnational connections in organized crime cases Regions outside the United States North America Central America Asia Eastern Europe Africa Middle East Western Europe Total

Number 109 74 33 8 9 4 4 241

Data source: US organized crime prosecutions, 2019

Percent 45.2 30.7 13.7 3.3 3.7 1.7 1.7 100

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UNODC, 2018). Further, there were cases with documented connections to Asia (13.7%), and 10.4% had connections to Europe, Africa, or the Middle East. Therefore, a significant number of prosecutions included connections between two or more countries, usually reflecting transit between supply and demand locations for the illicit product or service. Table 2.2 summarizes the nature of the lead (primary) charges that resulted in prosecution. Drug trafficking was, by far, the most common charge (72.8%), followed by racketeering/extortion cases (13.3%). The other types of crimes occurred much less frequently, but there did exist significant numbers of cases involving human trafficking, fraud/counterfeiting, cybercrime, and money laundering. Because organized crime occurs as part of an ongoing criminal enterprise, multiple illicit activities often occur simultaneously and over time. In addition to being the second most common lead charge in these cases, racketeering/extortion was also the most common second-and third-level charge in organized crime cases, suggesting that the ongoing group or network behind the activity (racketeering) and the threats needed to enforce illicit authority and compliance (extortion) are an important focus of organized crime prosecutions. It also suggests that organized crime groups and networks devote a great deal of attention to avoiding regulation and enforcement, as well as fending off threats from competitor groups or products. It was found that the types of organized crime cases prosecuted in practice were generally quite similar to those addressed by organized crime researchers (Albanese, 2021). These data represent a cross-section of one calendar year using a government data source, so they have inherent limitations. Analysis of cases over multiple years and multiple data sources is needed. Prosecutions of organized crime reflect government priorities, rather than shifts in organized crime activity. Windle and Silke’s (2019) review of 160 published research articles on organized crime found that the vast majority relied on official data, due to limits of funding and time and access required to conduct interviews of offenders, victims, or others. Nonetheless, insights

Table 2.2  Charges brought in US organized crime cases Lead crime type Drug trafficking RICO/extortion/violence Human trafficking Fraud & counterfeit goods Cybercrime Money laundering Corruption, bribery, obstruction Firearms trafficking Gambling bus./dog fighting Wildlife, environment crimes Total

Number 1052 192 46 39 38 33 20

Percent 72.8 13.3 3.2 2.7 2.6 2.3 1.4

14 7 5 1446

1 0.5 0.3 100

Data source: Analysis of US organized crime prosecutions, 2019

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can be gained from the available data, and the application of enterprise theory can help assess markets at high risk for organized crime involvement to target investigative and prevention resources. On a global scale, the enterprise approach has shown value in assessing comparative risk. There has been interest over the years in connecting economic, political, and social variables (such as rule of law, corruption, and wealth indicators) to develop risk analyses and better measurement and anticipation of organized crime activity (see Buscaglia, 2003; Van Dijk, 2007; Van Dijk & Spapens, 2014). A new Global Index of Transnational Organized Crime was recently published, building on the earlier work. It found, for example, that “More than three-quarters of the world’s population live in countries with high levels of criminality, and in countries with low resilience to organized crime” (Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021, 10). Resilience was assessed by evaluating relatively few political, economic, legal, and social measures, such as government transparency, economic regulation, operation of the criminal justice system, anti-money laundering efforts, and related factors. These results suggest that a relatively small number of factors, all of which are related to the enterprise perspective, can be highly useful in developing better assessments of organized crime. The correspondence with the enterprise measures of supply, demand, regulation, and competition is remarkable, and ongoing empirical efforts appear to borrow heavily from the enterprise approach.

Discussion and Conclusions A study of 27 EU member states found that “intelligence gathering by law enforcement agencies has typically been focused on identifying members of criminal groups and tracing illicit goods or services they sell, whereas their financial transactions have rarely been traced” (Center for the Study of Democracy, 2015, 419). In 2011, the US National Security Council released its Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime. It recommended “priority actions” included two categories of substantive crimes: (1) disrupting drug trafficking due to its prevalence and high level of profits that funds other criminal activities and (2) protecting the financial system and strategic markets against transnational organized crime. This emphasis included cybercrime, money laundering, and asset forfeiture (National Security Council, 2011). These two priority areas are reflected in the prosecuted cases noted above with drug trafficking the most common substantive offense and money laundering the most common second- and third-level offense charged. Cybercrime cases closely followed money laundering as second- and third-level charges. This suggests that public/government priority and attention to specific types of crimes can result in shifting the targets of investigation and prosecutions. What remains to be seen is whether research can also assist to enhance the focus on those organized crimes that pose the greatest risk through empirical assessments of local and national conditions that encourage or discourage ongoing organized crime activity.

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The enterprise perspective can be useful moving forward as the basis for an organized crime risk assessment tool. As suggested in Figs. 2.1 and 2.2, the major elements of enterprise theory (supply, demand, regulation, competition) provide a clear list of 10 measurable factors to assess the comparative risk of different product markets so that prosecution and prevention resources can be allocated accordingly. Enterprise-related variables include supply indicators: (a) objective availability of product or service and (b) ease of movement/sale; regulation indicators: (c) ease of entry into the illicit market by its regulation and the skills needed, (d) law enforcement capability and competence, and (e) level of local government corruption; competition indicators: (f) history of organized crime in the market, (g) profitability, and (h) harm; and demand indicators: (i) current customer demand for product and (j) nature of the demand—whether elastic or inelastic. Using multiple indicators or measures for each of the variables (and for each product) would yield a reliable, comparative assessment of risk (Albanese, 2001; 2008; Verrier, 2020). An earlier effort at organized crime risk analysis developed risk factors for organized crime infiltration into legal businesses. The purpose was to “assist law enforcement agencies in identifying the factors facilitating and/or promoting infiltration and enhancing the prevention and enforcement of criminal infiltration” (Savona & Berlusconi, 2015, 13). Here again, a small number of business-related factors were found to be most useful—focusing on location, type of business, ownership structure, and financial management. Another comprehensive review of different approaches to risk assessment sought to develop an “environmental scan” to identify economic sectors at high risk for organized crime involvement. “The objective of the licit market scan is to provide insight into the relative levels of vulnerability of the legitimate economy to organized crime” (Beken, 2004, 510). The ultimate model proposed incorporated essential elements of the enterprise perspective. Empirical efforts to validate the ability of enterprise elements, to develop a comparative risk assessment of organized crime activities of greatest concern, must be location specific (i.e., findings will vary by geographic location), activity specific (i.e., different illicit activities will have different risk levels), and time specific (i.e., conditions change over time so risk assessments must be done periodically). As the recent report on the Organized Crime Index concluded, empirical work can “provide constructive guidance to policymakers and regional bodies, so that they can prioritize interventions based on a multifaceted assessment of vulnerabilities”(Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021, 21). Measuring the enterprise elements for a risk assessment must involve those with firsthand knowledge of the local organized crime situation. This effort would include the perspectives of local police familiar with organized crime activity in the jurisdiction, NGOs, and other civil society groups doing work on the ground in these areas, and business and citizen victimization surveys to obtain direct knowledge of experiences in the local community. There have been some noteworthy efforts to develop this kind of information, but the funding has been sporadic, so systematic efforts are few. But this work has resulted in some useful insights into the at-risk markets for mobile phones, waste disposal, banking, pharmaceuticals, and extortion of local businesses (Beken, 2004; Chin & Murillo, 2020; Jurva, 2018;  Tilley &

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Hopkins, 2008; Tulyakov, 2001; Van Dijk, 2007). There also exist examples of successful partnerships among police, investigative analysts, and researchers in addressing criminal justice problems (Bruinsma & Meershoek, 2012: Interpol, 2021). The cooperation of these groups with civil society in evaluating and targeting the risks posed by organized crime in different illicit activities and locations is a logical and necessary step forward. Organized crime impact assessments, as a form of risk assessment, should be conducted before the implementation of new laws or policies that affect commerce. The example of cigarette smuggling illustrates that even a simple tax revenue measure can have disastrous results in expanding organized crime and harming local economies when existing knowledge of organized crime risk factors is not solicited or applied. Work on the impact of legislation on organized crime has occurred in several instances in the European Union covering a range of laws impacting many different consumer markets (Morgan & Clarke, 2006; Savona, 2006; Beken & Balcaen, 2006). This work shows clear promise for the ability to anticipate the potential risks for organized crimes in specific circumstances, rather than merely responding to them once they occur. It remains to be seen whether more systematic efforts to assess organized crime risk in different markets and locations can be prioritized, developed, and employed to target future prosecution and prevention efforts. Such a principled risk assessment initiative would work to prevent a repeat of the bad lessons from history as illustrated in the cases of Prohibition, cigarette smuggling, and more contemporary manifestations of organized crime operating as an enterprise responding to continuing changes in supply, demand, regulation, and competition.

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Tilley, N., & Hopkins, M. (2008). Organized crime and local businesses. Criminology & Criminal Justice, 8, 443–459. Tulyakov, V.  A. (2001). The dualism of business victimization and organized crime. Trends in Organized Crime, 6, 94–99. U.S.  President’s Commission. (1967). Task force report: Organized crime. U.S.  Government Printing Office. UNESCO. (2018). Fighting the illicit trafficking of cultural property. European Union. UNODC. (2018). Global study on smuggling migrants. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-­and-­analysis/glosom/GLOSOM_2018_web_ small.pdf UNODC. (2019). Rotten fish: A guide on addressing corruption in the fisheries sector. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. UNODC. (2020). World wildlife crime report: Trafficking in protected species. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Van Dijk, J. (2007). Mafia markers: Assessing organized crime and its impact upon societies. Trends in Organized Crime, 10, 39–56. Van Dijk, J., & Spapens, T. (2014). Transnational organized crime networks. In Handbook of transnational crime and justice. Sage Publications. Van Duyne, P.  C. (1993). Organized crime and business crime-enterprises in the Netherlands. Crime, Law and Social Change, 19(2), 103–142. Van Duyne, P. C. (2003). Organizing cigarette smuggling and policy making, ending up in smoke. Crime, Law and Social Change, 39(3), 285–317. Verrier, M. (2020). Cutting the flow: Argentina as a success case against drug trafficking 2016–2019. Journal of Illicit Economies and Development, 2, 21–28. Williams, P., & Godson, R. (2002). Anticipating organized and transnational crime. Crime, Law and Social Change, 37, 311–355. https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1016095317864 Windle, J., & Silke, A. (2019). Is drawing from the state ‘state of the art’? A review of organised crime research data collection and analysis, 2004–2018. Trends in Organized Crime, 22, 394–413. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12117-­018-­9356-­5 Yeager, M. G. (2012). Fifty years of research on illegal enterprise: An interview with Mark Haller. Trends in Organized Crime, 15, 1–12. Yeager, M. G. (2015). On the importance of being John Landesco. Trends in Organized Crime, 18, 143–156. Yürekli, A., & Sayginsoy, Ö. (2010). Worldwide organized cigarette smuggling: An empirical analysis. Applied Economics, 42(5), 545–561. Zabyelina, Y., & van Uhm, D. (Eds.). (2020). Illegal mining: Organized crime, corruption, and ecocide in a resource-scarce world. Palgrave Macmillan.

Chapter 3

Organisation of Crime in the Transnational Adoption Market Elvira Loibl and Simon Mackenzie

Introduction The phenomenon of intercountry adoption emerged in the second half of the twentieth century as a humanitarian measure to evacuate children from war-torn countries. During and after the Second World War and the Vietnam and Korean wars, children were rescued from massive destruction and placed into adoptive families in the United States and Europe. However, whereas initially the motivation of adopters mainly revolved around an altruistic core, their interests and needs began to play a more prominent role in the mid-1970s (Hoksbergen, 1998). More and more involuntarily childless couples from industrialised countries considered intercountry adoption as a means to create their own families. The increasing Western demand for adoptable children, especially healthy babies, led to the emergence of a transnational adoption market, in which children are obtained illegally and then trafficked for the purpose of adoption. This market is organised into a structure of relations between kidnappers, orphanages, youth welfare offices, lawyers, doctors, adoption agencies and sometimes even adopters. Child trafficking for adoption (CTFA) can therefore be considered as a form of organised crime. This kind of trafficking in human beings has some parallels with other transnational organised criminal trades, which will be explored here. Four of these parallels will be considered in particular: the commodification of what is culturally considered to be separate from the economic sphere, the criminogenic asymmetries which E. Loibl (*) Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] S. Mackenzie Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_3

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the transnational adoption market is based on, the need for a laundering process and wilful ignorance of the stakeholders on the demand side of the market. These four features of CTFA set it alongside some prior research into transnational organised crime, while also differentiating it from some of the better-known global criminal trades, like the trade in drugs, in which commodification is normalised and unproblematic, in which laundering is restricted to money, not usually the drugs themselves, which remain illicit from beginning to end, and in which most actors are not in any noticeable state of denial about their role in the market. In this chapter, we will explore and discuss each of these four market features as they manifest in CTFA and where relevant we will draw comparisons with other types of trafficking. We will conclude with a discussion of what these four dimensions of the problem might mean for the future regulation of CTFA.

Market in the Priceless Intercountry adoption is still commonly perceived as the ultimate charitable deed, where adopters open their hearts and homes to parentless children, saving them from a life in an institution in their poor native countries. However, upon closer look and stripped of all its humanitarian gloss, intercountry adoption is actually a lucrative business (Smolin, 2006; Hübinette, 2006; Dorow, 2002; Homans, 2013; Zelizer, 1994). Adopting a child from abroad costs up to EUR 45,000, depending on the sending country. Couples and individuals that decide to pursue an international adoption have to pay large sums of money to numerous stakeholders involved in an adoption procedure, including the adoption agencies, orphanages, government officials, family courts etc. In addition to paying money, adopters exercise choice, another key market component (Loibl, 2019). Many do not want to adopt just any child in need of a family but rather want to choose a child that suits their own needs, which mostly means a healthy baby. At the beginning of the adoption procedure, adopters are usually asked by their agency to indicate their preferences regarding the adoptee’s age, health status and gender. Their preferences regarding the child’s characteristics (e.g. skin colour) and practical considerations, such as waiting times and the level of bureaucracy, would then influence the country choice (Loibl, 2019). Spar (Spar, 2006: xi) thus notes: When parents choose a child to adopt […] they are doing business. Firms are making money, customers are making choices, and children – for better or worse – are being sold. This social reality clashes with our ideological understanding of children (or of human beings in general) as being separate from the economic sphere and precluded from being commoditised (Kopytoff, 1986). A child, we like to believe, is not a piece of private property that can be transferred from one owner to another in exchange for money or goods. Treating a child as a commodity degrades the child and fails to value them as a human being worthy of dignity and respect (Loibl, 2019). Paradoxically, it is this cultural conception of children as being priceless that

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has led to the emergence of a lucrative business with adoptable children in the twentieth century. Prior to this, children were considered as an economic benefit to their families because they were expected to help out with farm chores and household tasks. Thus, their capacity for labour determined their worth, which meant that strong, older children  – preferably male  – were favoured. However, between the 1870s and the 1930s, a profound cultural transformation in children’s economic and sentimental value took place: the economically useful child was gradually displaced by the economically useless, but emotionally priceless, child (Zelizer, 1994). The (legitimate) market for child labour disappeared and children came to be valued for non-economic reasons. Sentimental adoption rapidly displaced earlier instrumental fostering arrangements in the 1920s and 1930s and created an unprecedented demand for children under the age of three, especially female infants. A growing number of enthusiastic prospective adoptive parents queued up, willing to pay inordinate sums of money for a child to love (Zelizer, 1994). The paradox between the ideological understanding of children as being priceless and the social reality, in which they are treated as commodities, creates strong moral tensions for the stakeholders in the intercountry adoption system, particularly those in the receiving countries (Loibl, 2019). Even though adoption agencies are financially dependent on adoptions (Smolin, 2006), they do not want to be considered as doing business with children or as profiting from adoption placements. And although adoptive parents spend large sums of money for a child to love, they do not want to be reproached for having bought their adopted child. In order to resolve these moral tensions, they deny and re-signify the meaning of the payments that have to be made during the adoption process (Anagnost, 2004): Financial transactions made in connection with an adoption are labelled as ‘administration fees’, ‘service costs’, ‘contributions’ – anything but the payment for a child (Loibl, 2019; Goodwin, 2010). In addition, the language of ‘saving children’ (see below) serves the adoption stakeholders as a powerful tool to obscure the economics of intercountry adoption and to narratively decommodify the adoption process (Loibl, 2019). In this process of commodifying the priceless, the transnational adoption apparatus bears some resemblance to the international market for cultural objects. These too tend to rest outside normal conceptions of what is an acceptable commodity (Prott, 2005). Even the most highly commodified types of cultural objects exist in a liminal social space where prices are sometimes implicitly considered distasteful and value is cultural, stemming from the intangible qualities of art as a manifestation of beauty, as human achievement, and as a force for social good (Mackenzie & Yates, 2016). Within preservationist circles and increasingly within national and international law, certain types of cultural objects are approached as resting outside of private ownership and exchange; they are unownable and are held in public trust for the benefit of all humankind (O’Keefe, 2007). In market and collecting discourse, the idealised final destination for any cultural object is a museum, a decommodified permanent repository which removes cultural objects from circulation and ensures ongoing preservation and public access (Merryman, 2005; Cuno, 2008). Yet the global trade in cultural objects remains a 50.1billion USD transnational market (McAndrew, 2021), which shows that, like transnational adoption, cultural objects

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are in fact embedded in a financial marketplace whether they aspire to create that uncomfortable impression or not. And just as the financial incentives bound up in the international supply and demand, tensions around cultural objects create a market for illicit goods, so too do the finances involved in transnational adoption generate strain (cf. Merton, 1938; Passas, 2000) that is resolved by unscrupulous actors through CTFA. A considerable literature has built up around the question of the various circumstances in which market transactions, which may be well described as optimally ‘efficient’ ways of allocating goods among the members of society, can produce morally repugnant results. This has been a subject broached by economists (Kanbur, 2004; Roth, 2007) and moral philosophers (Satz, 2010; Sandel, 2012), among others. A central argument from the moral philosophical camp, as represented here by Satz and Sandel, is that as well as producing outcomes that may seem obnoxious where certain goods are allocated according to who can pay the most for them, markets can change behaviour. In other words, as well as representing a consumerist approach to commodity trading, market structures can normalise and indeed promote, encourage and embed such behaviour: Markets are not mere mechanism; they embody certain values. And sometimes, market values crowd out nonmarket norms worth caring about. […] Introducing money into a nonmarket setting can change people’s behaviour and crowd out moral and civic commitments (Sandel, 2012: 113, 119). The more that market sensibilities pervade an ever-wider array of the management of the ‘things’ in our lives, the less unusual this approach to thinking about the question of who-gets-what becomes. At the extreme end of this universal marketisation process, buying and selling people may come to seem unremarkable. In transnational adoption markets there are, as we describe later in this chapter, layers of discourse that screen the market structures of the trade in children behind a pro-­ social narrative of ‘saving’, the apparent observance of regulatory constraints, and as already mentioned the designation of payments as something other than a purchase price, like service fees. Whatever one’s view is on the marketisation of children for adoption – including the extent to which this is an accurate representation of what is happening as well as its moral dimensions and issues of debasement of things that should not be sold – it is clear that the monetary aspects of the transnational adoption trade have produced crime as an externality. So we do not have to be moral philosophers to critique the principles of this trade as a market (though we may be, and we may do). We can just as well be economists, acknowledging that the structure of this trade produces inevitable incentives to commit crime. These incentives are ‘externalities’, in the economic jargon, since they are social costs created by the routines of the legal adoption processes but borne by others outside those legal adoption channels. As trafficking crimes develop in response to the opportunities the legal adoption market presents, this generates predictable harms to illegally removed children and their birth parents. Some economists sensitive to the moral issues arising around marketisation have attempted to deal with controversial markets by removing price from the exchange design. So, for instance, Nobel prize–winning economist Alvin Roth has considered

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the market for donor kidneys and proposed a socially oriented system of prioritisation and exchange that would allow a market to exist but without the offending price tag on the commodification of body parts (Roth, 2008). There are close parallels between the debates about markets in organ donation and markets in children for adoption: bodies for sale (Scheper-Hughes, 2005; Scheper-Hughes & Wacquant, 2002); the sanctity of personhood and the right to self-actualisation; choices that may look less free the more one knows about the socio-economic pressures of the circumstances in which they are made; jurisdictional legal and regulatory asymmetries and associated geographical patterns of normative views that are not uniform; national and international networks of professionals vested both in ‘doing good’ and earning from it. It is, therefore, instructive to consider alternative styles of socially aware market structure like Roth’s vision of exchanges-without-prices in kidney donations. The case of adoption shows, however, that it is hard to prevent price creeping back in: money is necessary to keep operations running, and where it is not provided for by price nor supported in some other way (e.g. through government grants), price can become reinstated in the structure through the dual mechanisms of the supply–demand dynamics of the trade and the narrative capacities of market actors to rebrand price as a variety of required transaction costs. It may be the case then that some markets have ‘moral limits’ and purport to commoditise things that ‘money can’t buy’ (Sandel, 2012) or that ‘some things should not be for sale’ (Satz, 2010) – and CTFA would surely qualify for these moral prohibitions – but market structures can be persistent and can sustain even where there is broad social consensus that a market is inappropriate.

Criminogenic Asymmetries Both the adoption market and the trade in illicit cultural objects are complex transnational systems that are fuelled and facilitated by different types of criminogenic asymmetries. Passas (2000) defined criminogenic asymmetries as ‘structural discrepancies and inequalities in the realms of economy, law, politics, and culture’, which are produced in the course of interactions between unequal actors or systems with distinctive features. Such asymmetries, he claims (2000), can cause transnational crime by fuelling the demand for illegal goods and services, generating incentives for people and organisations to engage in illegal practices, and reducing the ability of authorities to control crime. The intercountry adoption market is based on and only functions due to the economic and demographic asymmetries between the countries that send children for adoption and those that receive them. In the wealthy countries in the Global North (primarily the United States, Canada and Europe), the demand for adoptable children, especially healthy babies, has been increasing since the 1970s. The proportion of couples and individuals who wanted to become parents but who could not have their own biological children has risen (also due to patterns of delayed motherhood), and many seek to create their own family through adoption. Yet, the number

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of babies available for domestic adoption has been falling due to a number of reasons, including liberal abortion politics, the widespread use of contraception, and the increasing acceptance of unwed motherhood. The adoption of a child from a poor, child-rich country of the Global South (including post-communist Eastern Europe) has thus become an attractive (and often last resort) alternative for many involuntary childless people (Fleisher, 2003; Högbacka, 2008). Whereas higher-income countries are struggling with low birth rates and decreasing numbers of children available for domestic adoption, birth rates are increasing in many lower-income countries. These asymmetries and their criminogenic potential are multiplied and intensified by the economic stratification that has been exacerbated and entrenched by neoliberal globalisation (Passas, 2000; Pogge, 2002). Globalisation has on an overall aggregate level further increased the wealth in the powerful industrialised countries in the Global North, which correlates with a decrease in birth rates, while simultaneously embedding poverty in the Global South, which is linked with population growth. Large numbers of poor families and childcare institutions in countries like India, Haiti, China, Russia, South Korea and Ethiopia constitute the source of the highly valued children (Loibl, 2019). However, the demand for adoptable children in the Global North far outpaces the legal supply of orphans with the desired characteristics. Extreme poverty, war and natural disasters leave numerous children in lower-income countries living in institutions or in transient conditions. Yet, contrary to the common belief in higher-­ income countries of a ‘global orphan crisis’, only a small share of these children are deprived of their family and are, therefore, eligible for adoption (Cheney & Rotabi, 2015). The majority of them have at least one parent or are brought up in extended family arrangements, a common form of child care in many societies, including relatives and close friends of the child’s family (who often live with the children in transient conditions), and thus not in need of an adoptive family. Those children that are legitimately available for an adoption are mostly facing health issues and/or are older and thus do not have the characteristics that most adopters are looking for (Loibl, 2019). In order to meet the high external demand for adoptable children, actors in lower-­ income sending countries employ a variety of illegal means and methods in order to obtain them. For instance, they would purchase children from their impoverished families or abduct them from their homes, the streets or childcare institutions (Loibl, 2019; Maskew, 2004; Smolin, 2006; Stuy, 2014). Poor families often use such institutions as a safety net during times of financial hardship, however, without ever intending to relinquish their parental rights (Van Doore, 2018). Actors in these countries also coerce vulnerable parents or provide them with misleading information in order to obtain their consent for an adoption. They may tell parents that their child is only going away for educational purposes and on a temporary basis, or they may be promise that parents can keep contact with their child (Smolin, 2006; UNICEF International Child Development Centre, 1999). In other cases, parents are urged to sign paperwork relinquishing their parental rights without properly understanding the concept of ‘relinquishment’ which is based on a culturally foreign,

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exclusivist nuclear family model (Smolin, 2007) and without fully informed consent. The economic and geographic asymmetries between the wealthy receiving countries and the poor sending countries have fuelled the demand for adoptable children and generated the incentive for individuals and organisations to illegally obtain them (Loibl, 2019; Passas, 2000). The large sums of money that international adopters are willing to pay is the primary driver for illegal practices in the intercountry adoption system. They incite even charitable organisations to generate and supply children for adoption (Smolin, 2006). While the profits to be gained from illegally obtaining children are substantial, the risks of detection and of a severe official response are rather low (Loibl, 2019). The sending countries often lack the required resources and infrastructure to properly safeguard their adoption systems against abuses (Thompson, 2004). In addition, many of them suffer from high levels of corruption, limiting the effectiveness of regulatory institutions (Dohle, 2008; Post, 2007; Smolin, 2004). These economic and geographic asymmetries will be familiar to researchers across the gamut of transnational organised crime markets; illicit trade thrives on the global imbalances between sources of a commodity in one place and a rich demand for it in another. The pattern is noticeably repeated across criminal markets whether they be in animals (Nurse & Wyatt, 2020), diamonds (Siegel, 2011), antiquities (Mackenzie et  al., 2019), fossils (Long, 2002), rare plants (Mackenzie & Yates, 2016) or an array of other collectible or desirable things that are produced in abundance in certain regions of the world – often the poorer ones – and collected in abundance in other regions, often the richer ones (Ruggiero, 2003; Mackenzie, 2020). The crime that evolves to service the tension created by these economic and geographical supply–demand asymmetries is usually taken to be so-called organised crime in the particular sense of illegal enterprise (Albanese, 2008; Edwards & Gill, 2002). It is often a hybrid form of organised and white-collar crime, where entrepreneurial illegal actors interface with legitimate-facing businesses in both source and market countries, compromising supply chains by the insertion of illegal goods and people, using local networks and a thorough understanding of the particular market’s routines and security mechanisms to circumvent whatever controls might exist on the insertion of illicit goods or people into the supply. This can involve faking documentation, working with corrupt officials or in less-regulated markets simply networking with fences or other illicit brokers to ensure the smooth passage of goods into the marketplace. While criminogenic asymmetries may be the basic structural explanation of these transnational market-oriented crimes, the problems they represent are so deeply entrenched and difficult to unwind that it is hard to use this aetiological diagnosis to develop practical solutions. Global capitalism and its politics have steadfastly declined to seriously tackle imbalances in global poverty and resource allocation over many decades now, and trade has, in fact, increasingly integrated inequality into its business models, outsourcing labour and manufacturing to countries where these are cheap (Klein, 2000). It seems that global asymmetries are to some extent now ‘baked in’ to the overall socio-economic and political imaginary of the world (Picketty, 2019), and the consequences of this for

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the likely continuation of transnational market-oriented crimes that exploit these imbalances of supply, demand and regulation seem fairly predictable.

Need for a Laundering Process In order to sustain the illegal adoption market, a laundering process is necessary in which the children’s paperwork is falsified or fabricated so as to hide their illegal origin. Two laundering scenarios can be distinguished. The first one involves the adopters who bypass the intercountry adoption system by smuggling the illegally obtained child as their biological child after having the child’s paperwork falsified or fabricated (COIA, 2021; Loibl, 2019). Adoptive mothers may have the child’s birth certificate issued with their name as the biological mother or adoptive fathers may wrongfully acknowledge paternity of an allegedly ‘illegitimate’ child (UNICEF International Child Development Centre, 1999). The adopters circumvent the official adoption procedure because they do not fulfil the adoption requirements or because they are not willing to endure the long waiting times and bureaucratic hurdles in the adoption process (Loibl, 2019). Commonly they use an unauthorised private contact in the sending country as an intermediary (e.g. a lawyer, doctor, diplomat, orphanage director) who locates and identifies an attractive child and then assists in the laundering process. In many cases, the intermediary uses illicit means (financial inducements, psychological pressure) to obtain a child for an adoption (Loibl, 2019) and then launders them in order to cover up their illegal origin. The adopters participate in the laundering with the intention to disguise their circumventing the official adoption procedure. Yet, they may not necessarily be aware of the illegal origin of the child. They might believe that the baby that was presented to them by their intermediary was legally relinquished by their parents or an actual orphan. Such cases in which the adopters would circumvent the official adoption procedure were mainly observed up until the late 1990s (Loibl, 2019; COIA, 2021; Bitter et al., 2020). The second scenario involves laundering the child through the intercountry adoption system. In this scenario, an official adoption placement procedure takes place, in which an adoption agency and the official authorities in both the sending and the receiving country arrange and officially approve the adoption of the child (Loibl, 2020). In order to mask the illegal origin of the child, the child’s birth certificate and other documents necessary for an adoption (e.g. maternity and paternity certificates, documents containing the birth parents’ consent to adoption, death certificates of the birth parents, rejection letter from domestic adoption applicants etc.) are falsified or fabricated (Smolin, 2006; Loibl, 2019). The laundering is carried out and facilitated by legitimate individuals and organisations in the sending country, including child care institutions, youth welfare offices, judges or lawyers (Loibl, 2020). As a final step in the laundering process, a ‘legal’ decision on an illegal adoption is rendered by a court of law in the sending country (UNICEF, 1999). Cantwell (2005) explains:

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The ‘illegality’ of that decision could […] result from situations where, variously, the required procedures have not been followed, documents have been falsified, the child has been declared adoptable without due cause or as a result of manipulation, money has changed hands…but if it is truly an adoption, rather than some other form of transfer or removal, it will necessarily and by definition have been approved by a judge. It follows that all events and acts that would make it “illegal” must therefore have taken place up to and including, but not after, the judgement. “Illegal international adoptions”, therefore, are not the same as “illegally moving children abroad”: in cases of the former, children are moved abroad legally following an adoption process that contains illegal elements. In this laundering scenario, the illegally obtained child is not clandestinely smuggled to the sending country but is passed through the same official channels as children legitimately available for intercountry adoption. As a result, illegal and legal adoptions become mixed up in the intercountry adoption system, and the child cannot easily be identified as illegally obtained. By the time the child arrives in the receiving country, all traces of the illegal adoption will often be wiped out and the adopters, the adoption agencies and the official authorities can plausibly deny having had any knowledge of the child’s illegal origin (Loibl, 2020). However, as will be explained below, in many cases, there were so many red flags that the stakeholders on the demand side of the market should have known about the illegal circumstances of the adoption placement (Bitter et al., 2020, COIA, 2021). While money laundering is surely the most ‘famous’ type of criminal laundering, we can find laundering processes of objects and people, as well as money, in many kinds of transnational criminal market. Sometimes the driver is necessity, as is the case for types of global trafficking in which the object of the trafficking could not be bought or sold at all in the destination market if it were obviously illegal. In other cases, the driver is economic: the best prices for a looted artwork, or a conflict diamond, for example, will be achieved in the market when these things are mixed with other items and their illicit origins can be obfuscated. So if there is a legal market for the goods or people, it makes financial sense to launder illegal, trafficked goods or people into those markets. As such, we do not see laundering in all transnational organised criminal trades because sometimes there is no legal market to launder the objects into (e.g. international drug markets; Natarajan, 2019). Importantly, research on price and provenance in the antiquities trade can be read as suggesting that objects being mixed in with and sold as part of the public market may be enough to positively influence price versus black market objects: objects with incontrovertible proof of legality do not seem to command much of a premium in that market alongside grey objects that lack a demonstrably good provenance (Brodie, 2014a, b). The challenge of laundering is therefore sometimes a lower bar than it might at first appear. With this type of ‘object laundering’, it can be very difficult for law enforcement to retrospectively unpick the supply chain to arrive at the point at which the thing made the transition from illicit to taking on the appearance of legitimacy. And however hard it is for law enforcement, it will usually be practically impossible for well-­ meaning end customers, the relevant forensic supply chain examination skill set

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being alien to them and even the process of seeking answers to a lot of pertinent questions about sources being prohibitively time consuming and may be not even on their radar as important. Influenced by the recognition of widespread laundering in cross-border criminal trades, the organised crime literature has identified as important the so-called brokers and facilitators who are the people in the supply chain transitioning the trafficked objects – and, where relevant, people – into legal trade flows (Farah, 2013; Morselli, 2013). This kind of network analysis can be more useful than a resort to less contemporary organised crime terminology and perspectives, since it highlights that in many transnational criminal trades, it is legal actors in the supply chains who are using their specialised knowledge and position to corrupt the process. It is from that analytical perspective that some of the human trafficking literature identifies travel agents as sometimes complicit, and some of the organ trafficking literature identifies medical professionals as being involved. Research on international gemstone markets (Naylor, 2010), antiquity markets (Mackenzie et al., 2019) and wildlife (Hübschle, 2016) shows how dealers can manipulate paperwork or sometimes simply avoid it altogether, to cover up the transition point between illegal and legal for an object or person being trafficked into the destination market. Paperwork invention and forgery can be seen for example in re-using licences (Kersel, 2006), buying or faking export permits (Siegel, 2008) or straightforward faking of other evidence of legal status or legitimate prior ownership (Gerstenblith, 2019). As adoption is legal unless the child has been obtained illegally, we, therefore, find comparable laundering processes in this trade. The crucial information is about the means by which the child has been found and recruited into adoption, and this is, therefore, the information which laundering seeks to disguise. Just as crime proceeds and ‘dirty money’ are laundered, and just as diamonds, antiquities and a range of other trafficked commodities have their transnational tracks covered by laundering mechanisms, illegally secured children must be purified in order to be profitable (Loibl, 2020, Smolin, 2006).

 ilful Ignorance of the Stakeholders on the Demand Side W of the Market In most cases of illegal adoptions that are uncovered, there is no evidence indicating that the stakeholders on the demand side of the market (i.e. adoption agencies and official authorities) would actively participate in illegally obtaining children for adoption. Rather, they encourage and facilitate misconduct in the receiving countries by failing to exercise due diligence and care: they may allow inordinate sums of money (labelled as ‘administration fees’, ‘service costs’, ‘contributions’) to be transferred to the sending countries, fail to properly monitor and control the activities of the actors in the sending countries and turn a blind eye to signs of irregularities (Loibl, 2019; Smolin, 2006). In several cases of illegal adoptions identified in

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prior research, the adoption agencies approved the placement of children whose paperwork included incomplete or inconsistent information – and who were, thus, not laundered properly (Loibl, 2019). In other cases, the stakeholders in the sending countries had (or at least should have had) actual knowledge of the irregular practices abroad considering the numerous red flags but nevertheless continued placing children for adoption (Bitter et al., 2020; COIA, 2021; Smolin, 2006; Loibl, 2019). The stakeholders in the receiving countries employ a number of techniques of neutralisation (Sykes & Matza, 1957) in order to explain and justify their wilful ignorance towards signs of abuses in the sending countries. An important narrative is the appeal to higher loyalties. Adoption agencies are strongly committed to the goal of rescuing children from poor countries by means of an adoption. Names like Parents-Child-Bridge, Future for Children or Ray of Hope underline their ideological mission. Too much scrutiny towards the steps taken abroad would compromise this heroic goal. Therefore, signs of systemic abuses in the foreign adoption system and credible allegations of illegal practices by co-operation partners (e.g. orphanages) are minimised or ignored for the higher ethical cause of keeping children moving through the adoption system (Loibl, 2019). Another technique of neutralisation often used by the stakeholders in the receiving countries is the denial of responsibility (Sykes & Matza, 1957). Adoption agencies and state authorities often deny responsibility for the steps taken in the countries of origin. They argue that the responsibility to control whether an adoption is in compliance with the legal standards and principles rests with the actors in the sending countries and that they have to trust the integrity of the foreign adoption system and the reliability of the information provided about the children (Loibl, 2019). This line of reasoning is based on the distribution of tasks between the sending and the receiving countries which constitutes a basic feature of the intercountry adoption system. According to the 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, the actors in the sending countries are indeed responsible for establishing whether the children are eligible for intercountry adoption (art. 4), whereas the stakeholders in the receiving countries ‘only’ have to determine whether the adopters are suited to adopt a child (art. 5). Although the Convention’s Guide to Good Practice Nr. 2 also emphasises a mandate of ‘joint responsibility’ (Loibl, 2019), the treaty’s allocation of duties is often interpreted by the stakeholders in the recipient countries as relieving them from any responsibility for what is happening abroad. This is supported by national laws in the receiving states that do usually not consider adoption agencies accountable for the acts of their co-operation partners in the sending states. Thus, the agencies’ strong incentives (i.e. the financial dependency on adoption placements as well as their ideological motivation to save children) to ignore signs of irregularities in the sending countries are currently coupled with low risks (Loibl, 2019). Similar neutralising discourses can be found in other transnational criminal markets. For example, higher loyalties to the virtues of collecting, preservation and the celebration of virtues like knowledge or nature infuse some types of antiquities and wildlife trafficking. Denial by consumers in receiving countries of the overseas harms that may have taken place in the production of the goods they are buying is

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of course a well-researched feature of contemporary global commodity markets, and writers from many different scholarly fields have engaged with the difficult ethical and practical questions raised by knowledge of ‘distant harm’. These sentiments are present in many end-users of trafficked products and people as well as in consumers of legitimate products. Sometimes it may be direct knowledge of wrongdoing furthering up the supply chain, coupled with a narrative strategy that allows for denial of the importance of that: a focus perhaps on the impoverished circumstances and circumscribed life chances of people in poorer countries and the sense that whatever the particular market in question is doing, it is overall to their benefit, reducing whatever adversity they may be facing. Often though those at the market end of the chain of supply do not have direct knowledge of wrongdoing at source, merely reasonably well-grounded suspicion. That level of knowledge frequently seems not to be strong enough to influence behaviour, falling instead into the category of things that we cannot really be entirely sure about. Doubt in consumers about what is really true seems to be such an effective brake on them taking action to change their consumptive behaviour that it has been deliberately implemented as a stalling strategy for decades by corporations and their shills even in relation to big issues like climate change about which there should be no doubt at all (Oreskes & Conway, 2010). Grey markets exploit this tendency for doubt about distant harm so as to confuse and deplete positive consumer choices to avoid funding a criminal trade. Cohen’s sociology of denial has highlighted the varied ways in which we can all live with uncomfortable knowledge, and he shows how it is possible to know things and yet for those things to be not really known at the same time (Cohen, 2001). It is a complex and developing field into which we do not need to tread deeply here other than to acknowledge that it is not at all unusual – and certainly not confined to cross-­ border criminal trades – for people to choose to continue to participate in market settings that they may to some extent know or suspect are generators of distant harm. Narrative constructions surround and support these choices, drawing to the fore the perceived pros over the cons and justifying and excusing being a consumer of trafficked things. Just as this story has been told many times over in relation to a number of transnational criminal markets, so we see it playing out here in CTFA too.

Conclusion While most economists consider markets to be efficient ways of distributing goods relative to the desire particular individuals have for them, this strictly functional view of efficiency in resource allocation breaks down in moral terms when applied to certain things that should not be treated as commodities, like children. Criminology has long been critical of certain aspects of markets, being sensitive to the possibilities of the asymmetrical structural pressures in supply and demand that they can create as well as the opportunities they present as mechanisms for both generating and obscuring bad behaviour and in some cases crime. Creating markets in children

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does precisely this: it creates market forces that generate crime and it presents opportunities to obscure that crime through laundering. Markets need consumers and commodities to be sold to them. Having developed into a market-type system, the transnational adoption market turns children into those commodities and sells them to ‘consumers’ who pay for them by way of fees that are essentially supporting the agencies performing the intermediary services. This market then suffers from criminal manipulation as the system responds to the structural pressures the asymmetries in the market create: the continual need for suitable commodities to service the consumer demand. Finally, as we have seen, the structural demand pressure of the adoption market is resilient in the face of uncomfortable knowledge of wrongdoing at source, prioritising a discourse of saving and helping that obscures the true ethical implications of continuing to create a market-end demand for children. We have, therefore, identified four key features of the global adoption regime that help us understand the aetiology and the mechanics of CTFA: first, the commodification of things that should not be for sale; second, the criminogenic asymmetries in the adoption market; third, the laundering of illicitly obtained children into the legal ‘supply chain’ of children for adoption; and fourth, the states of denial of actors at the market end of that supply chain. How do these four features come together to help us formulate proposals for effective regulatory intervention or reform in this field? In 1993, the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption was concluded, which represents the most significant attempt to tackle illegal practices within the intercountry adoption system by setting the standards for ethical adoptions. Most notably, it provides that no one shall derive improper gain from an intercountry adoption and clarifies that only costs and expenses that are reasonably high in relation to services rendered may be charged or paid (art. 32). It furthermore lays down that consent to adoption must be given freely and be fully informed (art. 4) and provides that adoptions must be undertaken or approved by competent authorities in order to guarantee that all safeguards and standards have been followed (art. 4, 5). However, even though the Convention has been ratified by all receiving countries and many significant sending countries, abuses continue to take place (Loibl, 2019). This is because it does not and cannot remove the economic and demographic asymmetries described above which render the intercountry adoption system intrinsically criminogenic. Rather, the procedures laid down by the Convention often work to mystify the underlying realities (Bos, 2007; Post, 2007). The Hague Adoption Convention is no more than a set of principles and procedures which are only as good as their implementation (Smolin, 2006). Numerous sending states lack sufficient resources and/or the political will to properly implement the Convention’s standards and principles. Yet, stakeholders in the receiving countries tend to consider the Convention as a sound warrant against abuses and irregularities. While they are often more suspicious and careful with regard to adoption placements from non-Hague countries, they are quick to trust the integrity of the adoption system simply because the sending country has ratified the Hague Adoption Convention

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(Loibl, 2019). In this respect, regulatory systems like the Hague Convention can actually counterproductively become integrated into the tapestry of denial that we have identified as a key characteristic of the discourse of actors in the demand countries for adoption. The rules become reasons not to look more closely at whether there is crime in the supply chain, rather than a support and incentive for increased scrutiny. The realisation that international efforts have failed to tackle illegal adoption practices has led to discussions on whether or not intercountry adoptions should be prohibited altogether (Smolin, 2020; Loibl, 2022). For example, in February 2021, the Dutch Minister for Legal Protection announced the suspension of foreign adoptions to the Netherlands following an official inquiry that uncovered abusive adoption practices in the past. Whereas a number of sending countries have placed a moratorium on intercountry adoptions (e.g. Romania, Guatemala, Kenya), the Netherlands is the first receiving country to suspend adoption from abroad. It is up to the recently elected government to decide whether to reform or abolish intercountry adoptions. How could the intercountry adoption system be reformed to at least minimise abuses and illegal practices? First, stakeholders in receiving countries must assume greater responsibility for intercountry adoptions by taking a more proactive role in monitoring what is happening abroad (Loibl, 2022). Neither state authorities nor adoption agencies should blindly trust the information provided by adoption stakeholders in the sending country, even if it has officially ratified the Hague Adoption Convention. Rather, they ought to make their own assessments regarding the integrity of the foreign adoption system and their partner organisation, as well as the reliability of information provided about the children (Loibl, 2019; Stuy, 2014). Adoption agencies in sending countries should be held accountable for the illegal practices of their co-operation partners if there were red flags signalling irregularities. Adoption agencies should not be able to continue placing children despite signs of abuse and then successfully claim that they are not responsible for the illegal practices of the foreign organisations as they could not control what was happening abroad (Loibl, 2021). This is, as we have seen, how laundering works and these attitudes make adoption agencies complicit. Second, an international monitoring body comparable to the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on the Rights of the Child should be considered, having the capacity to conduct independent investigations into the laws and practices of countries that send/place children for intercountry adoption. Such an international body should have the mandate to monitor and assess whether the Hague Contracting States actually comply with the provisions of the Hague Adoption Convention as well as human rights. Most importantly, however, we as a Western society must change the way we have come to think about intercountry adoption. Intercountry adoption might be a suitable child care solution for abandoned and relinquished children that cannot be cared for in their countries of origin. Yet, we must acknowledge that the number of these children is much smaller than we tend to think (Loibl, 2022). Intercountry adoption is not the ultimate humanitarian deed that always saves and never harms

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children. Stripped of its humanitarian justification, it has turned into a business in which the demand for adoptable babies exerts a pull on the children from poor countries. Meaningful reforms are only possible if we actually acknowledge the powerful role that adopters and adoption agencies in the receiving countries play in the current intercountry adoption system. The adoption market commodifies children and generates the social and economic forces that encourage and support trafficking.

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O’Keefe, P. J. (2007). Commentary on the UNESCO 1970 convention on illicit traffic (2nd ed.). Institute of Art and Law. Oreskes, N., & Conway, E. (2010). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. Bloomsbury Press. Passas, N. (2000). Global anomie, Dysnomie and economic crime: Hidden consequences of neoliberalism and globalization in Russia and around the world. Social Justice, 27(2), 16–44. Picketty, T. (2019). Capital and ideology. Harvard University Press. Pogge, T. W. (2002). World poverty and human rights: Cosmopolitan responsibilities and reforms. Polity Press. Post, R. (2007). Romania–for export only: The untold story of the Romanian ‘orphans’. EuroComment Diffusion. Prott, L.  V. (2005). The international movement of cultural objects. International Journal of Cultural Property, 12, 225–248. Roth, A. E. (2007). Repugnance as a constraint on markets. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 21(3), 37–58. Roth, A.  E. (2008). What have we learned from market design? Economic Journal, 118(527), 285–310. Ruggiero, V. (2003). Global markets and crime. In M. E. Beare (Ed.), Critical reflections on transnational organized crime, money laundering, and corruption (pp.  171–182). University of Toronto Press. Sandel, M. J. (2012). What money can’t buy: The moral limits of markets. Penguin. Satz, D. (2010). Why some things should not be for sale: The moral limits of markets. Oxford University Press. Scheper-Hughes, N. (2005). The ultimate commodity. The Lancet, 366, 1349–1350. Scheper-Hughes, N., & Wacquant, L. (Eds.). (2002). Commodifying bodies. Sage. Siegel, D. (2008). Diamonds and organized crime: The case of Antwerp. In D. Siegel & H. Nelen (Eds.), Organized crime: Culture, markets and policies. Springer. Siegel, D. (2011). Trafficking of conflict diamonds. In R. Barberet, S. Zhang, & C. J. Smith (Eds.), Routledge handbook of international criminology (pp. 220–230). Routledge. Smolin, D. M. (2004). The two faces of intercountry adoption: The significance of the Indian adoption scandals. Seton Hall Law Review, 35, 403–493. Smolin, D. M. (2006). Child laundering: How the intercountry adoption system legitimizes and incentivizes the practices of buying, trafficking, kidnapping, and stealing children. The Wayne Law Review, 52(1), 113–200. Smolin, D.  M. (2007). Intercountry adoption and poverty: A human rights analysis. Capital University Law Review, 36, 413. Smolin, D.  M. (2020). The case for moratoria on intercountry adoption. Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, 30(2). Spar, D. L. (2006). The baby business: How money, science, and politics drive the commerce of conception. Harvard Business School Press. Stuy, B. H. (2014). Open secret: Cash and coercion in China’s international adoption program. Cumberland Law Review, 44(3), 355–422. Sykes, G. M., & Matza, D. (1957). Techniques of neutralisation: A theory of delinquency. American Sociological Review, 22, 664–670. Thompson, N. S. (2004). Hague is enough – A call for more protective uniform law guiding international adoptions note and comments. Wisconsin International Law Journal, 22(2), 441–470. UNICEF International Child Development Centre. (1999). Intercountry adoption (Innocenti Digest No. 4), UNICEF IRC [Online]. Available at: https://www.unicef-­irc.org/publications/102-­ intercountry-­adoption.html. (Accessed 2 Feb 2022). Van Doore, K. E. (2018). From orphanhood to trafficked: Examining child trafficking for the purpose of orphanages (PhD Thesis), Griffith University Research Repository [Online]. Available at: https://research-­repository.griffith.edu.au/handle/10072/382724. (Accessed 2 Feb 2022). Zelizer, V. A. (1994). Pricing the priceless child: The changing social value of children. Princeton University Press.

Chapter 4

Drug Crime and the Port of Rotterdam: About the Phenomenon and Its Approach Richard Staring, Lieselot Bisschop, Robby Roks, Elisabeth Brein, and Henk van de Bunt

Introduction As the most important logistical gateway to Europe, the port of Rotterdam brings together a multitude of logistical service providers, trade flows, and regulators. About 1.500 companies, 180.000 employees, and many more passersby visit the port daily. The competitive position is mainly based on the quality of the port facilities, characterized by an efficient handling of containers and bulk cargo and its multimodal (road, water, rail) access to the hinterland (Port of Rotterdam, 2017). Being a competitive port requires more than modern facilities; it also requires procedures and locations to be safe and secure. The extensive trade volume, short transshipment times, and diversity of people and activities in combination with sheer magnitude of the port area make the challenges in terms of safety and security diverse and complex. The efficient logistical infrastructure of the port attracts traffickers of various types of illegal goods. According to Europol, the Netherlands, and therefore also Rotterdam, is pivotal for various forms of organized crime, such as the production and transit of drugs (Europol, 2007; 2017; European Monitoring Center for Drugs and Drug Addiction & Europol, 2016).1 If a legal economic sector can be linked to (organized) crime—in which criminal activities are carried out in close connection with legal structures—this can cause  The amount of cocaine intercepted, of course, cannot be taken as a measure of the total amount of imported cocaine given the dark number but probably says more about the detection efforts (Staring et al., 2019, 70–73). 1

R. Staring (*) · L. Bisschop · R. Roks · E. Brein · H. van de Bunt Department of Law, Society and Crime, Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_4

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reputational damage (Bovenkerk in Van Dijk et al., 1999: 4; Eski, 2011). Regulations and legal structures are abused, comprising the integrity of social and economic relations. The prevention and control of drug-related and other organized crimes and the public order maintenance are important conditions for maintaining the port of Rotterdam’s competitive position and for safeguarding public interests in terms of employment, safety, sustainability, and accessibility. Based on the observation that the port’s infrastructure is being misused for, among other things, the import and export of narcotics, government authorities in Rotterdam wanted to gain insight into the nature and extent of drug crime, the role of the transport and logistics sector in this drug crime, and the prevention and control of drug crime in the port of Rotterdam. At the end of 2017, the Triangle Plus [Driehoek Plus] (customs, mayor, public prosecutor’s office, and police) formally commissioned a study, which was intended to provide insights into (1) the nature, scope, and developments of drug crime in the port of Rotterdam, (2) the vulnerabilities of the logistical infrastructure to be used for the import and export of narcotics, and (3) the oversight, enforcement, and investigation by various public and private actors in the port of Rotterdam. The research was awarded to the research team of Erasmus University Rotterdam, led by Prof. Dr. Richard Staring, on 2 November 2017. Research started in January 2018. This chapter provides a summary of the findings of this study, which was officially presented to the Triangle Plus in May 2019 (Staring et al., 2019). In what follows, we first explain the methodology and then move on to the main findings on the nature, scope, and trends in drug crime. After that, we discuss the vulnerabilities in the infrastructure of the port of Rotterdam. Next, we share the findings on the monitoring, enforcement, and detection. For each of these topics, we provide a broad scope overview of our findings in this summarizing chapter.2 Based on these findings, we summarize the policy recommendation we provided in May 2019. The final section briefly reflects on what has happened since the delivery of the report.

Methods Our qualitative methodology combined different methods and was analyzed with Atlas.ti 8 data analysis software. First, we started with an extensive review of academic literature, statistics, policy papers, and media reports. Second, 75 individual and 3 group interviews were conducted with representatives of public sector organizations and representatives of private companies that have a direct relationship with the port of Rotterdam. Most of the interviews took place in the Netherlands, but we also interviewed experts during visits to Antwerp and Hamburg as well as via videoconferencing with respondents in Latin America. Third, we studied 10 criminal investigations about a wide range of smuggling methods (modus operandi) and

 The following publications provide more detailed insights: Staring et al. (2021a, b), Roks et a. (2020). Bisschop et al. (2019), Staring et al. (2019). 2

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partnerships that occurred between 2013 and 2017 in the port of Rotterdam. These extensive police investigations were extensive, sometimes thousands of pages per case, because of the use of special investigative methods, and were systematically analyzed based on a checklist. We pseudonymized respondents and information about people and companies found in the case files. Fourth, field visits and observations of meetings and training sessions with public authorities and private companies in the ports of Rotterdam, Antwerp, and Hamburg helped gain insights into the everyday implementation practices and situational differences of different actors. The research design included several measures to guarantee the confidentiality, approval, and secure data management of this study: (1) permission from prosecutor general to gain access to confidential criminal justice and police data and talk to police and public prosecutor’s office employees. (2) All researchers, including the transcriber signed, “integrity and confidentiality statements” of the Rotterdam municipality and received national “Certificates of Conduct.” (3) A committee composed of experts from practice and chaired by a social scientist (Prof. Dr. Hans Nelen) supervised this study and provided regular feedback on methodological issues as well as (preliminary) results. Fourth, each potential respondent received an info-sheet about the study explaining the research aims and the confidentiality, which was repeated at the start of the interview, gave respondents the opportunity to ask questions, and asked for verbal consent for recording the interview and using the data. Finally, secure data storage and handling was guaranteed by using an encrypted data vault (BlackBerry Workspaces) to store and exchange research data.

Nature, Scope, and Developments in Drug Crime This section first discusses developments in terms of scope and types of drugs smuggled via Rotterdam. Second, we explain different roles and specializations within the criminal partnerships, the social embedding of the criminal networks, and the role of violence. Third, developments in the modus operandi of drug smuggling are discussed based on a crime script analysis.

 cope and Developments in Drug Crime in the Port S of Rotterdam In the years prior to our study was commissioned, several corruption cases in the port of Rotterdam received extensive media coverage. The (then) record amount of cocaine found in 2016 and subsequently surpassed in 2018 also had a significant impact on the way the problems surrounding the import of narcotics were perceived. Although drug seizures are an indication of the (seriousness of the) problem, a critical approach to these figures and to guesstimates of the quantities of cocaine

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imported is necessary. After all, an increase in the amount of cocaine intercepted in the port of Rotterdam does not mean that the problem has increased substantially. At the same time, this does not necessarily have to be the result of a better (global) information position or of greater success on the part of the investigative services. Many respondents felt that they had only limited success in reducing the drug problem in the port of Rotterdam. We did not venture into an estimate of the extent of drug crime in the port of Rotterdam, given the difficulties in making statements about it in a scientifically sound manner. A first difficulty is the lack of unambiguous definitions of drug trafficking and, above all, “subversive crime” [ondermijnende criminaliteit] as a new and widely used concept in the context of drug-related crime (Kolthoff & Khonraad, 2016; Lam et al., 2018). Second, there is lack of “good data”; a lot of data is based on presumptions. Even those sometimes-unreliable estimates may impact the political and societal debate about the seriousness of drug crime in the port of Rotterdam, which could subsequently be linked to consequences for the supervision and detection of drug crime (cf. Nelen, 2019). A second development is the frequent use of the term “undermining” (or subversion) when talking about the problems surrounding drugs in the port of Rotterdam. The popularity of this political rather than scientific concept can be understood as a way to express that crime phenomena have changed. For various reasons, more common terms such as organized crime or the smuggling of drugs no longer seem to grasp the perceived seriousness. This is reflected in the ways in which our respondents repeatedly relate drug smuggling to (excessive) violence as well as corruption. Despite this seemingly self-evident link between subversive crime and drugs, corruption, and violence, our data showed that whereas drugs and corruption often do go hand in hand in the port of Rotterdam, (excessive) violence is less emphatically and naturally present in the drug smuggling cases in the port. “Violence does not convince,” according to one of the respondents, “it is always the temptation of money and gaining money quickly.” (R14). In addition, the rise of the concept of subversive crime is understandable given the many “undermining” conferences, experts, and funds. However, the concept subversive crime obscures a clear analysis and good understanding of the nature of drug crime in the port of Rotterdam. Our respondents gave very different definitions of what they believed the causes and effects of subversive crime in Rotterdam were. It might help public and private governance actors in the port of Rotterdam to avoid using the vague concept of subversive crime and instead name the crime specifically. Everyone involved would know better what the problem is, how serious it is, and which objectives and priorities should be part of tackling it. Finally, the import of cocaine was the most prominent in conversations about drugs in the port of Rotterdam. This is not surprising, given that the port is known as one of the gateways of cocaine to Europe. Our research shows that the export of narcotics to other parts of the world is a noticeable blind spot.

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Social Organization of the Import of Narcotic Drugs What could be concluded about the background and developments of the criminal partnerships involved with drugs in the port of Rotterdam? Our respondents characterized the criminal partnerships as flexible, professional organizations that are blueprints of the legal economy and participate in distinct tasks in the logistical process of drug smuggling or have outsourced them to various (specialized) groups or individuals. We could not completely substantiate this picture in the static findings of the cases. Indeed, it requires knowledge about or access to crucial locations, functions, and people in the port to enable drug crime. And it has become increasingly difficult to successfully smuggle drugs without help from someone working in the port. This indicates some level of organization and cooperation. At the same time, the suspects seemed to perform very specific local tasks, for example, as service providers who played a role in the “safe” infrastructure of the fruit flows or as corrupt employees—with knowledge and access—who moved containers with drugs or secured the drugs (removing it from containers). The cases focused on specific roles that offered insights into the essential local activities to import the drugs or smuggle it to the hinterland. Partly due to the investigative methods used, there was only limited insight into the entire logistical process and into the underlying partnerships in international drug smuggling. We could only reconstruct fragments of the logistical process of drug smuggling. The local Rotterdam context came into view, but the possible, more extensive criminal networks that connect Rotterdam with the countries of origin and destination remained largely out of scope. Based on the literature review and the case files, the backgrounds of people who were active on the cocaine market in Rotterdam and the Netherlands showed a certain continuity. These were mainly suspects with diverse ethnic backgrounds and with specific roles and specializations in sub-tasks of the logistical process, who came together in the port of Rotterdam. Largely, the focus was local, lacking details that offered a more encompassing view that transcended Rotterdam. This local focus can be explained by the objectives of the various authorities. For example, the swift blow (by the Hit-and-Run-Cargo Team) is key to the approach, whereas the bigger picture and longer-term focus are largely absent in handling the cases. Capacity shortages, lack of investment in the acquisition of knowledge about source and transit countries, and insufficiently clear communication about the knowledge that is present were also put forward as explanations for this fragmented, local knowledge. We also investigated the structural embedding of the criminal networks in the occupational and social context of the port and the city and thus whether the working environment of social life facilitated contacts between offenders. Shared ethnicity was not a dominant connecting factor between suspects in the investigations, but we did see that in some cases family relationships and friendships were at the basis of cooperation or participation in the partnership (relational embedding). Someone’s access to the port or knowledge about the port or about the control system (occupational embeddedness) was more dominant than these interpersonal connections (see

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Sect. 4). Based on the investigations, it was not always clear how the suspects got to know each other and what connected them. This is a limitation of the empirical material we studied: the investigations, which must result in a conviction, are not able to (fully) do justice to the actual interpersonal dynamics. We could not determine whether the flexibility and professionalism attributed to the partnerships were accurate depictions of reality. After all, law enforcement had access to other, often more up-to-date, information about criminal partnerships and interconnections based on ongoing investigations. Moreover, it should also be noted that “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” (Levi, 2015: 287). The insights that the investigations and the interviews provided were above all an illustration of what had been recorded by the investigative services and not of what they had not (yet) observed.

Crime Scripts Our crime script analysis reconstructed and systematically compared the logistical process of the most used drug smuggling methods based on the case files, the interviews, and the literature review. We reduced the diversity of smuggling methods to three central smuggling scripts: a container script, a cargo script, and a ship script, focusing, respectively, on the role of the container, the cargo, and the ship. These individual scripts have common characteristics. First, for each smuggling script and scenario, the drugs are placed in a different phase of the logistical process and are also secured in other phases. However, there are important gaps in knowledge about how the logistical processes in the source and transit countries influences the crime script on the receiving end. Second, our analysis illustrated that the bottleneck of the surveillance locations is dealt with in a different way in the various smuggling scripts. This means that, depending on the specific smuggling script or scenario, employees of private companies or public organizations play an initiating or facilitating role, for example, by providing information about the locations of containers or processes of supervision, by moving containers, or by keeping containers away from control. In each of the specific smuggling scripts or scenarios, “help from within,” by public or private sector port employees, is required. This finding differs from the long-standing dominant view that, unlike airports, seaports offered sufficient opportunities and good facilities to import cocaine unseen and unnoticed (cf. Kleemans et  al., 2002: 94; Zaitch, 2002). Third and finally, the second bottleneck in the smuggling scripts, the securing of the cocaine, also happens in a different phase of the logistical process depending on the smuggling script or scenario. These places can be geographically located in or around the port of Rotterdam: at terminals, at empty depots, or in warehouses in the hinterland. Specific sectors and goods flows can be designated targets. These aspects are addressed in the following section.

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Vulnerabilities in the Infrastructure of the Port of Rotterdam “A fundamental sociological understanding is that interaction takes place in socially organized settings. Rather than isolating action from its circumstances the task of scholars is to uncover the relationship between the individual act and the social context” (Vaughan, 1998: 31). Hence, we pay attention to both the specific criminal activity (the import of cocaine) and the context in which it occurred. We focus on how the infrastructure of the port of Rotterdam and in particular the logistics and transport sector were misused for the trade in drugs.

Vulnerable Locations: Access to Sites and to Information What makes the port of Rotterdam an attractive, global trading partner for legal entrepreneurs—its geographical location, efficient port facilities, and good infrastructure—is equally attractive to illegal entrepreneurs. Especially the transoceanic trade lines that have Rotterdam as a first port of call are attractive. As a result, the smuggling of drugs is particularly present at container terminals, empty depots, and fruit companies on the Maasvlakte terminals, but also the older city terminals face challenges. The vulnerability of these sites boils down to (1) access to the premises and (2) access to information. A large variety of public and private actors has access to the port on a regular basis for legitimate reasons: all employees of port companies and government agencies but also all subcontractors and more irregular visitors such as delivery services or clearing crews. In addition, due to the complexity of the logistical process, with different sub-tasks executed by a variety of companies, many also have access to information essential to enabling drug trafficking: the location of containers on the terminals and knowledge about processes in the logistical and control systems. Both for the physical access to the port and the access to knowledge about the port, people are the vulnerable link (see Sect. 4.3). Public and private actors in the port attempt to counter some of these vulnerabilities. Technology plays a central role in this: cameras, biometric data on access passes, automated separations of duties, and the possibilities of logging the operations of employees. In many cases, these technical measures focus on preventing unauthorized persons from entering port areas or preventing important information about processes in the port from being leaked. We noticed a tension between safety and the prevention of crime on the one hand and the workability and efficiency of the port infrastructure on the other. Even though the technical security of various companies in the port of Rotterdam has generally (significantly) improved in recent years, we also found that (by no means) all companies (want to) make use of more up-to-date technological possibilities, which help address the vulnerabilities identified. This is partly due to the costs involved in such investments. In addition, increasingly automated business processes and technological developments, in general,

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bring with it new, perhaps unforeseen vulnerabilities for drug smuggling aided via cybercrime. The city ports that were created mainly around 1900 also hold vulnerabilities, different from those of the Maasvlakte terminals. Here, too, the tension between the economy and security is present. Several respondents indicated a lack of decisiveness to address vulnerabilities in these areas. According to police respondents, the use of the administrative instruments could, in certain cases, offer a solution to be able to work more decisively in these city ports. At the same time, much remained unclear as regards the legal possibilities of using these administrative instruments. In addition, the pilot project “Do you know your customer?” of the Port of Rotterdam Authority—a private law instrument in which companies that want to work in the port are assessed on integrity instead of merely financial characteristics—was deemed very promising. Geographical locations in the port that are vulnerable for drug smuggling are by no means fixed spaces, but rather a temporary outcome of an arms race between organized crime groups and public and private actors in the port of Rotterdam (see also Sergi, 2020, for other ports). While situational measures seek to eliminate opportunities for drug trafficking, not all vulnerabilities and opportunities can be adequately addressed. For example, our respondents noted that the emergence of empty depots as locations to secure cocaine may have been the result of increased security measures at container terminals. If empty depots would raise barriers to drug traffickers, then another part of the supply chain could be next. In addition, other ports in the Netherlands such as North Sea Port (Vlissingen, Terneuzen, Borsele, Moerdijk) and Amsterdam or other European ports such as the port of Antwerp (De Middeleer et al., 2018: 261; Easton, 2020), Hamburg (Eski, 2015), or other ports in Europe could see an increase in drug trafficking (Staring et al., 2021a, b). And vice versa, increased security measures in other European ports may have consequences for drug smuggling via Rotterdam. This implies that (international) cooperation between ports on security issues, even when they are in economic competition, is vital. Moreover, alignment between different areas within the same port can avoid increased security measures in one terminal resulting in increased cocaine trafficking in another.

Structural and Cultural Vulnerabilities of Companies In addition to a variety of commodities—such as textiles, asbestos, or the international moving industry—being used as “cover cargo” for the smuggling of drugs, particularly exotic fruit is vulnerable to being misused for cocaine imports. Again, we see the influence of transoceanic ship lines and trade relations with countries in South and Central America, but this vulnerability is also explicitly influenced by the (perishable) nature of the imported product and the associated economic interests of rapid product handling in the port both from a logistical and a border checks perspective. The transport sector, overall, also emerged as vulnerable, because of the

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physical proximity to the (illegal) goods and the many regular contacts between representatives of shipping and transshipment companies, but also because there is relatively little insight into the different forms of transport to the hinterland. Especially the transport via inland vessels remains a blind spot, also for our own study. Our study also addressed structural vulnerabilities of companies operating in various sectors. We pointed out the financial (in)stability of companies and employees or directors of companies that make them vulnerable to the temptations of “quick wins” from smuggling. In addition, the high level of competitiveness in the transport sector is a vulnerability, due to the lure of the big profits promised by criminal partnerships. The flexible use of (temporary) workers also increases vulnerability to crime, especially when they have access to port areas and important information. Companies in the logistics chain can set up their business operations with maximum effort invested in making trades but minimal investment in preventing crime or unethical behavior (i.e., screening of new and existing personnel, but also the application of the “four-eyes principle”) because that slows down business processes. In addition to the structural vulnerabilities, we also paid attention to the cultural vulnerabilities of companies and sectors. With some caution, we noted a development in which private actors in the logistics chain are no longer only concerned with the mere efficient transport of goods but also pay attention to the security aspects involved in logistics. The dominant idea that companies “only move boxes” and that hardly anyone reports anything when something suspicious happens seemed to have evolved (for some companies) to a realization that crime can also endanger the safety of their own employees. This could lead companies to position safety as a natural and integral part of the company culture and structure—safety by design— rather than as a “mandatory check-the-box.”

Port Employees as a Vulnerable Link Port employees play a central and often indispensable role in enabling drug trafficking. The widely reported examples of corrupt customs officers in the port of Rotterdam, but also in Antwerp, show that it is indeed particularly valuable for criminal partnerships to have someone in such a position who can provide information about the location of specific containers, about work processes in the port in general, and about systems of supervision in particular, maybe even someone who might be able to manipulate control systems. Importantly, our study illustrates that this indispensable role of port employees is not limited to customs employees but is much more widely applicable to port employees. The central role of people on the inside emerged in the case files we studied as well as in the interviews. Public and private employees in the port not only have a hypothetical vulnerability. Under certain circumstances, they effectively cooperate in essential elements of the logistical process to enable drug trafficking. This human vulnerability manifests itself when

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people, who work in specific locations or who have access to information about work or supervision processes, struggle with personal circumstances such as debts or relational problems (cf. Eski & Buijt, 2016) or are careless with disclosing where they work. This combination of opportunities in professional circumstances and vulnerabilities in personal circumstances can result in an increased receptiveness to the pressures of criminal organizations or the temptations of fast money. This has important implications. A study by Nelen et al. (2017: 54) already concluded that because of better risk analyses, more supervision, and the automation of parts of the logistical process, more and better barriers were being raised in the port area to prevent the import of drugs. We confirmed that in our study. A downside and unintended and undesirable side effect of the success of this approach to drug crime is that it is becoming increasingly difficult to successfully import cocaine without involving port employees. The vulnerability and therefore pressure are increasingly on people rather than infrastructures.

 versight, Enforcement, and Investigation by Various Public O and Private Actors We studied the processes of oversight, enforcement, and investigation by various government services and companies in the port of Rotterdam. We analyzed to what extent these practices by the public and private actors are providing an answer to the risks and vulnerabilities for drug crime. We discuss our findings, first, by focusing on vulnerable locations; second, on vulnerable sectors; and finally, by analyzing the cooperation between public actors, between private actors, and between public and private actors in the approach to drug crime.

Physical Measures and Risk Analyses In protecting locations and information, companies and public authorities have taken various initiatives. Entrance gates, passes (with or without biometric characteristics), porter’s lodges with security guards, private security services, surveillance vehicles, and visible and hidden cameras are the most dominant physical measures that public and private parties take to secure access to the sites. However, the degree of security and the type of security measures vary significantly across sites, for example, between the container terminals on the Maasvlakte and the terminals in the city ports. The former were more recently developed, allowing for “security by design,” whereas the latter grew historically and thus needed to adjust to the circumstances. Empty depots also had limited physical security measures at the time of our study. The use of biometric identifiers for access and information prevents improper use (given the more secure identity check) but had not (yet) been

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implemented across all port sites and systems. Financial investments required for this system, as well as keeping certain processes efficient and economically viable, play a role in this. Note that the use of biometric identifiers in access passes does not prevent others from “piggybacking” with the provider of the pass, for example, in the trunk of a car or hidden in a truck or container. Therefore, physical control of all cars that want to enter and exit areas—or alternatively not allowing personal vehicles on terminals—remains as a potential yet challenging avenue for the future. Technological innovation is also important for the logging of the activities of staff members and/or movements of equipment such as containers or straddle carriers. This allows activities to be reconstructed and repeated repetitions of dishonest behavior to be traced but logging actions do not prevent the initial deviant behavior nor do they prevent giving relevant information to members of criminal organizations. For this, separation of duties in combination with smarter—more restrictive— sharing of information would be a more effective means, implying that fewer people have access to all pieces of the logistical puzzle. Monitoring the entire flow of goods is impossible and inefficient from the point of view of economic interests. With risk analyses—based on risk profiles that take into account, among other things, the countries of origin and the nature of the goods—customs selectively control ships and their cargo, whereby, depending on the nature of the risk, different degrees of control (document inspection, scanning or physical inspection) are possible. The question is whether these selections and controls are sufficiently tailored to the criminal logistical process and whether checks are carried out at the right places and on the right trade lines, going beyond incident-­ driven management. Knowledge of or fraud with risk analyses has become a vulnerability in itself. Knowledge about the specific indicators is not publicly shared because drug smugglers could make use of them. The assumption that knowledge about the risk indicators was leaked—following the various corruption cases—was countered with random sampling to counterbalance the possible predictability associated with risk analyses. The so-called high-risk containers that are assessed by one colleague as safe are reassessed by other colleagues, and employees who designate the containers for inspection do not carry out the checks themselves. There is an inherent vulnerability in the predictability of risk analyses. The above mainly shows how the port of Rotterdam uses and relies on the technology for the benefit of people. The central idea behind this is that technology cannot get tempted, has no loyalties, has no financial problems, and is not afraid of violence nor intimidation. Technology, if applied in the right way and if provided with the right data input, does emotionlessly what it is supposed to do. In many cases, these technical measures focus on preventing unauthorized persons from entering port areas or from passing on important information about processes in the port. We also found that automating business processes and technological developments entails new, perhaps unforeseen vulnerabilities in the field of cybersecurity.

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Measures Against Structural and Cultural Vulnerabilities Self-regulation plays an important role in countering the structural vulnerabilities of companies and sectors in the port of Rotterdam. Companies that joined industry organizations together draft and try to enforce standards of good behavior. However, the complexity and magnitude of the transport sector with many small players sometimes stand in the way of effective self-regulation. We noticed that companies were increasingly investing in security, partially because of political and social pressure to do so. The Port of Integrity [Integere Haven] program also focused on this joint responsibility of public and private actors for security in the port. Some companies also invested in security because it affects their staff and corporate image. Various respondents emphatically looked at the Port Authority of Rotterdam to play a bigger role in stimulating attention for ethics. They took up this challenge and started to not only assess the financial health of companies that wanted to establish themselves in the port but also assess the integrity and safety policy of the company. At the same time, there are a couple of key players, such as shipping lines or some terminal companies with headquarters far outside of Rotterdam that need to follow global company procedures on personnel policy or information processes, and with their presence—or noticeable absence—determine the prices but also determine how important crime prevention can become. At a European level, companies that comply with customs’ automated economic operator certification receive preferential treatment, which means that they have a lesser chance of checks within Europe. According to some respondents, the reliability of this certificate is at stake because it does not necessarily assess security measures. This form of meta-regulation thus brings potential vulnerabilities. Second, in addition to self-regulation, personnel policy is an important component by which structural vulnerabilities can be countered. This includes the screening of personnel not only when hiring but also when people have been working with an employer for some time and when employees leave permanently. This can be at odds with the economic reality of flexible hiring and staff shortage for both public and private actors in the port. At the time of our fieldwork, there was a great variation in screening of staff, both public and private sector. However, a well-developed HR policy is about more than proper screening of employees but also about creating—at all levels within companies and government agencies—the awareness that their jobs make them attractive targets to people involved in drug trafficking. Third, the measures that focused on the cultural vulnerabilities of companies and sectors to a large extent focused on realizing a cultural change in companies and changing the awareness of individual employees through training within companies and through cooperation agreements between private and public actors. These trainings focused not only on people but also on learning to see indicators that are linked to business operations and dealing with customers. Publicizing corruption and other drug-related incidents was also part of this. Cooperation was also initiated by the public actors to gain the trust of companies and thus increase the willingness to report.

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Finally, there were plenty of developments linked to the lack of systematic information collection on the ways in which legal companies were intertwined with drug smuggling. Reporting about financial irregularities within the port can be improved, and so can the exchange of this information between the relevant supervisory services or investigative bodies. Insights into the criminal partnerships and their relationships with companies are largely lacking, despite this being essential to develop prevention and control policies. Combating structural vulnerabilities of sectors and businesses has room for improvement.

 orking Together in Supervision: Vulnerabilities W and Opportunities According to most respondents, the cooperation between public actors, between private actors, and between private and public actors had improved, albeit that not everything was going well. The private sector increasingly recognized that security and crime in the port were not only a responsibility for the police and the judiciary and were not even just a responsibility for the government organizations but were instead increasingly recognized as an area in which strides can be made through public–private partnerships. Private actors such as container terminals increasingly joined conversations about the preventative approach to drug smuggling and related security issues. All private actors were increasingly aware that crime in the port was serious and that it could impact employees’ safety. Yet, there was a remainder of a culture of tolerance for irregular behavior to facilitate efficiency, workability, and economic interests. Respondents pointed to the influence of competition that divides the market into reliable actors and “bad apples.” Some noted a contradiction between the transparency of logistical processes offered out of service to clients, which made it vulnerable to crime, while at the same time, there was a lack of transparency when it came to dealing with incidents related to crime. The idea that safety should be an integral part of the company culture was also hesitantly beginning to permeate companies. The culture of tolerance was slowly and fragmentedly giving way to a culture in the port in which the private sector feels and takes responsibility for safety and the (preventive) approach to crime. However, an essential part of the vulnerabilities that lurked in supervision is that partners in cooperation—be it public or private—have different objectives and other assumptions about what security, subversive crime, or organized crime is. The main differences identified in our research were a focus on detection vs. control, a focus on long-term vs. short-term impact, starting from trust vs. distrust of companies, priority on security vs. economy, and priority on specific crime phenomena vs. social impact of subversive crime. For effective cooperation, it is essential for organizations to be aware of their own and each other’s assumptions, objectives, and expectations. After all, awareness about one’s own expectations and mentalities and

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especially the recognition of the possible differences with partners in public, private, or public–private partnerships is essential for the success of projects. In addition, we noticed the remaining barriers to the exchange of information, both for government organizations and in public–private partnerships. These barriers were partly of a legal–technical nature but also lay hidden in a lack of trust in each other, a lack of willingness to cooperate, and the absence of the need to cooperate. Albeit that the HARC team cooperation was deemed successful (with the remaining challenges), several respondents expressed how an overall improved information exchange between government organizations could provide opportunities to monitor companies on a more systematic basis and might create better risk profiles for controlling the flow of goods. The issue of information exchange also goes hand in hand with the need for better reporting systems and increasing the willingness to report irregular activities and for improved data analysis. Our respondents also expressed their concern about a lack of resources for tackling drug crime in the port of Rotterdam, which means that more responsibilities are placed on the private parties or more cases are left unaddressed by public and private actors. There also seemed to be opportunities in the partnerships to involve more partners than was happening at the time. This applied to both public and private organizations. It also seemed as if the directing role in the partnerships was not sufficiently structurally embedded during our research. On an operational level, this posed relatively few insurmountable problems at the time of our research, but our concern lies in the continuation of efforts for the future. Moreover, the commitment to international cooperation and to follow-the-money strategies was underutilized. Despite these problems, tensions, and challenges, our respondents indicated that there were various best practices of partnerships in the port of Rotterdam. They referred to the Hit-and-Run-Cargo Team, the Port of Integrity program, the Information Sharing Center(s), and the cooperation between the seaport police and the boatsmen. They also pointed out that the logistical complexity but also efficiency of the port continues to hold great potential for supervision.

Policy Recommendations The last question we asked ourselves in this study is to what extent the risks or vulnerabilities offer starting points for adjusting or improving (internal) oversight, enforcement, and/or investigation by the government or by companies. Where did we see the possibilities to make the port of Rotterdam less vulnerable and attractive for drug trafficking? Answering this question is in line with the frequently heard remark during the interviews but also during the various forums where we discussed the progress of our research: “How are you going to ensure that the research does not end up in a drawer?” Many representatives of public actors expressed a need for new, useful insights to cope with drug smuggling via the port of Rotterdam. During our research, all kinds of concrete and less concrete measures were mentioned that could be further elaborated and applied. An integrated approach including criminal,

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administrative, and private law instruments increasingly invokes legal and moral discussions about the approach to crime (cf. Van der Vorm, 2016; Jue-Volker, 2017; Van Rooij, 2017; Salet & Sacker, 2019). Having said that, our study concluded with six recommendations: 1. Investigate to what extent the administrative and private law instruments offer legal possibilities and practical tools, to better cope with the problems in particularly vulnerable locations and sectors within the port of Rotterdam (e.g., AML, BIBOB, KYC, HR policy, awareness training, information sharing centers with other actors). 2. Strengthen technological security measures (biometric access passes, logging of activities, risk analysis systems), while also making sure to care for the port employees who are increasingly vulnerable but who also have unique expertise to control and prevent smuggling. 3. Continue to facilitate, as a government, a change in awareness and mentality with private companies about making security integral to their business. 4. Focus on the systematic and sustainable use of control and prevention measures rather than fragmentary, project-based investments and (continue to) invite external (scientific) reflection and assessment. 5. Invest in the sustainable collection, use, and analysis of information to generate better insights into the underlying dynamics (embeddedness, international character, use of legal infrastructure) of the criminal networks involved in drug smuggling in the port of Rotterdam. 6. Consider whether “enforced support,” a more repressive and controlling approach to cooperation between public and private actors, or “supported engagement,” a positive connection and equality-focused approach to security and integrity in the port, best fits the approach to drug crime in the port of Rotterdam.

Afterthought The past years the amounts of cocaine seized and destroyed by Dutch authorities have continued increasing: 33.8 tonnes in 2019, 40.6  in 2020, and 72.8  in 2021. Also the violence associated with drug trade has become more prominent in the Netherlands. The cocaine trade goes hand in hand with rip deals, hostage-taking, gun violence, and liquidations—sometimes in broad daylight in residential areas— and has an impact on the broader social context (Boerman et al., 2017). With this social impact in mind, the fight against drug crime specifically and subversive crime more in general had already been given priority in Rutte III’s coalition agreement “Confidence in the future” and in the “Future agenda for undermining” (2017). This was the year our study about the port of Rotterdam was commissioned. In 2019, the central government announced a more coordinated approach and extra “subversive crime funds” of 100 million euros incidentally and (from 2019) 10 million euros

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annually have been released. Eleven million of these incidental funds were earmarked for Rotterdam (Ministerie Justitie & Veiligheid, 2019). After repeated pleas for more investment in the approach to drug crime in the Dutch mainports (Schiphol airport and Rotterdam seaport), an additional 7 million euro investment was agreed on by the Minister of Justice and Security in May 2021, 5 of which for Rotterdam mainport (Ministerie Justitie & Veiligheid, 2021). The most recent state budget announcement of 2022 speaks of another 524 million euros to be invested in tackling subversive crime. So overall, the attention for and investment in tackling subversive crime, with a particular focus on drug crime, has not died down since the publication of our report. Also within the port of Rotterdam, various public and private actors have continued to work on these topics. By following from the sidelines and also by having been invited in as independent observers by several involved actors, we have some indication of what has been happening in Rotterdam since May 2019. To conclude this chapter, we list a few of these initiatives, but we can by no means be exhaustive in this “afterthought” nor can we provide a substantiated evaluation of these developments. What follows is a list of accomplishments—or initiatives that are in the works—but there are remaining challenges to be addressed in future research and policy-making. As for the public approach to drug crime, we can first notice that the already existing cooperation between customs, police, and FIOD in the HARC team has been extended with a team that focuses on the longer-term investigation of the financing of drug trafficking and undermining. Second, a new cooperation agreement was signed between customs and police. Third, possibilities to apply administrative measures have been explored and started to get implemented (e.g., order for incremental penalty payments [last onder dwangsom], albeit with appeals pending in court. Fourth, to discourage trespassers collecting drugs in the Rotterdam port area, the current administrative approach (fines) was replaced by a criminal law approach (art. 138aa of the Dutch Criminal Code) where people could face up to 2  years of imprisonment for trespassing. This criminalization of “unlawful presence”—also known as the drug collectors law [Uithalerswet]—is controversial as many fear an increase of violence in the port area (Van Niekerk, 2021) and yet has been applied several times since its entry into force on 1 January 2022. Fifth, there is an increased focus on the prevention of corruption among public as well as private partners that still has a lot to gain from awareness and measures (KPMG, 2021). As for the involvement of private actors in the port of Rotterdam, there is an increased investment of the port authority in Rotterdam via “know your customer” and via the CCTV and automatic license plate recognition cameras throughout and around the port of Rotterdam. Second, there is continued investment in the cooperation between public and private actors in drug crime by jointly raising awareness such as in the widely publicized campaign “Secure port—Integer port” [Veilige Haven—Integere Haven], which focuses on awareness raising, increasing reporting of irregular activities, and training port employees on how to resist getting involved with drug criminals. Third, by jointly working on HR-related topics such as the security challenge of using temporary workers and by the creation of various other information sharing centers on port safety and security both within Rotterdam and

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in other ports, the public–private cooperation has been extended (Bisschop et al., in press). Fourth, the Municipality of Rotterdam has, jointly with other public and private actors in the port, drafted an implementation agenda for subversive crime in the port of Rotterdam—based on the six above recommendations—which will be implemented (partially) based on the newly received funding, but has also been critiqued by both public and private actors for being slow in the making. As for private actors themselves, we have seen that terminal operators in the port of Rotterdam have increasingly invested in security infrastructure, have acknowledged the importance of addressing drug trafficking on their premises, and have also publicly shared how they are dealing with these challenges. Finally, as for the relationship between the port and academia, we have been invited to share our findings in various workshops and organizations, thereby trying to facilitate that our report indeed “does not end up in a drawer.” The public and private actors we have worked with during this research have supported us in plans for future research on (the approach to) smuggling. We have also been invited to be critical observers of ongoing public–private cooperation experiments, which we will share more in later publications. Acknowledgments  During one of the interviews, a dockworker opined that you should “learn to speak the language of the port of Rotterdam.” Our respondents and conversation partners from the private and public sector as well as the members of the advisory committee have mastered that language and have taken the trouble to explain it to us and to help us understand and speak it. Whether we have succeeded is up to the reader to assess, but we would like to thank our respondents and the members of the advisory committee chaired by Prof. Dr. Hans Nelen, and finally, we thank the Rotterdam “Driehoek Plus” (Municipality of Rotterdam, police, public prosecutor, customs) for commissioning this study. Funding  This work was supported by a grant from the “Driehoek Plus” (Rotterdam police, customs, public prosecutor, and municipality) (project number 2-334-17) [to all authors] and by the Erasmus Initiative on Dynamics of Inclusive Prosperity [to L.B.].

References Bisschop, L., Roks, R., Staring, R., & Brein, E. (2019). Publiek-private samenwerking in de aanpak van drugscriminaliteit in de Rotterdamse haven. Justitiële Verkenningen, themanummer Mainports & Veiligheid, 46(5), 69–90. Bisschop, L., Staring, R., Roks, R., & Goudsblom, G. (in press). Public-private cooperation in the approach to drug crime in the port of Rotterdam. The case of the information sharing center port safety and security. In Y.  Eski & M.  Wright (Eds.), Handbook on maritime security & policing. Routledge. Boerman, F., Grapendaal, M., Nieuwenhuis, F., & Stoffers, E. (2017). Nationaal dreigingsbeeld 2017. Georganiseerde criminaliteit. Nationale Politie, Landelijke Eenheid, Dienst Landelijke Informatieorganisatie. De Middeleer, F., Van Nimwegen, S., Ceulen, R., Gerbrands, S., Roevens, E., Spapens, T., et al. (2018). Illegale drugsmarkten in België en Nederland: Communicerende vaten? BELSPO.

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Easton, M. (2020). Policing flows of drugs in the harbor of Antwerp: A nodal-network analysis. In Maritime supply chains (pp. 115–134). Elsevier. Eski, Y. (2011). Port of call: Towards a criminology of port security. Criminology and Criminal Justice, 11(5), 415–431. Eski, Y. (2015). The port securityscape: An ethnography (PhD Thesis). University of Glasgow. Eski, Y., & Buijt, R. (2016). Dockers in drugs: Policing the illegal drug trade and port employee corruption in the port of Rotterdam. Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice, 11(4), 371–386. Europol. (2007). EU organised crime threat assessment 2006. OCTA. European Union. Europol. (2016). European drug markets report. European Monitoring Centre for drugs and drug addiction. European Union. http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/start/2016/drug-­markets#pane0. Laatst bezocht op 2 mei 2019. Europol. (2017). Serious and organised crime threat assessment 2017. Crime in the Age of Technology. SOCTA, European Union. Jue-Volker, B. W. A. (2017). In vrijheid beperkt. Over gebieds- en locatieverboden in het strafrecht, bestuursrecht en privaatrecht. Strafblad, 15(6), 491–497. Kleemans, E.  R., Van den Berg, E.  A. I.  M., Van de Bunt, H.  G., Brouwers, M., Kouwenberg, R. F., & Paulides, G. (2002). Georganiseerde criminaliteit in Nederland: Tweede rapportage op basis van de WODC-monitor. WODC. Kolthoff, E., & Khonraad, S. (2016). Ondermijnende aspecten van georganiseerde criminaliteit en de rol van de bovenwereld. Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, 58(2). KPMG. (2021). De beheersing van corruptierisico’s door de Douane in de Rotterdamse haven. Amstelveen, 28 mei 2021. Lam, J., van der Wal, R., & Kop, N. (2018). Sluipend gif. Een onderzoek naar ondermijnende criminaliteit. Boom Criminologie. Levi, M. (2015). Money for crime and money from crime: Financing crime and laundering crime proceeds. European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research, 21(2), 275–297. Ministerie Justitie & Veiligheid. (2019, October 18). Kamerbrief over aanpak georganiseerde ondermijnende criminaliteit. Directoraat-Generaal Rechtspleging en Rechtshandhaving. https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/kamerstukken/2019/10/18/brief-­tweede-­kamer-­ contouren-­breed-­offensief-­tegen-­georganiseerde-­ondermijnende-­criminaliteit Ministerie Justitie & Veiligheid. (2021, May 14). Kamerbrief over extra ondersteuning logistieke knooppunten. Directoraat-Generaal Ondermijning. https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/ kamerstukken/2021/05/14/tk-­extra-­ondersteuning-­logistieke-­knooppunten Nelen, J. M. (2019). Estimating market sizes and the volume of money laundering: The inconvenient truth? CIROC Newsletter, 6. Nelen, J. M., Kolthoff, E., Brepoels, M., van Dooren, S., van Halderen, R. C., Smulders, I., & de Winter, M. (2017). Georganiseerde criminaliteit en integriteit van rechtshandhavingsorganisaties. WODC. Port of Rotterdam. (2017). Jaarverslag 2017. Havenbedrijf Rotterdam. HbR. Roks, R., Bisschop, L., & Staring, R. (2020). Getting a foot in the door. Spaces of cocaine trafficking in the Port of Rotterdam. Trends in Organized Crime, 24(2), 171–188. https://doi. org/10.1007/s12117-­020-­09394-­8 Salet, R., & Sackers, H. J. B. (2019). Bestuurlijke bevoegdheden, politie en de lokale aanpak van onveiligheid. Sdu Uitgevers. Staring, R., Bisschop, L., Roks, R., Brein, E., & van de Bunt, H. (2019). Drugscriminaliteit in de Rotterdamse haven. Aard en aanpak van het fenomeen. Boom Juridische Uitgevers. Staring, R., Bisschop, L., & Roks, R. (2021a). Ondermijnende criminaliteit laat zich niet onderscheppen noch aanhouden. Over de aanpak van georganiseerde misdaad en het belang van kennis, Boom Strafblad, 1, 33–38. https://www.bjutijdschriften.nl/tijdschrift/BSb/2021/1/ Bsb_2666-6901_2021_002_001_006. Staring, R., Bisschop, L., Colman, C., Janssen, J., & Roks, R. (2021b). Scheldestad of Manhattan aan de Maas? Een vergelijkende analyse van de Antwerpse en Rotterdamse havens bij de in- en

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doorvoer van cocaïne. Tijdschrift voor Criminologie, themanummer Drugscriminaliteit, 63(2), 146–166. Van de Vorm, B. (2016). Ernstig gevaar: Een juridisch-empirisch onderzoek naar aard, doel en toepassing van de Wet Bibob. Wolf Legal Publishers. van Dijk, T., Elffers, H., Hessing, D., & Hoogenboom, A. (1999). Bewust van de gevaren van criminaliteit. Een inventarisatie van kwetsbaarheden die in de logistieke keten en daarmee ook in de Rotterdamse haven voorkomen. Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. Van Niekerk, R. (2021). Tot twee jaar cel voor ‘uithalers’ door wetswijziging, maar vrees voor ‘wild-west-taferelen’. https://nos.nl/nieuwsuur/artikel/2404242-­tot-­twee-­jaar-­cel-­voor-­ uithalers-­door-­wetswijziging-­maar-­vrees-­voor-­wild-­west-­taferelen van Rooij, A. E. (2017). Orde in het semipublieke domein. Particuliere en publiek-private orderegulering in juridisch perspectief. Boom Juridische Uitgevers. Vaughan, D. (1998). Rational choice, situated action, and the social control of organizations. Law and Society Review, 32(1), 23–61. Zaitch, D. (2002). From Cali to Rotterdam: perceptions of Colombian cocaine traffickers on the Dutch port. Crime, Law & Social Change, 38(3), 239–266.

Chapter 5

Drug-Related Organized Crime in the Meuse Rhine Euroregion and the Role of National Borders Jessica Noack and Hans Nelen

Introduction The fight and prevention of cross-border drug-related organized crime are prioritized in many countries. In continental Europe, law enforcement agencies are almost compelled to cooperate, as the open internal borders offer ample opportunities for drug criminals to cross national borders and conceal their activities, modi operandi, and profits in various countries. Yet, many European studies on organized crime are based on data collected in one specific country. Despite the fact that much drug-­ related organized crime is transnational by nature, most scholars are unable to get access to data in various countries and focus on the situation in their own country. Consequently, cross-border aspects of drug trafficking are often neglected. This chapter is an exception to this rule and takes a multinational approach. It is based on data collected in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. The chapter addresses the current situation in the Meuse Rhine Euroregion (EMR), a geographically small area in Europe where German, Belgian, and Dutch influences can be found. Historically, this region has always attracted smuggling and other types of trafficking. Due to the close geographical proximity to the (open) national borders, it is relatively easy to traffic drugs or human beings across the national borders unnoticed (Spapens & Fijnaut, 2005). To illustrate, the narrowest part of the Dutch province of Limburg stretches approximately five kilometers between the Belgian province of Limburg and the German state of North Rhine Westphalia. Additionally, it has a central location to European hubs: it is conveniently located between the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp and the mainland of Europe and close to several large (Amsterdam, Brussels, Düsseldorf) as well as small airports, which could be used for trafficking goods or persons over longer distances (Geurtjens, 2022). J. Noack (*) · H. Nelen Faculty of Law, Department of Criminal Law and Criminology, Maastricht University, Maastricht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_5

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In gaining a better insight into the various crime phenomena present in the Meuse Rhine Euroregion, Spapens and Fijnaut conducted a study in 2005 demonstrating the value of a Euroregion-wide crime analysis for intelligence and intervention purposes. They provided the first stepping stones for a concerted crime analysis by focusing on the nature and scope of certain crimes, the criminal networks involved, and their particular modus operandi (Spapens & Fijnaut, 2005). Recently, a study on the criminal networks involved in (the production and trade of) cannabis, synthetic drugs, and cocaine in the Meuse Rhine Euroregion was published by Nelen et al. (2021).1 This report indicates that with regard to drug-related problems in the Meuse Rhine Euroregion, the situation has deteriorated in a number of ways. In this chapter, the most important findings of the study of Nelen et al. (2021) will be highlighted and reflected upon. The main question that will be addressed is how criminal networks, the modi operandi, and “business models” of criminal entrepreneurs in the drug world have developed over the years in this Euroregion and how criminal networking and criminal activities have been influenced by the presence of various national borders. Additionally, the implications of these developments for law enforcement will be briefly discussed. The research this chapter is based upon and draws on different research methods. First, an extensive literature review was conducted, in which all available and accessible scientific reports and policy documents on drug-related crime and its containment in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany and the Meuse Rhine Euregion in particular were studied. Additionally, 13 semi-structured interviews were conducted with law enforcement specialists in the three countries.

Business Models Geographical and Historic Interconnectedness of Drug Markets Over the last 17 years, the illegal drug industry has grown increasingly in volume on its three biggest markets: cannabis, cocaine, and synthetic drugs. The Netherlands in particular is known to have a long and complicated relationship with drugs. Especially the southern provinces of Brabant—as the cradle of synthetic drug production in the 1970s—and Limburg are traditionally considered as drug areas, but drug networks across the country have increased in revenue, scope, and professionalism since the 1990s (Noordanus, 2020). Since then, various links that can be seen as the expansion of domestic production of cannabis and synthetic drugs developed from Dutch Limburg as part of the EMR across the borders, especially in the direction of Belgium. This often involves cannabis plantations organized from the Netherlands and drug laboratories on Belgian territory, the import of end products,

 The report of Nelen et al. (2021) is only available in Dutch, German and French. This is the first English publication based on the findings of this study. 1

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the purchase of precursors from Belgium, or criminals involved in drug crimes who have moved their residence to Belgium. Geographically, especially the production of synthetic drugs is concentrated in the border regions, while cannabis production is spread throughout Belgium. From Dutch Limburg to Germany, connections related to cannabis are the most common as well, followed by synthetic drugs and cocaine. The latter, however, concerns mainly exports, since the harbors of both Rotterdam in the Netherlands and Antwerp in Belgium serve as the main entry points for cocaine in Northern Europe (Calandra, 2017). Indeed, Germany serves as an important transit country, since only a relatively small part of drugs found in Germany is meant for the German market. Illegal drug production sites can be found there too, albeit fewer in number, which most often concern cannabis plantations that, as in Belgium, are widely becoming more and more independent from the Netherlands. Synthetic drug labs, however, still always yield a Dutch connection (Landeskriminalamt Nordrhein-­ Westfalen [LKA NRW], 2020). Furthermore, both Belgium and Germany are frequently used as transit and interim storage hub for chemicals that are used in the production of synthetic drugs (Bundeskriminalamt [BKA], 2020; De Middeleer et al., 2018). Here, the attraction of border regions for criminals becomes apparent, as especially in the production phase of drugs, short distances can be of an advantage, for example, when equipment needs to be moved or when production waste is dumped. For wholesale, on the other hand, distances play a lesser role, especially within Europe and its open borders. Here, the Internet can facilitate direct contact to producers, which, in turn, then lead to a decreased importance of middlemen. Dramatic changes over the years can be observed on the retail level. As response to the nuisance that accompanied drug tourism and stockpiling through coffee shops in the Netherlands, several Dutch cities—especially those in the border regions and thus including those in the province of Limburg—introduced the so-called i-­criterion in 2012.2 This i-criterion (short for ingezetenencriterium, which translates to resident criterion) regulates access to the coffee shops by restricting it to adults officially residing in the Netherlands. Although not all municipalities in the Netherlands have included the i-criterion in their administrative legal framework and quite a few foreign drug tourists can still shop in Dutch coffee shops, a significant part of the consumers of cannabis has since depended on illegal suppliers in their own country, which amounts to a shift in retail trade abroad. For instance, the majority of Belgian  Based on the expediency principle in Dutch criminal procedure, the public prosecution service may waive prosecution if the latter is considered ineffective or not in the general interest. Although, according to the Dutch drug law, the sale and purchase of cannabis are still a criminal offense, the prosecution service and municipalities have come up with guidelines that allow these activities to take place in coffee shops under certain circumstances. The indicators used for this form of regulated tolerance by the authorities to assess the admissibility of coffeeshops are referred to as the AHOJ-G-criteria. These criteria entail no advertising, no hard drugs, no public nuisance, no sales to juveniles, and no sales of quantities larger than what buyers need for themselves per transaction. The I-criterion was added most recently in the administrative legal framework of many Dutch municipalities. 2

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users no longer travel to the Netherlands for supply but instead turn to more local providers or order online and via so-called call centers, which are most often established in and operate from the Netherlands and deliver across the border (De Middeleer et al., 2018).

Polycrime Besides the expansion and professionalization of organized drug crimes, a diversification has also been observed. Firstly, different drug markets overlap now more than in the past, and certain combinations of drug types are the rule rather than the exception—especially in the smuggling markets, which, on the one hand, have similar logistical processes and, on the other hand, are lucrative even in small quantities of drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and synthetic drugs (Spapens, 2017). Secondly, as the interviews of our study indicate, criminals within drug networks are also increasingly active in other sectors that were more delineated in the past, such as various forms of illegal immigration or human trafficking (Nelen et  al., 2021). Indeed, police officers both in Belgium and the Netherlands also point out the presence of Southeast Asians, such as Vietnamese, who are often forced laborers and victims of human trafficking and exploitation and used as guards or gardeners on cannabis plantations or sometimes also in the production of synthetic drugs. However, an explanation other than the demand for cheap and controllable laborers may be risk diversification: the more markets are covered, the greater the chance of profit in one of them. This way, drug crimes function as basis for further crimes. Finally, supporting criminal activities, such as car theft for the purpose of drug smuggling, must be mentioned. Here, too, the proximity of the border is exploited, and particularly, the theft of cars at the German side of the border has been a serious problem during the last decade.

Criminal Networks As with other criminal networks that can be found across Europe, those operating within the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany can generally be described as fluid, dynamic, and profit oriented (Europol, 2021). Within these networks, both horizontal structures—meaning without a stable top—and hierarchical structures can be found. The persistence of these associations can vary widely and depends, for example, on the business model, the roles the criminals concerned have, and the opportunities that arise.

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Roles The distribution of roles within criminal networks is complex and often depends on the environment in which criminals operate. Nevertheless, certain distributions within the networks can be observed. Firstly, networks often include a top segment with two to four core players, consisting mostly of investors and organizers, followed by a middle management including coordinators and right hands of organizers. In the lower levels, executors and assistants can be found (Kruisbergen et al., 2012; Kruisbergen et  al., 2019; Spapens, 2017). The latter often turn out to be socially disadvantaged people with financial problems or, even if less often, forced laborers (De Middeleer et al., 2018). A fourth category, that of the facilitators, is comprised of individuals or organizations who specialize in a certain part of an illegal activity and can make their services available to various criminal organizations (Kruisbergen et al., 2012; Landelijk Informatie en Expertise Centrum [LIEC], 2019). These services can consist of simple services or of people in vital positions and people who have high-quality specialized knowledge, such as real estate agents, recruitment officers, estate owners, workshop owners, people with nautical knowledge, financial and legal experts, owners of restaurants, customs officers, or security guards. Furthermore, to be able to act across borders, as in the case of the EMR, people who can bridge social and geographical distances are needed to establish contacts with relevant third parties. Although these facilitators often carry out their activities on the fringes of the criminal alliances, they form nodes in the larger network.

Local, Regional, and Transnational Transnational cooperation, both to neighboring countries and beyond, is expanding and deepening. On the one hand, technological developments make this possible, but on the other hand, immigration groups involved with illegal activities that are directly related to the possibilities of their country of origin play a role (LIEC, 2019). In Belgium, for example, more than half of all criminal organizations work together with others, on average two to three foreign organizations, mainly from the Netherlands and France but also from Great Britain, Germany, Turkey, Italy, and Albania (Federale Politie, 2020). However, criminal networks are also locally and regionally embedded. This becomes apparent through the fact that the organization of cannabis plantations on Belgian territory often involves actors with a Turkish or Moroccan background, who grew up in North Brabant or Limburg in the Netherlands and often live close to the Belgian–Dutch border (De Middeleer et al., 2018).

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Involved Nationalities and Ethnic Groups National police crime statistics often mention nationality—and sometimes even ethnicity—of criminals, despite the fact that they are only of very limited informative value about the characteristics of the criminal activities carried out or about the criminal organization as a whole. For example, the nationality of a criminal may be at odds with their ethnicity. Additionally, most groups are considered very heterogenous, consisting of members with several different nationalities (Europol, 2021; Federale Politie, 2020; LKA NRW, 2020). Therefore, it must be kept in mind that groups referred to by nationality are at most groups dominated by one nationality. However, general trends can still be observed, even across the borders. First, this concerns the special role Dutch nationals play in the Netherlands and beyond. Although Belgian-, Dutch-, and German-dominated crime groups make up the majority in their own respective countries, native Dutch groups have long been associated with both initiating and organizing large cannabis plantations and synthetic drug labs and running drug production, including in Belgium and Germany (BKA, 2020; Federale Politie, 2020). However, over the last 10 to 20 years, markets have changed, most notably the cannabis market, and other players have also been able to expand more and more (De Middeleer et al., 2018). Thus, many networks today are dominated by people with a Turkish, Moroccan, Albanian, or Italian background (Federale Politie, 2020; LIEC, 2019; LKA NRW, 2020). This roughly reflects the demographics of the region and is a consequence of past migrations. With the influx of guest workers from Morocco, Turkey, and Italy in the past century, various social axes formed in the EMR that can still be observed today (Spapens & Fijnaut, 2005). Additionally, as a result of various political conflicts in the past, members of the ethnic Albanian diaspora migrated westwards, and are settling, among others, especially in Belgium and Germany (Federale Politie, 2019).

Notable Crime Groups Across the Borders With this in mind, there are some particularly striking phenomena that the police in all three countries have been grappling with for a number of years. First, there is the Italian mafia, which is primarily associated with cocaine smuggling (Spapens, 2019). Although there are many family groups, the “Ndrangheta” is dominant in terms of the number of suspected members, which is also one of the largest groups active in the German part of the EMR (BKA, 2020). In Germany, North Rhine-­ Westphalia is the federal state with the most dependents, but these are also represented in Belgium and the Netherlands. Overall, however, and despite it being known that mafia-affiliated immigrants or refugees in the Netherlands also have contacts with Dutch criminal groups, they tend to go under the radar in the Netherlands. This leads on the one hand to their activities being given more

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attention in Belgium and Germany, but also that the topic as a whole has not been studied enough. Next, Albanian criminal groups are generally known for their involvement in a variety of crimes and quick adaptability. They are often also involved in real estate transactions, vehicle crime, smuggling activities, or human trafficking, although in the EMR they are mainly involved in drug-related crimes (Federale Politie, 2020; LKA NRW, 2020). On the one hand, they are particularly specialized in the production of cannabis, which is cultivated in large quantities and at a high level, especially in Limburg (Federale Politie, 2019). On the other hand, connections with regard to cocaine trafficking are also not uncommon, and there are also groups that deal exclusively with drug or cocaine transports through Western Europe, albeit on commission, for example, the Italian “Ndrangheta,” and not as a trade per se. Albanian criminal groups have a reputation for using more violence than other groups. The male sense of honor plays a key role, to which the possession of weapons and the courage to use them are also linked. Owning a gun is an integral part of the concept of honor in traditional Albanian culture, and guns still have symbolic and cultural value today (Federale Politie, 2019). Within the Albanian criminal groups, a division into top groups and various sub-groups can be observed: the top group operates from Amsterdam and also maintains contacts with the Italian mafia, while the sub-­ groups operate in different countries (Calandra, 2017; Federale Politie, 2019; Fijnaut, 2019). These criminal groups are often also referred to as clans or mafia (Federale Politie, 2020). The main concern here is their structure, which is considered to be heavily organized and hierarchical, but not as hierarchical as that of Colombian clans, for example. Somewhat linked to this, there is the phenomenon that in Germany is being called clan crime. Although it has not yet been defined in conclusion, clans are generally understood to be members of extended families of Turkish, Kurdish, or Arab origin. More information on “clan crime” in Germany can be found in the chapter of Jarabi in this volume. Outside of Germany, the term clan has other meanings as well and mainly refers to old social structures describing an extended or sometimes multiple family(s), including Albanian clans from the Balkan region (Federale Politie, 2019). Indeed, family relations are also a distinctive feature of Albanian crime groups: often one person is central, followed by their brothers, sisters, brothers-in-law, nephews, or nieces and often use is made of people arriving from Albania who are then employed to work on cannabis plantations. However, although the core of the group may consist of (ethnic) Albanians, in the periphery, they also make use of the qualities of others, with ethnicity hardly playing a role anymore. In the Netherlands, clans are also often associated with Moroccan groups in which fixed family structures are also the main feature. Clan crime in Germany encompasses a whole range of different (organized) crimes, including violent crimes and brutality, property and drug crimes, and fraudulent behavior within the service industry (LKA NRW, 2018). In the Dutch and Belgian part of the EMR, Arabic-dominated networks (mostly Turkish or Moroccan) are mostly associated with cannabis production: next to the Dutch criminals, actors of Moroccan and Turkish origin who are based in North Brabant or Limburg in the Netherlands are

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often involved in the organization and management of professional cannabis cultivation in the provinces of Liège and Limburg (De Middeleer et al., 2018). From these phenomena, it appears that family bonds play a big part within criminal networks. However, sometimes the boundary between family ties and cultural ties can be fluid, as is the case within clusters of caravan residents or clan members. There are two additional predominant factors that foster internal cohesion and that can all be present separately or simultaneously: friendship relations and engaging together in criminal activities (Federale Politie, 2020). The most noticeable example for this is outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMCGs). OMCGs are international clubs with fixed structures in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany alike and are said to exploit their widely spread local chapters to conduct internal business, which includes drug trafficking and trade (van Lampe & Blokland, 2020). From a structural point of view, the clubs are very hierarchical, and each member has a specific position, e.g., captain, member, prospect, etc. This structure provides a certain security: their own network, a low risk of being scammed, and a certain ease to make new contacts. However, not all members are therefore criminals per se; often it is the ones in the high ranks who are well-known, clever criminals and who already had a place in organized crime before they became members (Spapens et al., 2016). Accordingly, it is often more a matter of serious criminals who use motorcycle gangs as a cover. On the other hand, however, in order to become a member, there is no harm in showing beforehand that one is not averse to violence. Although the level of crime can vary in different chapters, drugs almost always play a role in proceedings against them (BKA, 2020). In addition, heavy weapons and armor are regularly found during searches, which suggests that violence is high and high value crime is committed. Although OMCGs were still a major and visible problem until around 2017, they are now much less prominent across the EMR (Geurtjens, 2022), although signals of illegal meetings and internal conflicts continue to be heard, and the problem thus seems to have moved underground. This may be at least partially due to the intensified action against them in the form of bans on robes, ride outs, or entire clubs especially in Germany and the Netherlands. On the other hand, developments within the scene could also be responsible for its disintegration, including the division between old school and new school rockers that led to internal quarrels and possibly to the self-dissolution of some chapters. Nevertheless, there still seem to be active members in the EMR, even if they no longer belong to local chapters.

Competition Versus Cooperation With so many players on the field, it begs the question of how much cooperation and competition between these groups exist. Competition between different organizations is usually associated with certain groups, such as within the OMCG scene (between rival clubs) or between ethnic groups (Spilcker, 2019). Furthermore, the increasing number of settlements in the Antwerp area indicates an increase between

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Belgian and Dutch criminal organizations particularly on the cocaine market (De Middeleer et al., 2018). However, research shows that, in most cases, cooperation is more rewarding than fierce competition. For example, Geurtjens (2022) concludes that for offenses such as drug manufacturing and trade, OMCG members, rather than relying on their brothers, cooperated with external co-offenders—often via family, friends, or criminal ties—for a number of different supporting activities. Nowadays, links between once particularly distinct crime groups such as OMCGs and family clans can be observed (Spilcker, 2019). Furthermore, manufacturers of synthetic drugs seek protection from criminal motorcycle gangs precisely because of the advantages they offer: an international network of gangs and the associated logistical advantages or the availability of all kinds of people to lend a helping hand (De Middeleer et al., 2018). Ultimately, the criminal cooperation is not only about reliability or integrity but also about capacity, which is why new relationships are formed that offer new trading opportunities. Especially for foreign groups, it will usually be more lucrative to seek cooperation than to compete with local groups for territory or markets, as exemplified by the production of synthetic drugs in the Dutch–Belgian border area since the early 1990s (Spapens, 2019).

Modi Operandi Production Crime scripts, which can be considered step-by-step narratives of decision-making processes and procedures involved in specific events, are used to identify both the situational context and the decisions involved in particular crimes (Clarke & Cornish, 1985). Spapens and Fijnaut (2005) identified a number of steps required for the production of cannabis and synthetic drugs. First, money for setting up production facilities must be available. If criminals do not have financial resources themselves, support of financiers in the criminal circle can be sought. The second step involves finding production sites. At the beginning of this millennium, these were predominantly in residential buildings, often in deprived neighborhoods and caravan camps, but also in villages and average residential areas (Spapens & Fijnaut, 2005). Today, the spectrum has somewhat broadened, and they can be found today in all sorts of buildings, including commercial premises, stables, and underground cultivation areas, as well as in expensive apartments and beautiful mansions. This change also means a new variety in size: while plantations used to be relatively small due to the use of residential buildings, today their size depends on the possibilities of the property, and stables and sheds in particular offer more cultivation areas in a rural context. However, other considerations, such as transport links, availability of sufficient electricity and water, or whether noise is noticeable in the area, also play a role. Dutch persons often carry out browsing the real estate market, both domestic and abroad (De Middeleer et al., 2018). Using several locations can

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hence serve risk diversification, as various production processes are split across those sites. It is thus not surprising that a complete production line from precursor production to tableting can no longer be found at one location, or that smaller satellite plantations are often operated at different stages of cultivation in different locations, rather than one large plantation in one place (Noordanus, 2020). Here, in particular, the function of the border becomes clear once more: criminal organizations look for places where the risk of discovery is as low as possible. Although distribution across different communities within one country has also become established, discovering criminal activity on both sides of a border is made considerably more difficult. Once suitable locations have been found, the next consideration concerns hardware and raw materials. To produce cannabis, this includes, among other things, grow lamps, growing soil, irrigation equipment, plastic containers, suction systems, and cuttings. Until just a few years ago, the complete equipment, as well as the know-how for cannabis production, could be purchased legally in so-called grow shops in the Netherlands. However, in March 2015, a new stipulation was introduced in the Netherlands (Article 11a Opium Act), criminalizing preparatory acts for illegal cannabis cultivation. Since then, many “former” grow shops had to adapt their business models, for example, by expanding their sales offer of agricultural and horticultural items, by going “underground” or selling online, or by moving to their neighboring countries Belgium or Germany. Therefore, all accessories are still relatively easy to obtain (De Middeleer et al., 2018). The necessary hardware and raw materials for the production of synthetic drugs include reaction vessels, boilers, freezers, and tableting machines, as well as (pre-) precursors and other chemicals (Noordanus, 2020). While some of these are legally obtainable, others are not and must therefore be bought in the criminal circle. Others may be legal but are subject to reporting requirements, compelling criminal buyers to take additional steps to hide their identity. For example, chemicals and raw materials must be diverted from the legal economic sector, which are often ordered from intermediaries under the condition of legal use and delivered by them (LKA NRW, 2020). Both Belgium and Germany play a crucial role here, for purchase, as a transit country as well as for interim storage. However, certain chemicals have become less available in recent years, which has led to an increase in conversion laboratories. The next steps are the actual production process, followed by the dumping of production waste. The professionalization of cannabis production, particularly through the use of technological aids, has long resulted in the ability to grow more and larger tops of cannabis plants, leading also to a more labor-intensive cutting procedure (De Middeleer et al., 2018; Noordanus, 2020). The link to illegal smuggling becomes particularly clear here, ensuring constant availability of new human material, since both “cheap” workers from Eastern Europe but also forced laborers and victims of human smuggling or exploitation are used in some cases (De Middeleer et al., 2018). Once production is complete, special “cleaning crews” are sometimes deployed on the cannabis plantations, which are sent by the organizers from the Netherlands to dismantle the plantations and repair the building. The disposal of the remains of the cultivation is relatively uncomplicated, by issuing

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cultivation soil and plant residues as garden waste or simply disposing of them in a forest. The production process of synthetic drugs requires a necessary know-how that is significantly more limited than in cannabis cultivation. The laboratory assistants, who often have many years of experience, come mainly from the Netherlands and pass the recipes on to inexperienced assistants and helpers, who then mainly carry them out (De Middeleer et  al., 2018). Thus, it seems that in recent years, many Belgians seem to have been trained and deployed by Dutch organizations. The disposal of waste from synthetic drug production, known as dumping, often takes place in areas nearest to the borders, in the Netherlands as well as in Belgium and Germany (LKA NRW, 2020). However, more and more dumping sites are also being found in the Belgian province of Liège. The several tons of chemicals disposed of are often proven to be waste products from Dutch drug laboratories (BKA, 2019). Some of the disposal takes place in unloaded canisters and parked transporters but also through illegal disposal in streams or in the ground. As chances of discovery are bigger if dumping sites are further away from production sites, it is presumed that the labs are likely also nearby in the border region.

Smuggle and Trade A large body of literature deals with the way cocaine arrives and leaves the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp, to subsequently enter the European market (see, for example, Fijnaut, 2019; Staring, Bisschop, Roks, Brein, & van de Bunt, 2022). The EMR serves here mostly as a transit location. However, some of the imported cocaine, though less common, is impregnated in clothing or concealed as a liquid during international transport. In the so-called cocaine laundries, these liquids can be converted back into cocaine with the help of solvents. Such cocaine laundries can be found all over the Netherlands. Various interviewees in our research referred to the discovery a few years ago of a big cocaine facility in Sittard, a Dutch city close to the border of Belgium and Germany. Although such sites have not been noticed in Belgium and Germany yet, a few washed out products have also been found in Belgian Limburg. As it is estimated that most of the cocaine arriving in the port of Antwerp is in fact destined for the Netherlands, many Belgian intermediaries buy their kilos of cocaine in the Netherlands, blend them in Belgium, and then export them to other European countries such as Switzerland, Italy, Germany, France, or Slovakia (De Middeleer et al., 2018). However, our research indicates that more and more foreign buyers are now coming to Belgium to stock up there, which is an indication that networks in Belgium are also able to deliver large quantities (Nelen et al., 2021). With regard to the manner of exporting cocaine and other drugs, especially from the Netherlands to Germany or Belgium, deck loads are often not necessary and are only used if an opportunity should present itself. In the EMR, small border crossings are often used for this, that is, those that are not connected to the highway. For

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more distant deliveries on the other hand, for example, to Turkey, legal transport is often required, and the drugs are then hidden in the cargo or even in the transporter itself. In the early 2000s, the sale of consumption quantities of drugs in the EMR mainly occurred in one of the following ways: either in Dutch coffee shops, at fixed illegal sales points, or as itinerant trade (Spapens & Fijnaut, 2005). Since then, a change of modus operandi can be observed in each of these. As mentioned earlier, the introduction of the i-criterion in many regions close to the borders implies that cannabis is now only sold via coffee shops to locally based customers. Although many tourists keep buying drugs in coffee shops in other Dutch cities— those that are not situated in a border region and that do not make use of the i-criterion—other consumers of cannabis, especially in Belgium, have turned to local dealers in their own country. This, in turn, also means that Belgian cannabis growers no longer have to sell their harvests in the Netherlands but can sell directly to Belgian drug users and have become more independent. Additionally, the number of deal buildings, or the so-called dealpanden, which formed a big part of fixed illegal sales points, decreased. These were often spots in the city, where buyers were escorted to through drugs runners, who approached passenger vehicles along the highway (Spapens & Fijnaut, 2005). The reduction of those deal buildings most likely came about through the adaptation of drug dealers themselves: Drugs were sold in smaller portions and outside of public places, and drugs runners then also sometimes brought the drugs across the border (Fijnaut & De Ruyver, 2008). Today, retail trade mainly takes place as street trading and the dealpanden may now only serve the purpose of a pickup point (De Middeleer et al., 2018). Nevertheless, our research shows that there are still illegal fixed sales points in the form of apartments or catering establishments (also outside the Netherlands), which are used as a cover for all kinds of criminal activities, including drug trafficking, as meeting place for criminals, drug storage, money laundering, insurance fraud, or the housing of undocumented migrants (Nelen et al., 2021). In 2005, itinerant trade in the EMR consisted, among other things, of following fixed routes that consumers were familiar with or of making arrangements with customers in parking lots or along the highway (Spapens & Fijnaut, 2005). Additionally, that is, in Liège and Tongeren, taxi deliveries from the Netherlands to Belgian customers were known. Today, many other forms of itinerant trade are also observed, such as ordering via the so-called call centers, where drugs can be ordered simply via smartphones (De Middeleer et al., 2018). Most of these call centers are in the hands of Dutch organizations—although there are also call centers known to exist from operating out of Albania—and have taken over the role of the former dealpanden. The drug runners, who used to recruit buyers and bring them to the dealers, now courier the product to the local customers or cross the borders with small amounts of drugs and work abroad as dealers or stockpile the local consumers-­ turned-­dealers to collect the proceeds from them at the end of the day.

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Online Drug Markets Another phenomenon that has drawn attention during the last decade is that of online drug markets and subsequent narcotics mail delivery. The Internet has facilitated a number of things for drug criminals, including opportunities to get drugs, and to get reviews, recommendations, and contacts but also instructions on how to manufacture drugs. This creates a type of offender who does not correspond to the classic dealer, who grew up in the scene or in criminal structures, or who has contact with other criminals in other crime areas. It must be noted that while online drug trafficking is increasing, it appears to be limited compared to traditional offline trafficking (Noordanus, 2020). However, the amount of drugs that can be traded online has increased enormously due to the Internet. For instance, in North Rhine-­ Westphalia alone, the cases of discovered postal items have doubled within a year— from 3.061 cases in 2017 to 6.149 cases in 2018 (LKA NRW, 2019)—and according to police representatives, the corona pandemic may have shifted drug trafficking even further from the streets to the Internet (Nelen et al., 2021). The revenues of vendors operating in the Netherlands are by far the highest on a per capita basis, although they hardly seem to play a role in online cannabis sales (Kruithof et al., 2016). It is, however, the online trading of synthetic drugs that is becoming increasingly important, especially because the drugs produced in the Netherlands are mainly produced for the international market. According to employees of the State Criminal Police Office in North Rhine-Westphalia (Landeskriminalamt NRW), amphetamine and ecstasy in particular make up around half of the content found in postal items on the German side of the border, followed by cannabis and cocaine. Since drug packages from the Netherlands have now been noticed by customs and police abroad, this has led to stricter controls in various countries, and active Dutch drug criminals are, therefore, now also sending their packages from neighboring Belgium and Germany (LIEC, 2019; Noordanus, 2020). The main advantages for perpetrators of narcotics mail delivery are both anonymity and the low risk of drug seizure—the number of checks on the flow of letters and parcels at a global level is very limited in relation to the total size of the flow of letters and parcels—which is even further reduced by mailing from different countries. To German authorities, various modi operandi are known in connection with the mailing of drug consignments. A popular method is related to Dutch perpetrators who take orders in the Netherlands and cross the border with many envelopes and fill the public postboxes in German villages, with the border regions of Kleve and Heinsberg being particularly affected. It appears that these perpetrators like to use more rural postal delivery points. The risk of being discovered there is lower than in the big city, since it usually takes a few minutes before the mailboxes are filled with their envelopes. However, there are also German perpetrators who take on the import smuggling and pick up drugs by the kilo, pack them, and ship them worldwide on behalf of Dutch criminals. In some large cities in North Rhine-Westphalia, there are also “bunker apartments” run by Dutch operators, where several kilos of drugs are stashed, industrially packaged, and then shipped.

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Use of Facilitators, Legitimate Businesses, and Individuals Criminal organizations can make use of different professional service providers to perform tasks they cannot easily carry out themselves. For the establishment and maintenance of cannabis plantations, several different specialists are needed, for example, people who are skilled in the technical construction of the plantation, including electricians who manipulate electricity meters or craftsmen who prepare buildings for production (Noordanus, 2020). Also payment services catering to people with a lot of cash to convert it into bank money and professional trimming groups are sometimes used. For the production of synthetic drugs, hardware such as pressure vessels are needed, which often contain a kind of signature of the service provider (De Middeleer et  al., 2018). When it comes to cocaine smuggling, it is above all employees of container companies, truck drivers, and customs officers who are indispensable in order to get to the contents of the containers (Fijnaut, 2019). While it is obvious that some facilitators knowingly offer their services to criminals, not all individuals and businesses are aware of their involvements in criminal activities. Thus, unsurprisingly, according to authorities in all three countries, the main legitimate professions exploited for smuggling and trafficking in narcotics appear to be anchored in the transportation industry (Nelen et al., 2021). Legitimate carriers are an important part of drug transports, although the drivers and freight forwarders may also belong to the group of criminals. Furthermore, the provision of motor vehicles, for example, through (cross-border) rental cars or the cooperation of car repair shops and car dealerships offer opportunities to take both drugs and wealth out of the country (ibid). And even outside the motor vehicle trade, use is made of the so-called Triple A companies—which stand for being extremely reliable and have a positive track record—to import cocaine. This, however, is also what makes them so attractive to criminals: due to their reliability, such companies are not controlled accordingly, which makes it easier for criminals to smuggle their illegal goods unnoticed. Apart from the transport sector, the farming sector is also often used, mostly in relation to setting up laboratories in barns. For the owners of these buildings, it can be attractive especially in economically bad times, as they can generate extra income this way (ibid).

Shielding Activities To effectively shield criminal activities, various camouflage techniques and counterstrategies are required to evade both social control and surveillance by the police and other gatekeepers. There is a number of precautions that can be taken to keep activities, identities, and communications private, including the use of shielded locations or an anonymous environment, the concealment and anonymization of criminal cash flows, the use of false identities or complicated corporate structures to disguise natural persons, the use of front men to hire complete homes or business

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premises, or the use of encrypted technology or specific meeting places within the criminal circle (Kruisbergen et  al., 2012; Kruisbergen et  al., 2019; Noordanus, 2020; Spapens, 2019). Additionally, in the EMR, the relocation of activities across borders can often be observed. This can be viewed as an active decision of criminals, as different jurisdictions mean differences in powers, resources, and (political) priorities of the different countries involved (Fijnaut & De Ruyver, 2008). Thus, borders protect dealers, producers, and users alike from effective cross-border measures by the respective governments. Criminals are aware of the relative weakness of authorities in border areas, which is why they settle there and split and spread the logistical processes of their illegal activities across different countries. For example, laboratories for synthetic drugs are regularly moved from one side of the national border to the other, and the members of such groups are also mostly scattered in the border areas of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany (Spapens et al., 2016). The criminals’ feeling of relative security becomes apparent through the fact that perpetrators who notice that they are being actively watched by the police often continue their activities, and adjustments to the modus operandi are only visible in some cases, with flight behavior or the cessation of criminal activities even less visible (Kruisbergen et al., 2019). On the other hand, adjustments to their modus operandi can more frequently be observed in the case of measures taken by only one country. Another area where borders seem to be more of a help than a hindrance is money laundering. Large sums of money seem to be sent out of the country with ease, and the current generation of criminal money-makers appears to spend a lot of time abroad. Even the middle-class criminal has so much money that its members (want to) build wealth in foreign lands (Unger et al., 2018). Especially for certain ethnic criminal groups, a large part of the criminal money goes back to their home countries and is invested there, among other things, in real estate. However, we have to keep in mind that there is little reliable information available on the money flows in the drug industry in the EMR and beyond.

Violence, Intimidation, and Corruption In order to function as a criminal organization, strong social cohesion and a code of silence from the outside world as a means of shielding are extremely important (Simmel & Wolff, 1950; Van de Bunt, 2010). On the one hand, financial support for accomplices can help maintain this cohesion and silence. On the other hand, violence can also be used to resolve conflicts or keep individuals in line (Kruisbergen et al., 2012). The experts interviewed agreed that the violence perpetrated by drug criminals in the EMR is primarily internal violence, either within a criminal organization or between competing organizations. Violence against outsiders is rare, and when it occurs, it is usually unintentional.

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However, there is no agreement on the question of whether the drug environment within the EMR has become more violent overall. While there seems to be no change in the intensity of violence, especially in Belgium and Germany, in the Netherlands, the trend is perceived as increasing and the inhibition threshold for the use of violence as lower. Indeed, since 2010, the criminal environment became more brutal due to the threats against local administrators and public prosecutors (De Middeleer et al., 2018). Something similar has recently been observed in the city and the port of Antwerp, Belgium, where a series of violent incidents took place. In other parts of Belgium and Germany the situation is less alarming, although individual cases of attempts at intimidation below the criminal threshold against the police, administration, and public prosecutors are known. Although primarily certain groups such as OMCGs, caravan dwellers, Albanian groups, or clans are associated with violence, the drug market in which criminals operate can also have an impact on the likelihood of violence. In the south of the Netherlands, conflicts are often related to synthetic drugs and cannabis (van Laar et al., 2020). In the cannabis market, there is strong violence in the form of the so-­ called rip deals but also widespread internal coercion—including criminal exploitation (LIEC, 2019). The same applies to Limburg on the Belgian side: although rip deals rarely occur, these are usually violent. There are also known cases of intimidation and threats to farmers or owners of empty stables so that they can be used as production facilities. Nevertheless, there seems to be less public violence in the cannabis market than in the markets for synthetic drugs and cocaine. Especially the latter is known to be particularly sensitive to conflict and violence, as large consignments can be lost during international transport, and the number of violent crimes in the cocaine market has been increasing especially since 2012 (De Middeleer et al., 2018; Noordanus, 2020), although not appreciably in the EMR. The main targets of attempts at corruption are public officials and persons holding an important professional position or having knowledge, skills, or powers of great value to criminal organizations (Kruisbergen et al., 2012). These include, for example, law enforcement officials: cases of police officers or lawyers, through whom access to files or information from databases can be obtained, are known in all three countries of the EMR. Additionally, customs officials, employees of regulatory or registration authorities, or people who work for the public prosecutor’s office or the court can also provide access to valuable information. However, serious breaches of integrity such as corruption through bribery are significantly less common than regulatory dilemmas due to a lack of information and collusion (Noordanus, 2020). The topic of corruption currently seems to attract more attention in the Netherlands than in Belgium and Germany. With regard to various drug markets, the cocaine market in particular appears to be prone to corruption, and a great deal of time and resources are expended in gaining access to secure areas of main ports for drug shipments through recruited staff in ports and airports (Fijnaut, 2019; Spapens, 2019).

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Reflection and Conclusion As underlined in the general introduction, the underlying research question of this chapter hints at the idea that the specific region of focus is a conditioning element in shaping both the networks, business models, and modi operandi of drug criminals and the public response by the authorities. It bears the implicit assumption that drug-related crime may be facilitated and public responses hampered merely by the cross-border nature of the EMR.

Displacement and Diffusion In terms of criminal involvement, the analysis presented in this chapter underlines the fact that it is rather easy in the EMR to venture into transnational crime and criminal networks, to fragment a criminal process into different countries, and to tap into crime opportunities close by. The EMR is a major hub in Europe for the production of cannabis and synthetic drugs. The border plays an important role in the entire business process: the development and delivery of raw materials, the production of the drugs, and the disposal of post-production waste. Criminal networks also deliberately abuse national borders, moving some activities from one country to another if the ground in the first country becomes too hot for them. In addition to displacement, the study also provides indications of a dispersal. Especially in the production of synthetic drugs, there seems to be an oil spill effect in the Netherlands from the south to the east and north of the country. There is no reason to believe that this development will end at the eastern border of the Netherlands. On the contrary, several drug laboratories have already been found and dismantled in Lower Saxony and North Rhine-Westphalia (BKA, 2019).

Criminal Networking The chapter makes clear that cooperation is often shaped along the line of social relationships and that trust plays a crucial role. In such criminal alliances, there are hierarchical relationships or rather dependency relationships. The parties involved fulfill different roles within a criminal alliance. For example, in order to be able to act across borders, you need people who are able to bridge (social and geographical) distances and establish contacts with relevant third parties. Traditionally, some of these “bridge builders” are active in all drug markets in the EMR. The so-called facilitators often carry out their activities on the fringes of the criminal alliances but form nodes in the larger network. Sometimes they offer their services to multiple criminal groups.

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In addition to the adaptability of the criminal networks and their fluid character, the criminal organizations active in the EMR are characterized by their ethnic heterogeneity. The globalization of trade and the way in which migration takes place around the world shape both the way criminal activities are carried out and the way criminals enter into partnerships. This circumstance underlines the need to zoom in on the central points (“hubs”) and nodes (“nodes”) in the (criminal) flow of goods, information, and money not only nationally but certainly also internationally.

Modi Operandi The developments in the EMR confirm the notion that organized drug networks have both diversified and become more professional in recent years (Nelen et al., 2021). One particular aspect that has grown rapidly in the past decade—and still grows continuously—is online drug trade on crypto markets via the dark web, surface web, or, more recently, also messenger services such as Telegram and others. But technology is not only used for conducting illicit business, it also plays a key role in concealing it, as exposed by intercepted encrypted communications—also known as crypto communication—in the more recent EncroChat, Sky Global, or ANoM investigations (Pisaric, 2021). The assassination of Peter R. de Vries in July 2021  in Amsterdam is just one example that indicates that the current generation of drug traffickers is even more ruthless than previous generations. Of course, violence and intimidation have always been part of doing business in the illicit drug industry. During the last decades, we have witnessed different “waves” of assassinations, but what seems to have changed is that criminals increasingly use violence not only as a means to resolve conflicts with their rivals, but now violence is also used to confront and intimidate members of public institutions. In relation to corruption, the main concern is the increasing pressure that criminals seem to put on representatives of the police and customs to facilitate their criminal activities.

Criminal Profits Another question that emerges succinctly in the study that lies at the heart of this chapter—and not for the first time either—why are we still failing to gain more insight into the illegally obtained assets generated in the EMR involving drug production and trafficking and, in a broader sense, why is it not possible to finally confiscate this criminal money? Despite the optimism of policy makers and politicians and various changes in national and international legal frameworks to increase the use of financial instruments and penalties, the financial results of proceeds-of-crime approaches in most European countries are still rather disappointing. Although reliable data on freezing

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and confiscation activities is missing in most countries, there seems to be consensus among scholars that only a tiny fraction of illegally obtained earnings can be deprived (Nelen, 2019). Next to the factors that are related to the features of the offense and the offenders, the organizational crime literature indicates that the law enforcement efforts and activities—including cross-border cooperation—in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany also show major deficits. These impediments are mostly related to a lack of willingness, organizational facilities, manpower, and expertise (Nelen & Hofmann, 2019). Overall, insufficient attention is being paid within the training programs to financial and legal issues that are relevant to the detection and deprivation of criminal assets. Moreover, a majority of police officers and prosecutors do not regard financial aspects as important and rewarding elements of their job. Financial policing and the proceeds-of-crime approach are primarily regarded as activities that are complex and not very exciting and, above all, generate poor results (Nelen & Hofmann, 2019). The concept of financial policing is not in line with the perceptions of most police officers what real policing should be about. Policing should be fun, challenging, exciting, and a game of wits and skill. Following a paper trail hardly fits any of these standards of the police culture.

Implications for Law Enforcement Policy in the EMR The social environment in which EMR law enforcement agencies operate and the forms of drug-related crime they are exposed to are changing. Trade globalization, the digital environment, and large-scale migration flows will continue to shape the nature, scale, and severity of drug-related crime in the coming decades. With the help of science, knowledge about the phenomena to be combated has increased considerably and has also given a number of new impulses to coping with them. Based on the analysis of criminal phenomena, activities are initiated that are aimed not only at uncovering crimes and prosecuting the suspects involved but also at disrupting the criminal network and interfering in criminal business processes. In addition, the possibility of building barriers and increasing social resilience to drug-related crime is being considered, particularly in the Netherlands. These schools of thought are not as widespread in the neighboring countries. The Netherlands faces the challenge of convincing foreign partners of the added value of an information-driven node orientation and an integrated approach but, at the same time, must be careful not to be two steps ahead of the rest. Another lesson from this research is that with regard to future international cooperation in the EMR, we should not put our faith in new transnational structures, institutions, and protocols. Rather, cross-border cooperation must be encouraged where the context is most receptive: at hubs where there is a shared vision of a common problem and the approach needed to solve that problem and where there is a need to join forces across borders to solve this problem and where the knowledge and skills exist to actually do so. With regard to the latter, it was noted that important steps forward

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can and must still be made, particularly in the financial and digital sectors, as well as in relation to the management and sharing of (confidential) information.

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Chapter 6

“Clan Crime” in Germany: Migration Politics, Socio-Economic Conditions, and Intergenerational Transmission of Criminal Behavior Mahmoud Jaraba

Introduction Spectacular robberies, such as the heist of Dresden’s Green Vault (2019) or that of gold coins from Berlin’s Bode Museum (2017), have generated intense political and media discussion in Germany.1 Members of the so-called Arab clans have been arrested and accused of organizing the robberies (Welle, 2021). The public debate on “clan crime” (Clan-Kriminalität) in Germany has frequently tended to correlate criminal activities and violence with religion, ethnicity, and migration, often making generalizations about clans without considering the internal differences between the people who are involved in crime and those who are not (see Dienstbühl, 2021; Ghadban, 2018; Heise & Meyer-Heuer, 2020). Despite the public debate, however, there has been a very little empirical research on the topic and virtually no attempt to understand it on a scientific basis by examining its socio-historical and cultural contexts. While crimes should not be oversimplified or undervalued, the generalizations, exaggerations, simplifications, stereotyping, or even hysteria that is evident in most of the recent publications on the subject (e.g., Dienstbühl, 2021; Ghadban, 2018; Heise & Meyer-Heuer, 2020) do nothing toward enhancing our understanding of the problem, combating the crimes, or developing prevention strategies. In this chapter,

 This work was supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) under the reference Fkz, 13N15302. 1

M. Jaraba (*) Erlangen Centre for Islam and Law in Europe (EZIRE), Erlangen, Germany e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_6

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I demonstrate the roles of migration politics, socio-economic conditions, and kinship dynamics in shaping the structure and character of clan crimes in Germany. I argue that when a crime is committed by the member of a clan, it usually takes place either within that person’s nuclear family or independently of it and not at a clan level. Despite a widespread belief to the contrary, in my fieldwork, I found no evidence of clans either organizing or supporting criminal activity. To understand closed groups such as Arab clans, along with the phenomenon of clan crime, on which there is a dearth of official sources, theories, or quantitative data, it is helpful to adopt a humanistic approach (Rice & Maltz, 2018). It is thus important to go beyond the current debate to look into the narratives, history, contexts, organizations, processes, and real-world experiences of the people under consideration (Cesar & Decker, 2018: 57). This chapter is based on the various ethnographic fieldwork studies that I have been conducting since 2015 on the daily lives and social and religious structures of these Arab clans—often wrongly assumed to belong to the Mhallami ethnic group (see below)—in Berlin, North Rhine-­ Westphalia (NRW), and Bayern. During my fieldwork, I adopted an anthropological approach to the collection of qualitative data on the values, culture, narratives, meanings, intentions, aspirations, and goals of the group under consideration (Cesar & Decker, 2018: 57), with a particular focus on their history and on the complexity of their often contradictory internal conflicts (Fader, 2018: 135). Methodologically, I relied largely on participant observation and different forms of interviews (semi-structured and narrative interviews, as well as conversations that occurred during my observations). I thus visited clan members at home, at work, in shisha bars, and at mosques; I also attended their wedding ceremonies, funerals, and other social activities. My aim was to interview as wide a range of people as possible, which in addition to the criminal elements included family members, elders, women, children, and normal clan members. It took years (2015 to present) of continual contact to gain enough trust from these people for them to share their narratives and lived experiences with me. My research interest in clans began in 2015 and has continued until today. It was important for me as a researcher to be able to speak Arabic and for knowing the language that helped with building mutual trust and enabled me to recognize and understand subtle expressions and cultural patterns that are drawn upon in language use, quite apart from the fact that many of the older generation only speak Arabic. At the same time, I also engaged in “online ethnography” to follow the clan members’ internal discussions and religious debates, especially since the corona virus lockdown in early 2020 meant that many of the clan’s social and religious activities were thenceforth conducted predominantly online. After briefly outlining the ambiguity and absence of any proper definition of the term clan crime, I go on to describe clans in Germany. I then examine their historical and socio-political marginalization from first Turkey and then Lebanon, before their final arrival in Germany, and show the role of these historical processes in shaping their behavior. In the last section, I discuss how clan crime has been developing in Germany since the 1990s and how family practices have led to the emergence of intergenerational transmissions of criminal behavior.

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Definition, Critics, and Public Debate Since there is as yet no accepted definition of clan crime, the term is understood and used in different ways. The federal German police agency (Bundeskriminalamt, BKA) and State Criminal Police Offices (LKAs) have so far came up with a range of different definitions and recording methods.2 Nonetheless, they almost all agree that the term describes crimes committed within immigrant communities that are linked by kinship and held together by family ties and networks. They thereby have a common ethnic origin and a patriarchal–hierarchical structure in which conflicts are mediated internally by family elders. In addition, the isolation (Abschottung) of these people from mainstream society and their high propensity for violence in the public arena are seen as preconditions for clan crime (Landeskriminalamt Berlin, 2021; Landeskriminalamt Niedersachsen, 2021; Landeskriminalamt NRW, 2022). However, if native Germans committed similar crimes through using and benefiting from similar kinship or family ties, these would not be classified as clan crimes and would be unlikely to have any negative consequences for people who merely have the same family name (Fürstenau, 2021). In addition, other “European” criminal groups, such as the Russian or Italian mafia-type associations, are not usually included under the umbrella of clan crime, even if they benefit from similar family ties and structures. Clan crime is not a new phenomenon in Germany because it goes back to the 1990s, although it was not defined as such (Henninger, 2003). However, the political changes that have taken place in the country over the past few years have pushed this topic to the top of German politics and public discussion. In 2015, several German newspapers started to cover what they described as “no-go areas” in several German cities. The media reported that in some areas and neighborhoods in Berlin, Bremen, and North Rhine-Westphalia, the police are losing control and clans are dominating, controlling, and claiming the streets for themselves. Such areas, which are believed to be dominated mainly by immigrants, are characterized by high levels of unemployment and poverty. Drug hubs, street crime, and violence are also present (see Online Focus, 2015). As former policeman Stefan Schubert (2016) explained, the entire neighborhoods have degenerated into uncontrollable zones where men from “Arab family clans” are mainly responsible for these conditions. In addition, attacks from larger crowds on police officers regularly occur during police operations in certain neighborhoods. Commenting on the situation in North Rhine-­ Westphalia, the leader of the police trade union warned that the police “must not leave the streets to criminal groups” (Welt, 2015). In the ensuing years, the public debate attracted political attention at the highest level. In September 2017, the right-wing party Alternative for Germany (AFD) managed to enter the German Bundestag (the national parliament) for the first time  Currently there is an attempt by the German Police University on providing a uniform nationwide definition of clan crime: see https://www.dhpol.de/departements/departement_III/FG_III.1/projekte/krimkrim.php. Accessed 14 April 2022. 2

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after winning 91 out of 709 seats. As the third largest party in the Bundestag and the strongest opposition force against the conservative Union parties—Christian Democratic Union (CDU)/Christian Social Union (CSU) and the Social Democrat Party (SPD) governments—the party has been prominently featuring the issues of “no-go areas,” “Arab clans,” “clan crime,” and “parallel justice.” The subject of “internal security” gained prominence in the AFD’s political program, and the fight against foreigner-dominated organized crime was prioritized. This is stated clearly in the party’s election program,3 as well as in several questions addressed to the federal government in the Bundestag on clan crime,4 with a view to raising its profile on the one hand and increasing the pressure on the government on the other. Consequently, Arab clans and clan crime have moved and now top Germany’s security policy agenda. In September 2019, the two conservative CDU and CSU parties announced that they wanted to intensify the fight against clan crime and therefore give the security authorities more far-reaching powers than before in order to be able to act more effectively against the families in question. The plans even went so far as to deprive them of their children under certain circumstances (NTV, 2019). The political debate is reflected in police practices, which now follow a “zero tolerance strategy” or “strategy of a thousand pinpricks.” Such strategies seek to impose consistent punishments for all violations of law-breaking, including parking ones.5 The aim is to achieve a set of tactical and strategic goals, which include increasing pressure on the clans to weaken their structures, combating crime, restoring a sense of security in the public space, and fighting structures of parallel justice (Dienstbühl, 2020). Since August 2017, the term clan crime has started to be used more widely in public discussions. This development is fueled by the crimes that some clan members have committed and by the German law enforcement agencies’ state- and federal-­level annual reports on clan crime that evaluate the degree to which the offender groups under investigation are organized (Jaraba, 2021: 12). These reports, however, lack clear criteria for classifying an offense or misconduct as a “clan crime.” Among different criteria, for instance, the LKA Lower Saxony classifies an offense as a clan crime if certain conspicuous features are present—for example, a “tumultuous situation” develops because large groups of people (relatives) hinder the police officers in their work. The LKA-NRW keeps a list of the family names that most frequently come to light in the context of a so-called clan crime. The LKA-Berlin counts any offense as a clan crime if it is committed by one or more persons who have already attracted attention in investigations into clan activities (Jaraba, 2021: 10). Given that the term clan crime lacks a clear definition, it is often generalized and stereotyped into crimes or misconduct committed by immigrant members of

 See https://www.afd.de/innere-sicherheit/. Accessed 14 April 2022.  See, for example, https://dserver.bundestag.de/btd/19/139/1913967.pdf. Accessed 25 April 2022. 5  See https://taz.de/Lagebericht-zu-Clankriminalitaet-2020/!5755101/. Accessed 25 April 2022. 3 4

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extended families from Arab, Turkish, or Kurdish backgrounds.6 In the public and political debate, such families are often associated with criminality, parallel societies, segregation, violence, and forced marriage (see, for example, Bickel, 2022). Although state and federal German law enforcement agencies continually stress that not everyone with a clan name is necessarily a criminal and that investigations are always directed against individual criminals or groups and not against a particular family, in practice, things are rather different and little effort goes into distinguishing between criminal and non-criminal clan members. In a television program entitled “The World of Clans,” Dunya Hayali broadcast an interview with a member of the Essen7 police special force assigned to fight clans, who was asked about the social stigmatization of clan members who do not participate in criminal activities. His answer was that “these people do not go to the police voluntarily, which means they still protect their closed family structure, even if they do not commit a crime. That is why I have little sympathy in this case” (Hellwig, 2019). A brochure published by Essen police in 2020 shows that such positions are not individual but institutional (Dienstbühl, 2020). Indeed, security measures and the public discourse place whole clans under general suspicion simply because of their family name, although only a small minority of them actually commit criminal acts (Boettner & Schweitzer, 2020: 349). Evidence from my fieldwork has shown that the term has deep negative connotations and that these influence the cultural and social lives of the clan members (see also Reinhardt, 2021) and push them into further isolation and away from mainstream society. They suffer from what we might term multiple discrimination. They feel discriminated against not only because of their immigration history or religion (Islam) but also because of their family names. As a result, many individuals, particularly children and young people, react to the constant tension and pressure by becoming indifferent and listless. During my fieldwork, I heard many stories from a number of different families about what they perceived as discrimination, intolerance, injustice, and hostility toward them because of their family names. As Ghasan explained (interview, Essen, August 2018): as long as your family name is […] you are always under the microscope and suspicion. The police stopped me a few weeks ago, and they were kind at first. When they saw my family’s name, everything changed 180 degrees. The police officer came and told me, ‘You are Lebanese!’. Hah, hah, hah (laughing). Then they searched everything in the car and they became rough. This is just one of dozens of examples that I can tell you about.

I even heard stories of pupils being discriminated against at school after having been identified as clan children. For example, a father told me that his son no longer wanted to go to school because of the negative stereotypes about his family name and fear of being labeled or bullied. A second case also shows the tension that can occur between schoolmates. Talking about the case of his daughter, Mouneir says (interview, Essen, October 2021):  In some cases, the term is also used to describe extended families from the Balkans and Caucasus.  Essen, a city in NRW, is considered to be a stronghold of “clan crime” in Germany.

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M. Jaraba My daughter was going to the third grade, last year. Her classmate used to come to our house almost daily because her mother has a job. We are neighbors. She used to eat with us and play with my daughter, almost every day. Suddenly she stopped coming to our house or talking to my daughter at school. The girl’s mother told the school director that her daughter should not mix with my daughter because she heard in the media that we are clans.8

Other cases show that people find themselves spurned by landlords when looking for accommodation, despite earning good salaries, because of their family name (see also Nöding, 2021: 233).9 This led to some jurists starting to question if the term clan crime violated the prohibitions on discrimination in the Basic Law and in Articles 1 and 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD) (Liebscher, 2020).

German Clans: Who Are they? In the context of the debate on clan crime, the Mhallami ethnic group has emerged at the center of discussion. However, while its members live mainly in Mardin, in southeast Turkey, the group has been subjected to an internal split and there is disagreement over its origins and identity. At the turn of this century, Ralph Ghadban (2000: 86–95) introduced the Mhallami to the German public, and since then, it has unthinkingly been adopted by the German media and become synonymous with crime in political and academic discourses. Above all, the Mhallami have become the focus of investigations by German law enforcement agencies at both state and federal levels (see, for example, Landeskriminalamt Berlin, 2021:3; Niedersachsen, 2021:5; Landeskriminalamt NRW, 2022:6). However, given the absence of anthropological research on Arab clans in Germany, it seems that the use of the term Mhallami is wrong. In fact, almost all Arab clans in Germany refuse to identify themselves as Mhallami. When I tried to learn more about their history during my fieldwork in 2018, I was surprised to discover that all the people I met refused to identify themselves as Mhallami and some even considered such a description an insult to their ethnic identity and dignity. For example, Abu Jasir,10 a family elder, grew angry when I asked him if he considered  The debate on clan crime in the schools requires in-depth studies to understand the topic from different perspectives. From the other side of the story, it seems that pupils use their family reputation to take advantage or intimidate. For example, a school teacher in the city of Essen told me that some “clan pupils” use the reputation of their families in order to blackmail or make trouble for other pupils at the school (Interview, Essen, October 2021). 9  It was not possible for me to verify such cases of discrimination. However, representative study conducted by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Agency in 2017 found that people from immigrant families are particularly affected by discrimination. According to the study, every second respondent with an immigrant background has experienced discrimination in the last two years (Beigang et al., 2017: 109). 10  All names and personal details mentioned in this study are anonymized to assure the interviewees’ privacy. 8

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himself Mhallami. He said (interview, Hannover, July 2019): “We regard the Mhallami like ‘gypsies’. For us, a ‘Mhallami’ has no honor, no courage and no character. We (the al-Rashidiyya clans) see ourselves as the historical rulers in the region.” Abu Jasir’s statement led me to undergo a further search on the topic, and indeed, I discovered that the Arab clans in Germany who are identified as Mhallami prefer to be identified by the two villages in which they, or their ancestors, are rooted, namely, al-Rashidiyya (or Üçkavak in Turkish) and al-Makhashiniyya (Yenilmez in Turkish). The two villages are part of Jabal al Kusa, which belongs administratively to the district of Savur, consisting of 12 villages, in Mardin. The Mhallami, though, hail from Midyat and Ömerli, two districts bordering Savur. Although there are historical and social relationships between the regions, in ethnic terms, as many of them explained to me, they do not seem to be of the same origin.11 Most clans mentioned in the contexts of clan crime in Germany, including the al-Zein, Remmo, Omeirat, and Miri, trace their roots back to the village of al-­ Rashidiyya. Estimates of the number of clan members in Germany from the villages of al-Rashidiyya and al-Makhashiniyya vary widely. The BKA estimates it at 200,000 (Klingst, 2018), but many of the family elders I interviewed thought the number in Germany to be between 35,000 and 50,000. However, in the absence of reliable statistics and studies, these figures are unverifiable. The clans from al-Rashidiyya and al-Makhashiniyya are usually treated as a homogeneous group in terms of their origins and ethnicity. To those outside the clans, it may look like a coherent group, but I quickly discovered that was not the case. I found significant differences in how they interpreted their origins and whether they saw themselves as being of the same or of different ethnic descent. Some traced their origins back to the pre-Islamic period, others to the early Muslim conquests, yet others to the Ottoman Empire (1299–1923), and others still even considered the possibility that they were descended from the Christian Arameans who converted to Islam in the sixteenth century. In addition, there is an internal split between Kurdish and Arab identity. It is interesting that the lines of confrontation in the discourse are not fixed at the level of the respective collectives, but at the level of individual patterns of perception. During my field research, I came across numerous cases of biological siblings disagreeing within their nuclear families over whether their identity was Arabic or Kurdish. In fact, in most cases, there were so many unresolved identity conflicts that a homogeneous clan did not even exist. As I found during my fieldwork, a crisis of identity is at the root of many of the most brutal internal conflicts that are still ongoing, as well as an absence of trust in the clan’s social and religious structures.

 Further discussion and ethnographic evidence would go beyond the aim of this chapter. However, this topic will be dealt in depth in my chapter on “Patterns of Legality and Legitimation of Culturally Modeled Conflict Resolution among [Mhallami] in Germany,” Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, as part of the project Conflict Regulation in Germany’s Plural Society. See https://www.eth.mpg.de/4410211/conflictregulation. Accessed 14 April 2022. 11

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Al-Rashidiyya and al-Makhashiniyya are divided into approximately 32 clans (which are called ashira in Arabic), and over time, the social structures of these clans have evolved, overlapped, and became very complex. During my interviews, I discovered that most ashira members believe that they are all related to a common ancestor, but none of them could trace the genealogical connection to their ashira step by step. In fact, I heard so many different stories and theories about the origins of the clans and their names that I came to the conclusion that this common ancestor can be a real, fictional, or mythical figure. At the clan level, however, members are only loosely connected (see Hille, 2020: 15). Each ashira contains several lineages or clan subsections (fakhdhs), which are, in turn, subdivided into several sub-sub clans (bayts) (Eisenstadt, 2007: 17). At the bayt level, although not at the ashira or fakhdh ones, people are usually able to trace their ancestry back through known links on both their father’s and mother’s sides. Since the bayt often consists of three generations of extended families, it forms the fundamental unit of social and economic activity. At this level, individuals are still connected to each other, and they feel a sense of solidarity and are bound by blood and social and economic ties. Normally, this is the highest level at which sustained social action occurs, usually as a result of a blood feud (see Eisenstadt, 2007: 19). It is also important to note here that leadership operates at the level of the bayt, not the clan, and that each bayt tends to have its own leader.

Marginalization and Exclusion One characteristic used to describe, label, and define clans in Germany is that they are segregated from the rest of the society. This is true, but it has its history and causes. After the foundation of the Turkish Republic under Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in 1923, the clans—as well as other ethnic groups—were systematically oppressed and marginalized. The region in which they lived was characterized by poor infrastructure, illiteracy, and inadequate medical care. In addition, “Turkification” (Türkleştirme in Turkish), whereby the state under Atatürk aimed to assimilate ethnic minorities culturally into the mainstream Turkish population through coercion, resulted in the suppression of the clans. Schools were no longer allowed to teach the Arabic language or Arab history and the Turkish language became compulsory for everyone (Güç-Işık, 2013: 40). Several interviewees told me that the names of their Arab villages, towns, and family members were replaced by Turkish ones, and Arab costumes were banned in public spaces and replaced by Turkish ones (Ismail and Uthman 2004: 134). After the rebellion of the Kurdish Sunni spiritual leader, Sheikh Said, in south-eastern Turkey in 1925, which was directed against Atatürk’s policies and aimed to establish a Kurdish state, the Kurds and other minorities, such as the

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clans, were even more oppressed and subjected to violent treatment (Ahmad, 1995: 82).12 The aforementioned circumstances resulted in immigration movements to neighboring countries, especially Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon. People from the villages of al-Rashidiyya and al-Makhashiniyya largely chose to flee to Lebanon and, to a lesser extent, to Syria (Ahmad, 1995: 86). In Lebanon, however, they were exploited as cheap labor in the agricultural or industrial sectors and were socially and politically marginalized. The Lebanese state has denied many of them legal recognition as citizens and the rights that go with it (such as voting or access to education and to state social benefits). As a result, many of them retain “qayd ad-dars” status in their documents, which means that their claim to nationality is under review—in other words, they are stateless and can remain as such for decades. Their difficult living conditions and rising costs often mean that they can only afford to send one child to school, which increases the pool of illiterate people and their isolation (Ahmad, 1995: 71). Many of my interlocutors told me that they could no longer go to school after the fifth grade and that an entire generation had thus been excluded from education and its associated professional opportunities. Therefore, they had not integrated into Lebanese society but lived permanently on its periphery. When the Lebanese civil war (1975–1990) broke out, the clans were also involved and many of them were killed. As a result, thousands fled to Germany and to other European countries such as Sweden. In an attempt to stop the influx of refugees or to push them back to Lebanon or to other European countries, in the 1980s, the German government tightened its asylum laws. There was a growing public perception that refugees were abusing their right to political asylum in order to profit from economic opportunities and the German social system (Rohe & Jaraba, 2015: 46). The restrictions imposed on the asylum laws had a highly negative effect on refugee rights to residence, work permits, naturalization, and education (Rohe & Jaraba, 2015: 47–51). Clan members were registered as “stateless persons” or of “unclear nationality” and were not recognized as being entitled to asylum. Once their asylum application had been rejected, they were not granted an unlimited right to stay but could not be deported because of their statelessness. Since Lebanon neither recognized them as citizens nor cooperated in their repatriation, most of them received a “Duldung” (toleration) or temporary residence permit. In the mid-1990s, however, new reforms to the asylum laws allowed many of them to obtain permanent residence or German citizenship (Henninger, 2003: 717). However, this did not apply to all of them. Although I have been unable to locate any official statistics, the family elders estimate that 10–30 percent still have Duldung status, including second- and third-generation migrants who were granted it on the basis of their parents’ residence status. During my field research, I met many families who are unable to build a secure future in Germany. Often, they have to renew their Duldung status every three to six months. They cannot travel freely,

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 On the persecution of minorities by the Turkish state during this period, see Üngör (2012).

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cannot get married in a civil ceremony, have only limited work and educational opportunities, and, in some cases, are not allowed to open a bank account. The historical experience of having a tense relationship with the state, first in Turkey, then in Lebanon, and finally in Germany, solidifies the feeling among many clan members that state policies are geared toward extinguishing their cultural identity and excluding them socially. This creates in them a deep distrust for most state institutions and denies them a context in which to solidify their clan identity and social structure. Instead of supporting the attempts of clan members to overcome the trauma of the Lebanese civil war and helping them integrate into the job market, the economic, social, and psychological pressures on them were continued or even intensified, in Germany. Their exclusion led to the emergence of a more collective clan identity in which family members played the key role in strengthening self-­ confidence and providing security and self-esteem. Most importantly, family social networks were revived and strengthened to counter the absence of support from state institutions. While their common identity cemented people together, the clan’s social networks, particularly at the bayt level, provided all the social and material benefits that the clan members required in the form of such things as solidarity, protection, economic support, endogamous marriage systems, and, in particular, an alternative conflict resolution mechanism. Solving external or internal conflicts is facilitated and mediated by the clan leaders and is generally preferred over official state jurisdiction (Rohe & Jaraba, 2015).

Clan Crime Within the aforementioned contexts, several groups have developed criminal tendencies and behavior, and there is no doubt that some clan members are involved in committing crimes. Some have even openly admitted to threatening the German state and police in public and in the social media. In fact, during my fieldwork, I met several clan members who were involved in various criminal activities or who even looked upon their criminal behavior as their profession. Some see the protection racket and extortion directed against shops and restaurants in exchange for payment as comparable to the work of a security company, insofar as they are offering protection in exchange for money. For example, Hamed, a restaurant owner in North Rhine-Westphalia, told me in an interview that he had to make a one-off payment of 20,000 euros to a “clan member” to protect his restaurant from destruction. Other people in Berlin recounted similar stories of extortionist threats from clan members. These incidents are rarely reported to the authorities because the clan members do not trust the police to give them enough protection to run their businesses. For example, as Ibrahim, a restaurant owner in Berlin, said in 2018: You call the police and they come, but what do they do next? Nothing. The police cannot protect you 24 h. I live here among the extended families [clans] and they are dangerous people. You can’t joke with them. Here we are considered foreigners. The police don’t care

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about us. They [the police] say they are foreigners and they will solve their problems among themselves.

However, not all clan members get involved in crime or extortion. Many reject the accusation that the clan is responsible for organizing such behavior and emphasize that it is done by individuals or small groups, so should not be ascribed to whole families. An Arab clan is often envisaged as a homogenous group under the leadership of a clan chief. However, as my fieldwork reveals, contrary to popular belief, clan crime is not systemically and hierarchically organized but instead grouped around individuals or some nuclear families within a very specific sub-sub clan (bayt). These clans are different from the traditional Italian Mafia (Cosa Nostra), in which a boss usually organizes and dominates the criminal activities and strategies. Instead, they are usually organized within a small group, albeit it one that is related to the nuclear families within a bayt. In its social organization, each bayt enjoys autonomy and independence from the others. If one is from the same clan but not the same bayt, there is usually less trust and cooperation. However, in some cases, crimes are also organized across bayts or totally outside them. From several interviews with clan members, it became evident that clan crime started in the 1980s with simple theft, for example, stealing clothes or electronic devices from supermarkets. Gradually, however, some people started to get involved in different types of fraud, extortion, money laundering, violent witness intimidation, robbery, and the import and distribution of drugs. These activities remained limited, small in number, and associated with specific groups. After the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, however, there was a sudden rise in crime and a large-scale resurgence in drug trafficking, which presented many groups with an opportunity to expand and professionalize their criminal activities. Amjad, who was a criminal leader at the time, explained that he and some members of his family (four brothers and three cousins) became engaged in what he called a “war” against his underworld rivals in some parts of Berlin, which took the form of criminal vendettas, kidnappings, and the infliction of serious injuries. The aim of this war, directed mainly against Turkish and Albanian criminal groups, was to gain dominance in the trade of heroin, cocaine, and cannabis (personal interview, Berlin, April 2015). Indeed, after a short time, several clan groups were able to dominate the major illegal markets in some parts of Berlin (Henninger, 2003: 723). This was also confirmed by several interviews with criminals who were themselves involved in drug trafficking in the 1990s. From numerous interviews, it became apparent to me that denying people the right either to apply for asylum or to engage in work may have caused a large number of clan members to resort to organized crime, especially in the drug trade. Ibrahim, a drug trafficker who claimed to have repented and was then working legally, explained to me why he was involving in drug trafficking (interview, Berlin, April 2015): I came to Germany when I was 18 years old. I was forbidden to work, to learn or to do anything at all. They forced me to sell drugs to support myself. When I told them [the German government]: ‘Dear people, teach us a handicraft so we can do some work,’ they

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M. Jaraba replied: ‘No, because the law doesn’t allow you to do that!’ I came as a young man and no one asked me where I was going or coming. Nobody cared about me and nobody controlled me. And so I worked in drug trafficking.

Although many left their criminal lives behind them when they were granted residency and allowed to work in the mid-1990s, other groups continued to operate actively in the underworld. Samir, a family elder in Berlin, explained how and why some members of his clan have remained involved in crime since the 1990s (interview, Berlin, October 2021). Crime is not new. Those people have been in these dirty businesses since the 1990s. When they arrived in Germany, they were neither granted residency permits nor allowed to work, and the state wanted to deport them back to Lebanon. I am telling you here about part of my family that I know very well and I talk to them constantly on this subject. Those people thought at that time that they would make money, so that if they were deported back to Lebanon, they would have money with them. Many of them said: ‘The Germans will deport us back to Lebanon, let us make some money. When we are back, we will then have a good life.’ Therefore, they were stealing and selling drugs and involved in other dirty crimes. I’m talking and advising them regularly. I always tell them: ‘you now have a German nationality and a lot of money, why don’t you leave crime and the black market and work legally?’ But they don’t want to hear this. Crime became part of their life and they do not want to get out of it.

Samir continued to emphasize that most members of his family were not involved in crime, worked legally, and respected the law. However, in some nuclear families, he foresaw a problem in what we might call the intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior (Spapens & Moors, 2020). As he explained, “we have some people who do not want to turn their lives around. Crime has become normal for them and it is passed down from one generation to the next. This is a real problem and I do not see a solution now.” During my fieldwork, I made the same observation. For example, several people told me that although they themselves were not involved in crime, some nuclear families or groups within their clan were, but that they chose to distance themselves from them. Faisal told me that his clan was split into numerous sub-clans, but that they distinguished between its good and bad members. In other words, the non-­ criminal faction would not marry into or do business with the criminal one, but as Faisal noted, they are still symbolically one clan with the same clan name. That the criminal and non-criminal factions are likely to come together for certain social functions, such as weddings or funerals, gives the appearance to the outside word that they are a single clan (interview, NRW, July 2018). Particular nuclear families seem to facilitate the intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior. An advantage of organizing crimes within a nuclear family, or in some cases a bayt, is that the level of loyalty, trust, and solidarity between members is that much greater. In August 2021, I published a short article on extended families and clan crime in Germany (Jaraba, 2021). Some weeks later, Abber, a woman in her early thirties and the mother of two children, contacted me to discuss clan crime and how prevention strategies might be established and developed. From her email, I had not realized that she belonged to what was widely reported in the

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media in Germany as a “brutal” clan. However, at our first meeting, it became clear that she wanted to talk to me about her nuclear family and their criminal activities and wanted my advice on how best to protect the new generations against slipping into the underworld. Apparently, both her parents and two brothers were actively involved in trafficking drugs and tobacco, and since criminal behavior is often learnt and normalized within nuclear families, it is frequently transmitted from one generation to the next. As an “insider” in a criminal clan in Germany, she was nonetheless able to distinguish between its criminal and non-criminal members. As she put it, “not all people are like my [nuclear] family, there are many families that are clean [non-criminal] and work legally.” While Abber’s family demonstrates the continuation and normalization of criminal behavior across generations, it is by no means an isolated case. When the first generation began to engage in crime in the 1990s, it was difficult to accept that all the family members, even the mother, would be prepared to countenance their behavior. Nowadays, though, such crimes are not only accepted and normalized, but the mother herself is also frequently complicit in them by helping to launder the money and encouraging her sons to get involved. Abber could foresee very little, if any, chance of persuading her family to leave the underworld and turn their lives around. Of one of her brothers she said, “crimes are in his blood. He thinks day and night of how he can commit crimes. My brother cannot sleep if he hasn’t committed at least some illegal activities that day.” Her concern is not about him, but about the new generation. She fears that the third generation of her family will follow in the footsteps of her brother and father. From September to April 2022, I met Abber several times in an attempt to understand exactly how the criminal behavior in her family was being transmitted from generation to generation, why her brothers were so committed to being criminals, and how their criminal behavior was being reinforced and reproduced over time. The case of Abber’s family demonstrated that socialization through regular contact with criminal parents played a far greater part in developing the intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior than clan, religion, ethnicity, or culture as some recent publications suggest (Dienstbühl, 2021; Ghadban, 2018). According to the differential association theory, social ties influence an individual’s behavior and choices in that it is through them that people learn the techniques or skills used to commit crime. Criminal behavior, like other forms of behavior, is learnt through face-to-face interactions and communications; and young people often copy it from other people such as their parents or grandparents (Sutherland & Cressey, 1978: 80–81). Deviant behavior patterns develop when “a person becomes delinquent because of an excess of definitions favorable to violation of law over definitions unfavorable to violation of law” (Sutherland & Cressey, 1978: 81). As this case shows, the two sons followed their father into the world of crime (van Dijk et al., 2019: 346) and through his experience acquired similar criminal skills. Abber said that her brothers had learnt how to smuggle drugs, untaxed cigarettes, and waterpipe tobacco from the Netherlands and Greece when they were still children. According to the differential association theory, “the earlier in one’s life one is exposed to attitudes and values favorable to committing crimes, the greater

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the likelihood that one will in fact commit crime” (Erickson, 2006: 739). The two sons were assisting their father when they were still children, for example, by packing drugs into small bags. They learnt how to mix drugs with milk powder to increase their weight and thus their profits. Similar skills, according to Abber, are now being learnt by the next generation. Her 11-year-old nephew is now following his father’s example by starting to cause trouble at school and threatening others. It should be noted here that I came across other cases in other nuclear families revealing similar dynamics and patterns of development. Poor parenting skills are another key indicator of the potential to develop criminal behavior. On several occasions, Abber mentioned that her parents had made no effort to raise their children properly or run a structured household. In addition, the family suffered from successive crises, including internal family conflicts, violence, and imprisonment. Not only was the father frequently absent because he was in prison, but he also failed to take any responsibility whatsoever for the upbringing of his children, which he saw as the mother’s responsibility. The mother, however, was incapable of guiding her children and saw her role solely as bearing them, feeding them, and doing housework. The family never engaged in any dialogue or discussions at home, and instead of providing a role model (Cano-Paños, 2021: 148), the mother herself engaged in criminal activities, especially money laundering. Studies show that criminal mothers fail to possess the parenting skills needed to raise their children adequately because they are unlikely to provide the structure or rules required to provide a safe home environment (van Dijk et al., 2019: 357). Safety at home was never guaranteed. In addition to the bad experience of being raided by the police in the early hours of the morning to arrest family members, there was also a lot of violence, particularly against the daughters. According to Abber, the daughters were not allowed to disobey their parents. Any outlawed social behavior, such as going to a bar or having a boyfriend, which contravened the family’s customs and traditions, could lead to extreme violence being inflicted on them. The sons, by contrast, were uncontrolled and allowed to do whatever they wanted, which included inflicting violence on their sisters. The father–son relationship formed the basis of the family and sons were usually accorded the power and right to control the other members of the family when their father was absent and this was always exercised through violence. It is also important to note here that only the sons, not the daughters, tended to follow the father’s pattern of criminality (van Dijk et al., 2019: 359).

Conclusion In this chapter, I have addressed the phenomenon of clan crime in Germany and shown how the historical narrative, migration politics, socio-economic conditions, and family processes shape a clan’s structure, identity, and criminality. Current misunderstandings regarding clan crime, which stereotypes, prejudices, and generalizations have fanned, suggest that to gain a better understanding of the various and

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diverse aspects of a clan’s social structure and economic activities, which cover legal and illegal activities, it is advisable to examine the problem from within. Contrary to the widely held belief in the public debate that clans are homogenous groups under the leadership of a clan boss, my fieldwork showed that they are neither stable nor homogeneous and that people are constantly leaving or shifting their positions and loyalties within them. While amicable relationships through marriage, friendships, or kinship clearly exist between clan members, clans are characterized more by internal conflicts, rivalries, mutual vendettas, and blood feuds than by cooperation and collaboration. However, although there is continuity in the sense of a clan identity, I found no evidence of criminal activities being organized or supported at a clan level and concluded that only small groups or particular nuclear families are actively involved in illegal economic activities. Police statistics and situational reports offer insufficient insights into clan crimes, and as I suggested in this chapter, it is more useful to focus on social settings, learning processes, and kinship dynamics—in other words on the context in which the criminal behavior takes place. Crime is determined less by clan or family ties than it is by the socio-economic conditions and learning processes that lead to an intergenerational transmission of criminal behavior within specific nuclear families. Therefore, understanding the causes of crime and the logic behind the clan structure are indispensable steps toward confronting the criminal elements within the clan or developing prevention programs. In addition, the subject of clan crime requires further investigation and fieldwork, not only in Germany but also in other European countries (like Sweden) where similar clan structures have been constructed in recent decades.

References Ahmad, A. (1995). Akraad Lubnaan wa-tanzimuhum al-ijtimai wa al-siyaasi. Maktabat al-Faqih. Beigang, S., et  al. (2017). Diskriminierungs erfahrungen in Deutschland. Ergebnisse einer Repräsentativ- und einer Betroffenenbefragung. Nomos. Bickel, S. (2022). Clankriminalität als Gefahr für die Innere Sicherheit (I). Konrad-Adenauer-­ Stiftung e. V.  Nr. 434. https://www.kas.de/documents/263923/263972/Clankriminalit%C3 %A4t+als+Gefahr+f%C3%BCr+die+Innere+Sicherheit+%28.PDF%29.pdf. Accessed 25 April 2022. Boettner, J., & Schweitzer, H. (2020). Der Name als Stigma: Kollateralschäden im “Krieg gegen die Clans”. Sozial Extra, 44(6), 349–363. Cano-Paños, M. Á. (2021). Spanish family clans in organized crime: Characteristics, activities, and origin factors. Revista Científica General José María Córdova, 19(33), 135–157. Cesar, G. T., & Decker, S. H. (2018). The promise and process of ethnography: What we have learned studying gang members and CPS kids. In S.  K. Rice & M.  D. Maltz (Eds.), Doing ethnography in criminology: Discovery through fieldwork (pp. 57–74). Springer. Dienstbühl, D. (2020). Arabische Familienclans: Historie. Analyse. Ansätze zur Bekämpfung. Polizei Essen–BAO Aktionsplan CLAN. https://www.presseportal.de/blaulicht/ pm/11562/4717559. Accessed April 14, 2022. Dienstbühl, D. (2021). Clankriminalität: Phänomen, Ausmaß, Bekämpfung. C.F. Müller.

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Eisenstadt, M. (2007). Tribal engagement lessons learned. Military Review, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-­analysis/tribal-­ engagement-­lessons-­learned. Accessed April 14, 2022. Erickson, P. E. (2006). Deviance. In H. James Birx (Ed.), Encyclopedia of anthropology (Vol. 5, pp. 736–740). Sage Publications. Fader, J. J. (2018). Keeping classic ethnographic traditions alive in the modern-day academy. In S. K. Rice & M. D. Maltz (Eds.), Doing ethnography in criminology: Discovery through fieldwork (pp. 129–146). Springer. Fürstenau, M. (2021). Clan-Kriminalität: Realität und Vorurteil. Deutsche Welle. 24 August. https:// www.dw.com/de/clan-­k riminalit%C3%A4t-­r ealit%C3%A4t-­u nd-­vorurteil/a-­5 8971938. Accessed April 14, 2022. Ghadban, R. (2000). Die Libanon-Flüchtlinge in Berlin: Zur Integration ethnischer Minderheiten. Das Arabische Buch. Ghadban, R. (2018). Arabische Clans: Die unterschätzte Gefahr. Econ. Güç-Işık, A. (2013). The intercultural engagement in Mardin: Religion, culture and identity. Australian Catholic University. Heise, T., & Meyer-Heuer, C. (2020). Die Macht der Clans: Arabische Großfamilien und ihre kriminellen Imperien. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt. Hellwig, V. (2019). Der Westen, Dunja Hayali bei Clan-Razzia der Polizei in Essen – plötzlich flippt einer aus: „Du Bastard!“ Derwesten. 4 October. https://www.derwesten.de/staedte/essen/ dunja-­hayali-­begleitet-­razzia-­gegen-­clans-­in-­essen-­shishabar-­besitzer-­flippt-­aus-­du-­bastard-­ zdf-­gaeste-­id227270437.html. Accessed April 14, 2022. Henninger, M. (2003). “Importierte Kriminalität” und deren Etablierung. Kriminalistik, 56(2), 714–729. Hille, C. (2020). Clans and democratization: Chechnya, Albania, Afghanistan and Iraq. Brill. Ismail, H., & Abd al-Qadir Uthman. (2004). Al-Mhallamiya: Hawiya arabiya wa judur asila. Dar al-Mallah lit-taba wan-nashr. Jaraba, M. (2021). Arabische Großfamilien und die “Clankriminalität”. Mediendienst Integration. https://mediendienst-­integration.de/artikel/arabische-­grossfamilien-­und-­die-­clankriminalitaet. html. Accessed April 14, 2022 Klingst, M. (2018). Unheimliche Familienbande: Haben kriminelle Clans in Deutschland 200.000 Mitglieder? Die Zeit, 10 August. https://www.zeit.de/2018/33/clans-­deutschland-­kriminalitaet-­ mitglieder. Accessed April 14, 2022. Landeskriminalamt Berlin. (2021). Lagebild “Clankriminalität” Berlin 2020. Der Polizeipräsident in Berlin. https://www.berlin.de/sen/inneres/presse/weitere-­informationen/artikel.1063806. php. Accessed April 14, 2022 Landeskriminalamt Niedersachsen. (2021). Clankriminalität in Niedersachsen 2020: Gemeinsames Lagebild von Polizei und Justiz. https://www.lka.polizei-­nds.de/startseite/kriminalitaet/deliktsbereiche/clankriminalitaet/clankriminalitaet-­in-­niedersachsen-­114765.html. Accessed April 14, 2022. Landeskriminalamt NRW. (2022). Clankriminalität: Lagebild NRW 2021., Düsseldorf: Landeskriminalamt Nordrhein-Westfalen. https://polizei.nrw/sites/default/files/2022­04/220330_Lagebild%20Clankriminalit%C3%A4t%202021_final.pdf. Accessed April 14, 2022. Liebscher, D. (2020). Clans statt Rassen  – Modernisierungen des Rassismus als Herausforderungen für das Recht. KJ Kritische Justiz, 53(4), 529–542. https://doi.org/ 10.5771/0023-­4834-­2020-­4-­529 Nöding, T. (2021). Der Kampf gegen die “Clankriminalität” aus Sicht eines Strafverteidigers Verrät der Rechtsstaat seine Prinzipien? KJ Kritische Justiz, 54(2), 232–246. NTV. (2019). Zwölf-Punkte-Plan vorgelegt: Union will Clan-Familien Kinder entziehen. 3 September. https://www.n-­tv.de/politik/Union-­will-­Clan-­Familien-­Kinder-­entziehen-­ article21249968.html. Accessed April 14, 2022.

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Online Focus. (2015). Nicht nur Duisburg betroffen No-Go-Areas in Deutschland: In diese Viertel traut sich selbst die Polizei nicht. 22 August. https://www.focus.de/politik/deutschland/nicht-­ nur-­duisburg-­betroffen-­no-­go-­areas-­in-­deutschland-­in-­diese-­viertel-­traut-­sich-­selbst-­die-­ polizei-­nicht_id_4895620.html. Accessed April 14, 2022. Reinhardt, K. (2021). Zum Begriff der “Clankriminalität”  – Eine kritische Einschätzung (working paper). In Tübingen: Universität Tübingen. Wissenschaften (IZEW). https:// uni-­tuebingen.de/einrichtungen/zentrale-­einrichtungen/internationales-­zentrum-­fuer-­ethik-­ in-­d en-­w issenschaften/forschung/gesellschaft-­k ultur-­u nd-­t echnischer-­wandel/aktuelles/ newsfullview-­aktuelles/article/neues-­working-­paper-­zu-­clan-­kriminalitaet/. Accessed April 14, 2022 Rice, S. K., & Maltz, M. D. (2018). Doing ethnography in criminology: Discovery through fieldwork. Springer. Rohe, M., & Jaraba, M. (2015). Paralleljustiz: Eine Studie im Auftrag des Landes Berlin, vertreten durch die Senatsverwaltung für Justiz und Verbraucherschutz. Erlanger Zentrum für Islam und Recht in Europa. Schubert, S. (2016). No-Go-Areas: Wie der Staat vor der Ausländerkriminalität kapituliert. Kopp Verlag. Spapens, T., & Moors, H. (2020). Intergenerational transmission and organised crime: A study of seven families in the south of the Netherlands. Trends in Organized Crime, 23(3), 227–241. Sutherland, E., & Cressey, D. R. (1978). Criminology. J. B. Lippincott Company. Üngör, U. (2012). The making of modern Turkey: Nation and state in eastern Anatolia, 1913–1950. Oxford University Press. van Dijk, M., Kleemans, E., & Eichelsheim, V. (2019). Children of organized crime offenders: Like father, like child? An explorative and qualitative study into mechanisms of intergenerational (dis)continuity in organized crime families. European Journal on Criminal Policy Research, 25(4), 345–363. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-­018-­9381-­6 Welle, D. (2021). Dresden Green Vault jewel heist: prosecutors charge 6 men. 2 September. https:// www.dw.com/en/dresden-­green-­vault-­jewel-­heist-­prosecutors-­charge-­6-­men/a-­59061352. Accessed April 14, 2022. Welt. (2015). Gewerkschaft warnt vor No-go-Areas im Ruhrgebiet. 1 July. https://www.welt.de/ regionales/nrw/article143379384/Gewerkschaft-­warnt-­vor-­No-­go-­Areas-­im-­Ruhrgebiet.html. Accessed April 14, 2022.

Chapter 7

Arab Organized Crime in Israel Dina Siegel

Introduction So far this decade, Israel has been most often mentioned in the international media and the public debate in connection to two issues: security matters relating to the ongoing Palestinian–Israeli conflict and its rapid implementation of far-reaching measures to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Other aspects of Israeli society, such as tensions between religious and secular groups and between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, honor killings and femicide, the refugee crisis, and migrant smuggling from Africa, are all regularly discussed in the Israeli media, but hardly ever mentioned in the West. When I started my fieldwork as a part of a criminological study on organized crime in Israel in June 2021, I was surprised to discover that the expansion of criminal activities in Israel, a phenomenon that dominates the lives of thousands of citizens, Jews and Arabs alike1, has remained more or less under the radar in criminological research on organized crime. Even though reports of killings, weapon smuggling, drug smuggling, protection rackets, and other organized crime activities in Israeli cities and villages appear in the Israeli media on a virtually daily basis, very few Israeli criminologists are conducting research or publishing on this, especially in English. Particularly in the last few years, with the emergence of new  I am referring here to the general category of “Israeli Arabs,” being however fully aware that there are significant cultural and religious differences between Arabs (Christian and Muslim), Druze, and Bedouin. 1

D. Siegel (*) Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_7

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criminal networks, changing power relations inside the underworld, and the prevalence of Israeli Arab organized crime, Israel could be considered a “laboratory” for criminological research on organized crime. The aim of this article is to analyze the dynamics inside Israel’s underworld, criminal activities, and the social response from authorities and law enforcement to the growing power of Arab organized crime. The data were collected during my ongoing empirical research in Israel and online. The research methods include ethnographic fieldwork and media analysis. In this article, I discuss the first preliminary results of my ongoing research, based on field observations, interviews with law enforcement officials, criminals, victims, policy makers, and legal experts; and on visual material (photos and video recordings). Media sources include the main Israeli newspapers Ma’ariv, Haaretz, and Yediot Ahronot and online ynet, n12, Arutz 13, and Kan (TV channels), in Hebrew, and Panorama (online), Kul el-Arab, and Al’Ittihad newspapers, in Arabic. I also analyze a number of documentaries containing observations and interviews with crime bosses, representatives of law enforcement, and researchers2.

Historical Background Since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and up to the beginning of the 1970s, organized crime was considered a “non-issue.” It was not until 1971 that a number of investigative journalistic reports on organized crime began to appear in the leading Israeli newspaper Haaretz. Ran Kislev was one of the first journalists to write a series of articles (between 15 April and 4 June 1971) describing organized crime groups in Israel and the connections between crime bosses and politicians from the then ruling party and other officials in local municipalities (Davidovich, 1993). A few months later (between 18 August and 29 September 1971), another series of nine reports by the same author followed, which emphasized the inability of law enforcement to deal with organized crime (ibid). These articles caught the attention of several Knesset members (among them, Ehud Olmert and Iossi Sarid), who started to raise the issue at a parliamentary level. In 1977 a new series of articles was published in Haaretz by the journalist Avi Valentin, in which organized crime was presented as a serious problem (Goldshtein, 2002). Valentin had gathered information based on police communications. “I was able to tap squad car transmissions and record them on cassettes,” he wrote on his website in 2009.3 Valentin and

 E.g. “A Palestinian Israeli Crime Wave” (in English); “Real face of the ‘criminal judge’” (“Panim ametiim shel haborerim,” in Hebrew); “Yakov Alperon” (in Hebrew); “The ‘Wolf,’ Zeev Rozenstein, a real story” (“‘Hazeev, Zeev Rozenstein, hasipur haameti”) (in Hebrew). 3  Avivalentin.com/en/about.html. Accessed on 17 January 2017. 2

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several other journalists were assisted by Menachem Amir, professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem4, who conducted criminological analysis on their data. Organized crime in Israel was compared to the Italian-American mafia and the leaders of criminal organizations—young, Israeli-born men—were called “godfathers.” These men controlled protection rackets and maintained corrupt relationships with local officials (Amir, 1998: 123). Valentin’s articles also included a so-called “list of eleven,” containing the names of eleven alleged criminals and their spheres of illegal activities (Goldshtein, 2002: 143). At first, this information was considered unreliable and was attacked by both law enforcement officials and politicians. The first official state attorney general’s report, based on the conclusions of the Shamgar Committee, argued that although there was organized criminality in Israel, there was no organized crime, as the connection between corrupt officials and criminals was not proven (Amir, 1998: 123). In the 1970s, organized crime activities were usually associated with the Hakerem Gang5 and with three individuals in particular: Ruhamin Aharoni, Tubia Oshri, and Betzal’el Mizrachi, who ran criminal organizations dealing mostly in drugs and extortion. In the same period, the media continued reporting on various criminal activities, mainly focusing on drug smuggling from Turkey and the Far East and rivalries between criminal leaders. However, organized crime was still not recognized as a public problem but dismissed as drug-related activities. Law enforcement officials and politicians continued to publicly deny the existence of organized crime in Israel. However, evidence began to appear that this was about more than just “drug abuse.” In the mid-1970s, the media reported regularly not only on the illegal drugs trade but also on extortion, smuggling, and illegal markets. This led to a parliamentary debate, and in 1978, the then Prime Minister Menachem Begin appointed Irwin Shimron, a prominent Israeli lawyer, to lead an investigation into organized crime. The Shimron Commission produced a critical report on Israeli law enforcement and the judiciary, both of which had failed to acknowledge the presence of organized crime in Israel and the need for serious measures to combat it (Shimron, 1978). The report included information on the criminal networks’ involvement in drug trafficking, extortion, tax evasion, and money laundering and provided concrete recommendations for reforms and strategies. However, it was later revealed that many of these recommendations were ignored and law enforcement did not consider the report credible (Bensinger, 2011). This attitude toward organized crime changed in the 1980s. While the media continued to report on killings and extortion in Israel’s underworld, reports began to appear on Israeli criminal groups operating transnationally, especially in the United States, where they were mainly involved in heroin smuggling. French and Dutch sources indicated that Israeli citizens were active in the production and smuggling  The late Professor Amir was the first criminologist to teach this subject at the Hebrew University and conducted research on several organized crime groups in Israel. 5  “Havurat Hakerem” in Hebrew. The name is related to Kerem Teimani (lit. Yemenite Vineyard), a poor neighborhood in the center of Tel Aviv mainly populated by Sephardic Jewish migrants. 4

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of ecstasy and counterfeiting money. In the 1980s, Israeli criminals settled in the Netherlands, dealing in illegal gambling, extortion, forgery, money laundering, and drugs. They set up factories for the production of synthetic drugs in the south of the country and developed smuggling routes, storage locations, and distribution networks around the world, including Australia, the USA, South Africa, and various European countries (Asher, 2002). This international involvement and the negative image of what became known as the “Kosher Mafia” caused Israeli officials to reconsider the seriousness of the problem. In addition, there were signals that Israeli Arabs were closely collaborating with Jewish criminal groups in Israel and abroad. The Buchner Commission, established in 1986, confirmed these reports. It also revealed other criminal activities, such as the organized theft of agricultural equipment and livestock and money laundering. The Commission recommended the establishment of a special unit to combat “serious crimes” (Amir, 1998: 127). Georgian immigrants (Amir, 1998) and, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, other post-Soviet Jews (Siegel, 1998) brought new criminal actors to the organized crime arena in Israel. In the 1980s, Georgian Jewish immigrants were involved in various organized crime activities, ranging from violently controlling carting and hauling services at Ben Gurion airport and seaports in Ashdod and Haifa to the large-scale theft of cargo, sophisticated frauds, and currency counterfeiting (Amir, 1998). These Georgian criminal groups were led by strong and experienced leaders who had embarked upon their criminal careers in Georgia long before their arrival in Israel and who were followed by other compatriots who were members of their criminal organizations. After numerous police undercover operations and the arrests of leading figures, many of them left the country, only to continue their criminal activities in Europe and the United States. This was the first time that organized crime was considered in ethnic terms, similar to the American experience at the beginning of the twentieth century (Abadinsky, 1990; Albanese, 2004; Ianni, 1984). With a post-Soviet population of more than a million immigrants, post-Soviet organized crime, usually called the Russian mafia in the Israeli media, was able to develop new markets and find new clients in their new motherland. In the 1990s, their activities included human trafficking for sexual exploitation, drug smuggling, and money laundering (Siegel, 2003). Israel became a meeting place for crime bosses, who often combined their business activities with vacations and medical treatment (Amir, 1998). By 1997, a so-called “list of 32” was circulating, which included the Russian-speaking “godfathers,” known for their ability to penetrate financial and political institutions and their extremely violent reputation (Siegel, 2003: 53). Many notorious crime bosses, such as Sergei Michailov and Viacheslav Ivankov, both leaders of the Solntsevskaya criminal organization, obtained Israeli citizenship, which allowed them to move around easily and expand their criminal activities further to the West (Konstantinov & Dikselius, 1997). In 1995, the Israeli police created a list of 12 leaders of the Russian mafia, who were to be expelled from the country. In 1996, this list had grown to include 35 criminals, 27 of whom

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have since left Israel. One prominent figure was Grigori Lerner6, who was portrayed in the media as the “godfather of the Russian mafia in Israel”7. The transnational character of Israeli organized crime was also made evident by their activities in Belgium. An investigation in 1997 showed that in addition to drug smuggling, Russian and Georgian Jews in Antwerp had also made this city a Western European center for receiving and selling contraband goods by melting precious metals and reselling cut gems. Abraham Malikhov, a Georgian Israeli, was the leader of a criminal group responsible for numerous jewelry robberies around Europe8. The “Israeli Connection” benefited from the Jewish diaspora worldwide to shelter criminals among their compatriots. One of the most wanted Israeli bosses in Antwerp was Itzhak Abergil, regarded as the leader of the “Jerusalem Gang,” an organization that was also active in the Czech Republic, Spain, Belgium, the Netherlands, and the United States. The main activities of his organization were the ecstasy trade, illegal gambling, sex trafficking, and extortion (The Jerusalem Post, 9 March 2004). Zeev Rozenstein, a rival of Abergil, was also considered a major figure in the organization and distribution of ecstasy around the world (Siegel, 2009: 189). By the beginning of the 2000s, several rival criminal families were known to law enforcement, among them the organizations led by Zeev Rozenstein, Itzhak Abergil, Yaakov Alperon, and Felix Abutbul. The rivalry between these families culminated in an assassination attempt on Zeev Rozenstein and planned and carried out by the Abergil family, on 11 December 2003. During this attack, three bystanders were killed and 20 injured9. This was a “wake-up call” for Israeli law enforcement and prompted the Ministry of Public Safety to draw up a crime-fighting plan. On 1 January 2008, a special police intelligence unit entitled Lahav 433 was established. Under the codename Case 512, law enforcement launched an extensive investigation into organized crime, which led to the arrest of several crime bosses10. Due to these police operations and the increasing rivalry between Jewish criminal groups, which often ended in killings, some criminal organizations vanished, while others were severely hit and weakened. The “older generation” was replaced by younger gangsters after the former leaders were either imprisoned or escaped to other countries. In 2015, the Israeli police updated the map of organized crime in the country to include 15 large organizations and many smaller gangs linked to them11. Some organizations appeared to have made a “comeback,” such as the Abergil  In Israel, he changed his name to Tzvi ben Ari, a hero from the book and movie Exodus (Leon Uris). 7  Russian-speaking immigrants, however, saw him as an anti-establishment symbol and “local hero” of the Russian-speaking community, arguing that the media exaggerated his status and his criminal image (Siegel, 2005). 8  Https://www.nieuwsblad.be/cnt/dmf20121022_00344482. 9  Https://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-2674779,00.html. 10  Personal communication with law enforcement official, Jerusalem, 5 July 2021. 11  Https://news.walla.co.il/item/2839224. 6

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family, whose leader had been transferred in 2014 from the USA to an Israeli prison, from where he was able to keep his associates under his leadership and his organization under his control. New organizations rose to prominence and divided Israel into criminal markets and spheres of influence: the Amir Mulner family (Ramat Gan), the Shalom Domrani family (Ashkelon), the Yaniv Zaguri family (Beer Sheva), the Michael Mor family (Naharia), the Arye Shirazi family (Natania), the Yossi Mosli family (South), and the Eitan Haya family (Tel Aviv/New York)12. Many of these new criminal leaders were pupils or associates of the “old” bosses and have been trained and professionalized in various criminal activities for many years. After Israeli law enforcement—under pressure from the United States— announced a war on organized crime, most of these criminals were arrested in Jewish cities in the center of Israel or abroad and sent to prison. In contrast, there were almost no police operations in the Arab villages in the north (Galilee), south (Negev), or “Triangle” area in the center13.

Arab Criminal Networks in Israel Arab Israelis14 constitute about 17% of the Israeli population but were considered to be responsible for more than 70% of murders in 201915. Arab organized crime in Israel emerged in the particular socio-economic and political context following the establishment of the state of Israel. Starting in the 1950s, the Israeli government implemented a separation between Jewish and Arab settlements, thereby reducing contact between the two and forcing Arab criminals to operate exclusively inside their own communities. In the 1960s, the Arabs of the Galilee still had to apply for permits in order to leave their villages and move from one district to another. These travel restrictions limited their employment opportunities and caused family separations, leading to frequent violations, which became a “major source of crime amongst Israeli Arabs in the 1960s” (Korn, 2000: 167). Half a century later, a majority of Israeli Arabs (more than 90%) were still living in small towns populated exclusively by Arabs (Hasisi & Weitzer, 2007). Israel has always been looked upon by Israeli Arabs with suspicion (Nakhleh, 1975: 499). The symbolic status of the police as a representative of state domination over ethnic minorities is crucial to understanding relations between the Israeli police and Arab Israelis (Hasisi & Weitzer, 2007: 728, 729). There has long been a mutual agreement that the police will intervene as little as possible in internal disputes  Personal communication with law enforcement official, Jerusalem, 5 July 2021.  The Triangle (Meshulash) includes eleven towns with a population of about 250,000 Arab citizens. 14  In different sources Arab Israelis are also referred to as Israeli Palestinians or 1948 Palestinians (descendants of those who stayed in Israel after its founding in 1948). 15  Personal communication with law enforcement official, Jerusalem, 5 July 2021. 12 13

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between Arabs, unless they concern security matters. The leaders of the Arab communities—sheikhs and local, respected representatives—are supposed to solve internal conflicts themselves, by applying traditional conflict resolution methods (Pely, 2016; Shahar, 2021) or issuing their own verdicts and decisions on punishment, banning, or shaming. This semi-autonomous legal framework is especially important for Arab communities with regard to “blood” disputes. In recent years, however, the traditional dispute resolution system (or sulha) has come to be seen as no longer functioning properly. Today sulha does not work. Young people have no respect anymore, neither for their own father, nor for sulha mediators. And even less for the police. So, nobody can stop them from making easy money in crime and getting their status among other gangsters16.

These days, decisions relating to the ending of blood feuds, which for generations had been accepted as being permanent, are now frequently violated. One reason could be that criminal bosses are now participating in and managing sulha committees, which means that the system is no longer independent and has, in fact, come under the control of organized crime17.

“Criminal Family”: A Contested Concept “Criminal family” and “criminal clan” are terms used interchangeably in the study of organized crime, but “family” remains a rather vague concept. According to Varese, “Italian Mafia Families are not, in the main, formed by close blood relatives, and bosses are not succeeded by their own sons” (Varese, 2017: 149). Although the members of these groups often refer to themselves as family, they are “completely separate from blood families” (Paoli, 2003: 16). Israeli media used to report on “crime families,” or criminal hamulas. A hamula can be described as an extended family, a “blood group,” a patrilineage, or a clan (Rosenfeld, 1974) sharing “the common use of a name of an agnatic ancestor” (Cohen, 1965: 105). The term is a genealogically based unit and shows historical continuity. A small hamula can consist of an extended family in the process of growth (Rosenfeld, 1974). Traditionally, the hamula provided protection to each member in exchange for his loyalty and shared duties to the family, but over the course of time, the meaning of hamula has changed. Today, it is a political term, as the importance of social cohesion has been replaced by the importance of new forms of control and leadership. Many Arab Israelis complain that they can be labelled as members of a “criminal hamula” only because they have the same name as someone in a leading position in the crime hierarchy. On the other hand, names can also become a “brand”: young criminals sometimes use the names of well-known criminal bosses and are even 16 17

 Interview with Arab lawyer, Western Galilee, North Israel, 19 August 2021.  Https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/sybil0vtk.

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willing to pay for the privilege in order to increase their prestige in the underworld. My fieldwork shows that names can be used as “business cards” that manifest identity and belongingness to a clan. When the state introduced local councils as governing institutions in Arab villages, internal conflicts intensified. The position of chairman of the local council in Arab villages is a scarce resource and every dominant family (hamula) would like to occupy this position, as it is “the ultimate formal symbol of control” (Nakhleh, 1975: 505). This type of control includes providing jobs, but also supplying water and electricity, maintaining roads, and regulating markets and other communal services. The struggle for this position has always been especially intense in times of local elections: “if the entire village is of one hamula (clan), then two dominant dar (lineages) become the contestants; if the village is composed of various hamulas, then two dominant hamulas become the main contestants; if a village is split equally into two different sects, then sectarian affiliation provides the lines of separation between the two moieties” (ibid: 499). These conflicts have persisted for generations. The political meaning of hamula is particularly prominent during local elections, when all family members are recruited to lend their support and vote for their representative. When the representative of one hamula wins the vote, members of the rival hamula often find it difficult to accept the results of the election and the struggle for power receives a fresh impetus, often escalating into verbal abuse or street fights. In recent years, such conflicts have led to the murder of members of rival hamulas in many villages. My relative was shot dead, he was about to get married soon. He belongs to a family that was in dispute with another family in the same village. The dispute was about internal political issues, not criminal ones, not connected to drugs or a protection racket. Most of the disputes here escalate around elections. The person elected as head of the local administrative council is responsible for dividing jobs, land, positions, money, he is actually the ruler of the town and his family has an advantage. The other family does not accept this and the dispute comes to a boil.18

Since the establishment of the state of Israel, politicians have always exploited the rivalry between clans, encouraged them to compete with each other, and induced members of their hamulas to collaborate with the authorities by informing on illegal activities of their rivals, such as smuggling or concealing infiltrators (Korn, 2000; Lustick, 1980). It was taken for granted that these internal struggles also included “blood accounts” and violence (Cohen, 1965; Ginat, 1987; Kressel, 1982). The involvement of organized crime in these conflicts consists of the financing of local election campaigns and providing the contesting sides with weapons and “violence services”19. In almost in every clan there are ‘black sheep’. Not everyone is a teacher, doctor or lawyer. Everybody knows these criminals, who they are, but nobody will talk about them, espe-

 Interview with Arab respondent, Western Galilee, 2 August 2021.  According to my respondent, an Arab lawyer, in 2019, 15 out of 75 Arab local council chairs were killed, interview, Western Galilee, 4 August 2021. 18 19

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cially with the police, because they are too dangerous, people are afraid of revenge if they open their mouth20.

Law enforcement prefers to talk about “criminal empires,” alluding to cooperation between different criminal hamulas. As far back as 2008, the then chief of police already argued that organized crime was penetrating local municipalities, thereby threatening and undermining Israeli democracy21.

Evolution of Arab Organized Crime in Israel Organized crime among Israeli Arabs is not a new phenomenon. Drug smuggling, vehicle theft (for stripping), and the large-scale theft of agricultural equipment were already well documented in the 1970s and 1980s (Amir, 1998). Jewish and Arab criminals came together in the pursuit of mutual profit, and there were close structural connections between Jewish and Arab crime bosses. Every Arab boss of a criminal organization cooperated with the leader of a Jewish criminal family. Thus, Mulner from Ramat Gan was in close contact with the Karaja family in Kafr Kasem; Mosli cooperated closely with Uda Kutaier and Shalom Domrani with the Hariri family. The division of tasks was clear: while the Jewish criminals were engaged in money laundering, the Arab “soldiers” were active in contract killings, protection rackets, and providing “violent services” to Jewish organized crime22. The existence of criminal gangs among Israeli Arabs came to light especially during the Second Intifada of 2000 and afterward with Israeli Arabs rallying in various parts of the country in support of the Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, and Eastern Jerusalem. In one of these rallies, 13 Israeli Arabs were shot dead, which some respondents consider a “turning point” in their attitude toward the Israeli authorities. The left-wing government of the then Prime Minister Ehud Barak responded in October 2000 by withdrawing police presence from Arab towns and villages23. Arab organized crime took advantage of this lack of control and further developed its criminal activities, such as drug and arms smuggling and protection rackets. For many years the police turned a blind eye to organized crime in areas populated by Arabs. Crime in these places was considered an ‘internal matter’, to be solved by Arab leaders themselves. Or perhaps the government thought: Arabs killing Arabs is not a problem for the Jewish state24.  Interview with Arab respondent, Triangle area, Israel, 10 August 2021.   The Jerusalem Post, 28 October 2017, on: jpost.com/magazine/ la-mafia-israeli-style-the-arrest-of-crime-boss-michael-mor-507822. 22  Weapon deals and killings in broad daylight (in Hebrew), reportage on Channel 13, 4 October 2021, on: 13tv.co.il/item/domestic/crime-and-justice/crime-organizations-1371879/. 23  Haaretz, 4 February 2021, Under the Gun: The Crime Epidemic Overwhelming Arab-Israeli Society, on: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE%2D%2D1.9513067. 24  Interview with Israeli journalist specializing in police issues, Tel Aviv, Israel, 3 August 2021. 20 21

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Whereas Israeli Arab criminals used to operate mainly as “soldiers” and couriers for Jewish criminal organizations, they have stepped up and acquired leading positions, while Israeli law enforcement was focusing its attention on its operations against Jewish organized crime. In a short period of time, Arab criminal groups have become the main players in the Israeli underworld25. The recruitment of young Arabs, Druses, and Bedouins was a relatively easy task, as the majority were living in poverty and without any job prospects. Even for those with an education, there seemed to be a huge discrepancy between the high value placed on higher education by my respondents and a society in which Israeli Arabs are disadvantaged and discriminated against in educational institutions (Feniger et al., 2015). Over the years, areas with a high concentration of Arab towns and villages have been economically neglected. Criminologists could point to an obvious and easy explanation for criminality among Arabs: many young people view crime as an escape from unemployment and misery that will enable them to climb the social ladder. However, this strain approach cannot explain why there has only been a dramatic increase in violent organized crime in the last few years. It also does not explain why these criminal organizations operate mainly (but not exclusively) in their own Arab communities. Historical and anthropological insights may further our understanding of the recent internal dynamics within and between criminal organizations. In 2019, the media published a new report from the Israeli police identifying several of the largest Arab criminal organizations26. It named the Hariri, Abu Latif, Ar’ar, Karaja, Jarushi, Abu-al’Ki’an, El-Ar’aish, and Abed al-Kadar as the most prominent criminal clans. These organizations seemed to have divided the territory between themselves, most of them specializing in the drug and arms trade, protection rackets, and money laundering. Arab criminal organizations fit the traditional organized crime structure, with a strict hierarchy, an unassailable leader, and a division of tasks (financial, recruiting, executive, etc.). New recruits are trained to shoot in special training camps. These days, organized crime operates in every Arab village and neighborhood. The main activities consist of extortion, drug smuggling, firearm trafficking, and money laundering through legitimate businesses (restaurants, supermarkets, shops, etc.). There is a clear division of tasks and responsibilities with respect to financial management, contacts with other criminal groups, intelligence, debt collection, and more. The upper rank usually consists of members of the same blood family, but other lower ranks can be recruited from other hamulas. Each Arab criminal organization has local branches in towns or village. Its members are independent but work for the larger organization, which allows them to make use of the name (in return for a percentage of the criminal proceeds).

 Https://www.mako.co.il/men-stories/Article-acc27c44833f661006.html.  In the report, a distinction was made between criminal organizations and gangs, on: https://www. ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-5564280,00.html. 25

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Individuals, gangs, or small groups can be recruited or “hired” to carry out particular criminal activities, such as vehicle theft or the transportation of drugs. There are substantial differences between Arab criminal groups in the north and in the south of Israel with regard to structure, organization, and discipline. Organized crime among Bedouins in the south is much less hierarchical and there is less coordination between criminal clans. Young Bedouins are often filmed firing guns in public places and the Negev has come to be known as the Wild West (actually the Wild South) of Israel. Organized crime in the Negev is part of our daily life, the Bedouin criminals operate openly, without any attempt to hide; they shoot everywhere: on the highway, in the city centre, near children’s playgrounds, even in the hospital27.

The Bedouin of the Negev constitute 12% of Israeli Arabs, with half of the population living in seven authorized Bedouin cities and villages. The other 50% live in illegal housing in approximately 35 villages, known as the Bedouin dispersion (pzura Beduit). There have always been conflicts in the Negev about land and water and the control of territories, both in the vicinity of permanent towns such as Rahat and Hura and in the desert (in the so-called “illegal settlements”)28. But, whereas sheikhs and elders who enjoyed the trust and respect of the community used to be able to maintain a certain level of order through conflict resolution (sulha), nowadays, young Bedouins are more inclined to take the law into their own hands, often by violent means. Bedouin towns are ‘sleepy’, they do not develop, the schools are good, but there is no work afterwards. That’s why many children do not finish their education, why should they if they can make money with drugs, with crime? Young Bedouins are the main victims of the Negev29.

Criminal Activities Arms Smuggling Conflicts between Arab hamulas in Israel are by no means a new phenomenon (Ginat, 1987; Kressel, 1982), but the use of firearms to resolve these conflicts is a recent development. Every small dispute in the village, for example between neighbours about a parking space, or between children at the playground, can lead to a bloody conflict, which is accompanied by shooting. There are guns in many houses, but the biggest concentration of weapons is with criminal clans. And they not only use regular guns, but even rockets and other heavy

 Interview with Jewish respondent from the Negev, South Israel, 12 December 2021.  For an analysis of urbanization and protests among the Bedouins of the Negev, see Marx (1974). 29  Interview with anthropologist Emanuel Marx, who conducted research in the Negev, Ramat Hasharon, Israel, 24 July 2021. 27 28

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The presence of weapons and frequent shootings are considered a part of normal life in Arab villages around Israel. It was very hot at night yesterday. I went down to the kitchen to drink some water and suddenly I heard ‘boom, boom, boom’ – somebody was shooting. Instinctively I lowered my head, but I could see from the window two figures running to their scooter and disappearing into the night. In the morning I learned that they had been shooting at my neighbour’s house. This was not the first time that we heard guns at night, or in the daytime. It is a matter of daily life, like…it becomes normal. People get used to it31.

The illicit arms trade and killings in broad daylight were ongoing throughout my fieldwork in Israel. Also during this time, the media reported on the smuggling of weapons from Lebanon (with the involvement of Hezbollah) and the Palestinian territories and Jordan and on frequent thefts from Israeli military bases. The stolen weapons range from M-16, Kalashnikov, Negev, and Tavor automatic weapons to LAW rockets 32. Military sources informed the media that 464 out of 675 shooting incidents (70%) in 2021 involved the use of weapons stolen from military bases33. According to the State Controller’s Report (2021)34, there were more than 1600 “criminal incidents” on the territory of a military base in the south of the country in 2021, including the theft of equipment and the installation of hundreds of cannabis greenhouses on military firing ranges. Most thefts from military bases took place in the south and were mainly carried out by Bedouin criminal groups35. The Negev, often considered the “backyard of Israel,” is characterized by no-go areas and a lack of policing. The dominant criminal hamulas have carved up the territory, control the trafficking of drugs, and run protection rackets targeting shops, petrol stations, and other businesses in Jewish cities and villages in the south. The Negev is a separate state, or better: a ‘state within the state’. And Bedouin families live in this state. You could compare their relationship with Israel as a couple that wants a divorce, but stays together because of common property, children and mutual friends. They stay together, but they have nothing in common and they don’t care about each other. Israel does not provide services; the people don’t have water, electricity or post offices. So they need to provide for themselves. And there are many opportunities, which have always existed: drug smuggling, weapons, violence36.

 Personal communication from investigative journalist, Tel Aviv, Israel, 3 August 2021.  Interview with Arab respondent, Western Galilee, North Israel, 20 August 2021. 32  Weapon deals and killings in the daylight (in Hebrew), reportage on Channel 13, 4 October 2021, on: 13tv.co.il/item/domestic/crime-and-justice/crime-organizations-1371879/. 33  Https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20211220-israel-report-70-of-shootings-involved-stolenarmy-weapons/. 34  Duach hamevaker hamedina. Duach bikoret shnatit (National Controller Report. Annual report), Jerusalem, 2021. 35  Https://www.mako.co.il/pzm-magazine/Article-642a98730da8771027.htm. 36  Interview with a Bedouin anthropologist, Beer Sheva, South Israel, 23 July 2021. 30 31

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Drug Smuggling The Bedouins of the Sinai have always been a vital link in the international trafficking of hashish across the Middle East, especially since the 1930s, when traffic from Syria and Lebanon through Palestine into the Nile Valley flourished (Marx, 2008). During the 15-year-long Israeli occupation (1967–1982), smuggling was drastically reduced due to tensions on the Israeli–Egyptian border but picked up again in 1982 when Sinai reverted to Egyptian rule. According to the anthropologist Emanuel Marx, who spent many years conducting fieldwork among the Bedouins of the Sinai and Negev deserts and interviewed numerous hashish smugglers, three main aspects explain the leading role of the Bedouin in drug smuggling. First, they consider the drug trade to be a legitimate economic activity, rather than a crime. “The Bedouin respected and honoured the chiefs of the smuggling gangs as entrepreneurs who had brought them a higher standard of living” (Marx, 2008: 30). Second, they saw a golden opportunity to increase their income. And third, the conditions for smuggling perfectly fitted their social practices, networks, mobility, and knowledge. In the Negev, drugs cross the border with Egypt like all other goods, such as weapons or camels. The Egyptians turn a blind eye; they themselves profit from smuggling and are in league with the criminals. There are plenty of opportunities to make money, but the best are drugs and ‘protection’37.

Cooperation between Egyptian Bedouin and Israeli Bedouin smugglers seems to be running smoothly. The smuggling usually takes place at night; drugs are thrown across the border from the Egyptian side and retrieved by local smugglers who quickly move the cargo by jeep or camel.

Protection Rackets Gviyat dmei hasut (lit. “collection of protection fees”) is another activity often engaged in by Arab organized crime. This Hebrew term can be translated as both “protection racket” and “extortion.” Sociologist Vadim Volkov explains the difference between the two activities by referring to the “structural character” of the interaction between criminals and their “clients”/victims. “Protection is a structural outcome of interaction that has priority over the intentions of individual participants” (Volkov, 2002: 34), while “extortion does not occur on a regular basis or within the context of a broader organization in whose name the money is collected, and it does not offer regular or imaginary services in return” (ibid: 33). During my fieldwork, I encountered both extortion and protection rackets run by small gangs, individuals, and members of large criminal organizations.

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 Interview with a Bedouin respondent, Beer Sheva, South Israel, 24 July 2021.

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D. Siegel In my moshav (collective farm) Bedouins regularly attack the factory, setting fires, stealing tractors, but the factory managers prefer to keep silent, nobody knows why. I think that they are either being threatened or have been bribed38.

The same respondent described the “protection methods” used by Arab criminal groups as follows: first, they send a message by causing damage, breaking windows, destroying equipment, or setting fire to buildings or vehicles. The next step is that they come along to talk: if you want help in protecting your business, you know where to find us. All big businesses in the Negev pay protection money. You’d much rather pay 10,000 NIS than lose a business worth 10 million, which they will burn down39.

Many criminal organizations in Israel have set up their own private security services, which enables them to “legalize” their protection rackets by pretending to work as regular security firms. In one Arab village, “security men” even attacked police officers40.

Security Services: Partners in Crime or Protection? In recent years, there have been various reports on a possible relationship between the security services (Shabak) and leaders of Arab Israeli criminal organizations41. None of my respondents had any doubt that this was indeed the case. After the Second Intifada (2000–2005), the Israeli security services transferred many Palestinian “collaborators” from the West Bank and Gaza to areas south of Tel Aviv and Jaffa. As they were met with social and political rejection from other Arabs, many turned to organized crime, especially “protection” services. These collaborators are often granted a license to possess a weapon. Media allegations of cooperation between the Israeli security services and leaders of Arab organized crime assert that the security forces have been turning a blind eye to Arab criminal activities in exchange for security intelligence. Allegedly, the Israeli security services have also been using high-ranking members of criminal organizations to “maintain order” to save them from having to intervene. Criminal groups have benefited from this non-verbal agreement and the fact that the police are providing them with weapons and guaranteed protection. As a result, Arab organized crime groups now possess the most advanced firearms and explosive devices42.

 Interview with a Jewish farmer, Eastern Galilee, North Israel, 10 January 2022.  Interview with a Bedouin respondent, Beer Sheva, South Israel, 23 July 2021. 40  Https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/rkhrbn8nf. 41  Https://www.972mag.com/police-crime-palestinian-communities/. 42  Https://www.972mag.com/police-crime-palestinian-communities/. 38 39

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The collaborators seem to enjoy full immunity, secured in the knowledge that the police have their backs and they will come to no harm43. According to an Arab local municipality official, Israeli law enforcement policies are designed to weaken the community, to “let Arabs kill each other”44. That being said, the agreement was mutual and Arab leaders have always insisted that they are able to control their own people and do not need the intervention of the Israeli police. For many years, this “non-policing” model has been applied across most Arab villages and towns, with exceptions being made for violent conflicts or terrorist attacks that could be considered security issues45. While Arab respondents openly discussed the alleged link between Shabak and Arab organized crime bosses, claiming that this was a “public secret,” Israeli officials dismissed such allegations as lies and a “conspiracy theory.” Some politicians, for their part, argued that in order to combat organized crime and curb the growing violence in Arab villages, the police cannot manage alone, and concrete results can only be achieved if Shabak and Israeli military units join forces46. In 2015, 11 new police stations were established in Arab villages and towns, but this had no effect, as the number of killings continued to increase. There were many attempts to stop the violence, but the Arabs aren’t ready to cooperate with the police. There is a very low level of trust and little inclination to rely on state representatives, which is a prerequisite for combating organized crime. But here we talk about hamulas; it’s enough to have one member who is a criminal, and the whole family will keep silent.47

Many Bedouins in the south and Arabs in the north are leaving their villages and neighborhoods to settle in Jewish cities, as they are afraid of becoming victims of organized crime. Meanwhile, Jewish residents are organizing themselves to protect their neighborhoods. They also expect Shabak and the army to intervene48,49. We organized a WhatsApp group: if something happens, theft or sexual harassment, or somebody suspicious entering the street, a message is sent and the whole group comes together. We need to protect our children ourselves if the police cannot provide security50.

 Https://jerusalem.24fm.ps/6485.html.  Personal communication, Triangle area, June 2021, Israel. 45  Interview with Israeli politician, Tel Aviv, 23 June, 2021. 46  Personal communication with Israeli politicians, Israel, February 2022. 47  Interview with Arab lawyer, Eastern Galilee, North Israel, 28 July 2021. 48  Https://www.kan.org.il/item/?itemid=114283. 49  In October 2021, the Israeli government adopted a plan to include Shabak and the army in law enforcement operations to confiscate illegal weapons in Arab villages. 50  Personal communication, Beer Sheva, 11 August 2021. 43 44

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Some Preliminary Conclusions For many years, Israel denied the existence of organized crime in the country. However, numerous investigative journalism reports, governmental fact-finding committees, and a modicum of criminological research eventually brought to light that criminal organizations were operating both in Israel and abroad and their activities included drug and weapon trafficking, human trafficking for sexual exploitation, extortion and protection rackets, money laundering, and fraud. After several successful law enforcement operations against Jewish organized crime, new actors, i.e., Arab Israeli criminal organizations, have taken over Israel’s crime circuit. When I started my fieldwork in 2021, their power seemed to be beyond dispute. There were reports in the media almost every day about violent conflicts between criminal hamulas, often resulting in murders and severe injuries, and these reports were corroborated by what my respondents told me. Today, these criminal clans are operating in every Arab village and in districts of mixed Jewish–Arab cities (e.g., Lod, Ramla, Jaffa, Haifa, Acre, etc.). In the north and south of Israel, Arab criminal groups attack both Jewish and Arab citizens, demanding protection money and causing enormous harm to their property. When doing so, they do not refrain from violence, including the use of firearms. Drug and weapon trafficking and protection rackets are among the most common organized crime activities of Arab criminal organizations. There is close cooperation between Arab and Jewish crime bosses, and there are reports on collaborations between Arab organized crime and the Israeli security services. A long history of a lack of policing in Arab towns and villages and the widespread use of traditional arbitration and conflict resolution methods (sulha) have contributed to the tense relationship and lack of trust between Israeli law enforcement and Arab citizens. Today, police efforts to combat Arab organized crime and ongoing violent conflicts, shootings, and murders in Arab communities are anything but efficient, and organized crime activities have become part of everyday life in Arab Israel. Civil society is emerging in this process as activists organize anti-violence protests and call for a more efficient law enforcement intervention. But people who are afraid of real and potential crimes are also taking the law in their own hands and initiating self-organization in order to protect their lives and properties.

References Abadinsky, H. (1990). Organized crime. Nelson Hall. Albanese, J. (2004). North American organized crime. Global Crime, 6(1), 8–18. Amir, M. (1998). Organized crime in Israel. In R. Friedman (Ed.), Crime and criminal justice in Israel, Albany (pp. 121–138). State University of New York Press. Asher, G. (2002). The ecstasy connection. Israeli’s Police Journal, 189, 22–24. (In Hebrew).

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Bensinger, G. (2011). Organized crime in Israel: An update (Part 1). In: Crime and Justice International Magazine, http://www.cjimagazine.com/content/view/231/461, accessed on November 25, 2021. Cohen, A. (1965). Arab border villages in Israel. Manchester University Press. Davidovich, A. (1993). Organized crime in Israel and in the world. Theory and reality. (in Hebrew). M.A. thesis unpublished. Feniger, Y., Mcdossi, O., & Ayalon, H. (2015). Ethno-religious differences in Israeli higher education: Vertical and horizontal dimensions. European Social Review, 31(4), 383–396. Ginat, J. (1987). Blood disputes among bedouin and rural arabs in Israel. University of Pittsburgh Press. Goldshtein, Y. (2002). Betraying the promised land, The socio-environmental threat (In Hebrew), Jerusalem: Keter. Hasisi, B., & Weitzer, R. (2007). Police relations with arabs and jews in Israel. British Journal of Criminology, 47, 728–745. Ianni, F. (1984). Black mafia: Ethnic succession on organized crime. Simon & Schuster. Konstantinov, A., & Dikselius, M. (1997). Bandit Russia. Moskva Olma-Press (In Russian). Korn, A. (2000). Military government, political control and crime: The case of Israeli Arabs. Crime, Law and Social Change, 34, 159–182. Kressel, G. (1982). Blood feuds among urban bedouin. An anthropological study. The Magnes Press, The Hebrew University (in Hebrew). Lustick, I. (1980). Arabs in the Jewish state: Israel’s control of a national minority. University of Texas Press. Marx, E. (1974). Hahevra Habeduit ba-Negev (Bedouin of the Negev). Reshafim (in Hebrew). Marx, E. (2008). Hashish smuggling by bedouin in South Sinai. In D. Siegel & H. Nelen (Eds.), Organized crime: Culture, markets and policies (pp. 29–40). Springer. Nakhleh, K. (1975). The direction of local-level conflict in two Arab villages in Israel. American Ethnologist, 2(3), 497–516. Paoli, L. (2003). Mafia Brotherhood. Organized crime, Italian style. Oxford University Press. Pely, D. (2016). Muslim/Arab mediation and conflict resolution: understanding Sulha. Routledge. Rosenfeld, H. (1974). Hamula. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 1(2), 243–244. https://doi. org/10.1080/03066157408437887 Shahar, I. (2021). Diversity in sulha practices among Arab-Palestinians in Israel and its implications for state-minority relations: a pluri-legal perspective. The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 53(1), 1–19. Shimron, E. (1978). Report of the commission to examine the topic of crime in Israel (In Hebrew). Segal Press. Siegel, D. (1998). The great immigration. In Russian Jews in Israel. Berghahn Books. Siegel, D. (2003). The transnational Russian Mafia. In D. Siegel, H. van de Bunt, & D. Zaitch (Eds.), Global organized crime. Trends and developments. Kluwer Academic Publishers. Siegel, D. (2005). Russische bizniz. Meulenhoff. Siegel, D. (2009). The Mazzel ritual. Culture, customs and crime in the diamond trade. Springer. Varese, F. (2017). Mafia life. Love, death and money at the heart of organized crime. Profile Books. Volkov, V. (2002). Violent entrepreneurs: the Use of force in the making of Russian capitalism. Cornell University Press.

Chapter 8

The h200d Office: The Local Embeddedness of the Dutch Crips Gang Robby Roks

Introduction On a summer evening in August 2012, Johan1 enters the neighborhood. As a middle-­ aged white male, he stands out among the younger Surinamese and Antillean members of the Dutch Crips. Whenever Johan visits, he greets the gang members with a friendly “good evening gentlemen!” followed by a handshake. This evening Johan walks into the neighborhood at the same time local police officer Debby and one of her colleagues arrive on their bicycles. Debby, as per her usual routine, moves in the direction of Raymond and has a brief chat with him. The other police officer goes up to Stanley—a younger gang member—and informs him about a couple of outstanding fines. I’m watching the interaction from one of the concrete benches on the square behind the local Youth Centre. As soon as Johan saw the police officers, he took a seat down next to me. When the police officers leave the neighborhood after 5 min, Raymond walks over to Johan and says: “Well, the store is open again.” They walk over to a small playground to talk shop. This fieldnote excerpt from August 2012 documents the activities of Raymond, one of my key informants during two different ethnographic studies (Roks & Densley, 2020; Roks, 2021). The Dutch Crips started a breakdance crew in the early 1980s and evolved from a youth group to a street gang in the 2000s. As the leader and founder of the Dutch Crips, Raymond played a vital role in conducting the

 To protect the identity of the informants, all names are fictive.

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R. Roks (*) Erasmus School of Law, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Rotterdam, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_8

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(criminal) business of the Crips. In the abovementioned fieldnote excerpt from August 2012, Raymond refers to square in a small neighborhood in The Hague as a “store,” and at other times, he would also call it his “office.” Furthermore, he and other informants would use similar terms from the regular economy to refer to their criminal activities. For instance, commonly used words for “crime” or “criminal activities” would be “(putting in) work,” “business,” or “projects.” In the confounding of this language of illegal and legal worlds, we can recognize a perspective articulated by Peter Letkemann in his book “Crime as Work” (1973). Building on the “crime as work” perspective (Polsky, 1967; Letkemann, 1973; Sullivan, 1989; Fagan & Freeman, 1999), this chapter will unpack the metaphor of the h200d office. First, the literal meaning of an office as a place for professional work will be applied to the case of the Dutch Crips and their criminal activities. More specifically, the metaphor of the h200d office will be used throughout this chapter to draw attention to the way conventional career concepts such as specialization, professionalism, and work satisfaction apply to the criminal activities of the Dutch Crips. Second, the metaphor of the h200d office will be used to examine the local embeddedness of the Dutch Crips and their criminal activities. For the study of gangs, the importance and significance of the local context of the neighborhood is well documented (for an overview, see Valasik & Tita, 2018). Research on organized crime also indicates that the local matters, even in cases of transnational forms of organized crime. In fact, Hobbs (1998: 408) stresses that “a better understanding of organized crime can be gained from interrogating its local manifestation.” Notwithstanding the international flows of people, goods, and money in organized crime, various studies have documented how criminal collaborations between organized crime offenders seem to adhere to the laws of both geographical and social proximity (Kleemans & Van de Bunt, 1999; Kleemans & De Poot, 2008; Van de Bunt et al., 2014). The empirical material underlying this chapter was collected during an ethnographic study on the embeddedness of crime and identity in a small neighborhood in The Hague that has been the home base of the Dutch Crips since the late 1980s (Roks, 2019). Three years of fieldwork between 2011 and 2014 resulted in a network of 150 informants, consisting of (former) members of the Crips, residents, youngsters hanging around the neighborhood and a Youth Center, social workers, and local police officials. The usage of interviews, informal conversations, and observations resulted in collecting in-depth information about the lives and/ or criminal careers of 60 of these informants (see also Roks, 2019; Roks & Densley, 2020). The remainder of this chapter centers on the metaphor of the h200d office. First, the usage of the term h200d office shows how the local neighborhood serves as a meeting place for members of the Crips but also for partners in crime in need of (criminal) goods, services, or information. Second, the metaphor of the h200d office draws attention to “employees” (gang members), the “business” of the Crips (criminal activities), and problems related to both the employees and their business endeavors.

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The h200d Office Due to the incarceration of several gang members, few Crips could be found in the small neighborhood in the Laak district of The Hague at the start of my fieldwork in 2011. The summer of 2011, however, marked the return of leader Raymond to the neighborhood, with several Crips in his wake. Most of the fieldwork was spent in front of the home of Raymond’s brother Rick in what the Crips refer to as their “h200d”2: a square behind a Youth Center in the neighborhood. This square, which is roughly the size of a football field, has a recently refurbished playground with a climbing frame, a small slide, swings, and two seesaws on an elongated strip of artificial grass (Roks, 2019). In addition to referring to the local neighborhood as the h200d, Raymond would also use the term office, as illustrated by the fieldnote excerpt from this introduction of this chapter. The office in the h200d—or the h200d office—had no fixed opening hours and meetings with Raymond usually took place after making an appointment on the phone, something that required knowing one of his frequently changing phone numbers. During my fieldwork, however, different people visited the h200d without having a meeting with Raymond. In these instances, younger members of the Crips would usually stop these individuals to ask whether they had an appointment. If no meeting was planned, members of the Crips would try to reach Raymond to either relay a message or ask him to come to the h200d. Because Raymond was almost always late to his meetings, a lot of people had to wait for him. During my fieldwork, I experienced Raymond’s lateness firsthand, and over the years, I spend many hours awaiting his arrival. In his absence, the concrete benches in the h200d would serve as a waiting area for me but also for other people who had a meeting with Raymond. Sometimes, three or four different people would be waiting for Raymond in the h200d office. When Raymond would arrive in the neighborhood, he would greet his appointment, and then together they would walk some 20 m toward the playground in the middle of the square. In a ritual to prevent eavesdropping, mobile phones would be placed on the concrete benches in front of Rick’s house or handed over to one of the younger members of the Crips. In the h200d office, I have seen, met, and got to know a motley crew of visitors: men who because of their muscular build, tattoos, and clothing style could hardly be distinguished from not only the Crips but also individuals, such as Johan from the excerpt in the introduction, who really stood out among the Surinamese and Antillean members of the Crips.

 The term “hood” has been a commonplace reference to the local neighborhood for many years. However, the usage of “h200d” is more recent. More so than with the generic “hood,” a sense of territoriality is communicated with “h200d.” By mixing the number “200” with “hood,” the Crips follow the example of American-style black gangs like the Rollin 40 Crips from Los Angeles who use “h40d” to distinguish their “hood” from other “hoods.” “H200d,” thereby, holds both a reference to the name of the set or gang—the Rollin 200 Crips—but also to the house number (252) of the Youth Centre (Roks, 2019: 8–9). 2

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For youth growing up in the neighborhood, Raymond and older gang members seemed to function as role models. Furthermore, the mere presence of street-­ oriented elders in the local neighborhood also provided youngster with opportunities to make money. Older members of the Crips would ask local youth for assistance on innocent tasks like buying groceries but also criminal endeavors like obtaining information about specific crimes, brokering contacts between social networks, changing counterfeit currency, or selling narcotics and counterfeit cigarettes on the streets. Vice versa, local youth would approach members of the Crips to inquire about criminal opportunities. One day, I was hanging out with Rick behind the local Youth Center. Vernon, an adolescent youngster who resided in the neighborhood, passed by on a bicycle. Rick signaled Vernon to come over, resulting in the following interaction: Vernon: Fafi [What’s up in Surinamese] Rick, do you have work? Rick: No, it’s quiet, not much to do, only a few burglaries. Do you know how to break in? Vernon: No Rick, I’m more into the click clack beng haha. Rick (laughing): You better chill, or else you get a long sentence. If you come strapped, they give you six to seven. But Vernon, if I know about work or something, I will let you know (Excerpt from fieldwork notes, July 9, 2012). Days after the abovementioned interaction, Vernon and his friend Railey came up to Rick to disclose that permanently closed blinds and the penetrating odor of weed coming from a specific house led them to conclude that there might be an active weed plantation in a nearby neighborhood. Rick urged the youngster to further investigate the matter, to see if they could break in and take the crops. Sometimes, like the abovementioned example illustrates, the mere presence of different street-oriented individuals in the local neighborhood would result in temporary joint criminal endeavors. For other residents from the neighborhood, the h200d office was the place where more long-time partnerships started. Majid, for example, grew up in the neighborhood, and was never part of the gang. The first time we met, he was talking to Raymond in the h200d office. As I walked into the neighborhood, I greeted Raymond who then introduced me to Majid by saying: “Ohh this is Roks by the way, he’s writing a book about the neighborhood. This is a criminologist.” Majid laughed and responded: “I’m a criminal, haha. I’m kidding, but not really.” On different occasions during my fieldwork, Majid would visit the h200d office to talk to Raymond about potentially promising illegal business ventures or criminal contacts. Conversely, Raymond at times summoned Majid to the h200d office to discuss opportunities that needed his specific expertise or his network. Individuals from the neighborhood did not just used their proximity to the members of the Crips to discuss not only business opportunities but also for advice and their (street) knowledge. For instance, in May of 2013, Önder—who grew up in neighborhood—asked Raymond’s advice on the purchase of a gun. Önder had the opportunity to buy a gun from someone he went to high school with, but he was uncertain about the price and the overall condition of the gun. When discussing the

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specifics of the fireweapon and the ammunition, Raymond walked over to his training coat on one of the concrete benches and showed Önder a firearm the size of the palm of his hand. He explained that the weapon had a chamber for the bullets, just like the description Önder gave of the gun. After disclosing that the gun would cost 750 euros, Raymond stated: “A normal price for a .32 revolver is 1100. We’re talking about that Wild West shit, right? That cowboy shit, right? Then 750 is a good price.” Although this seemed to reassure Önder, he also agreed that Raymond would take a look at the gun to make sure it was real.

Employees of the h200d Office At the start of my fieldwork in 2011, the Crips consisted of 50 members, predominantly from Surinamese and Antillean descent who frequent the h200d office. Some of these members had been part of the gang since the late 1980s. This first generation of Crip members—like Raymond and Rick—consisted of relatives and childhood friends. Others could, depending on their age and number of years in the gang, be seen as second- or third-generation Crips. Most of them joined the gang after meeting Raymond or other first-generation members on the streets or after spending time in prison with Raymond. For these members, their position in the hierarchy of the gang was often related to their age, the years they had been part of the Crips, and their criminal reputation. To signal these power differences in the gang, older members—often the first-generation of Crips—would usually be referred to as OGs (original gangsters). For the younger members, it was much more difficult to determine their position in the gang’s hierarchy, also because the changing composition of the seemingly tight-knit gang. Sometimes, out of the blue new members would appear in the h200d office. For instance, the brothers Rishi and Faisel once approached Raymond when we were training in a local gym, because they had an altercation with some Moroccan youngsters and needed backup. Because they were friends with a younger member of the Crips—who at that time was sentenced to 6 years in prison for threating a tram conductor with a firearm—Raymond invited them to come to the h200d. In the weeks after that first interaction, Rishi and Faisel visited the h200d office and, eventually, even joined the gang. However, first they had to show their heart and loyalty to the gang, among other things by engaging in a practice called h200d patrol by positioning themselves around the various entry points between blocks of houses and “guard” the h200d office (Roks, 2019). Furthermore, Rishi and Faisel had to show their loyalty to the gang by getting a large tattoo. In addition to word of mouth, the Crips’ media presence also seemed a way to recruit new members. Over the years, the Dutch Crips have been in the spotlight of both local and national media and featured in articles in popular magazines (Van Stapele, 1998; Viering, 1994), and they were the focus of a book (van Stapele, 2003) and a documentary (Van der Valk, 2009). The media imagery surrounding the Dutch Crips drew some young people with to the h200d office:

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From there, I saw some movies online, like with the Crips in The Hague. So, I am a guy, I am kinda what you call a research guy. I asked around, made friends, so it took me about two months and then I got the location where they hang out. … My friend told me he’d bring me there. First it was difficult. Uh Rick, you know Rick right? He didn’t want me in the hood, he say: yeah this dude looks like a bitch-nigga. I don’t want him in the hood. So I had to prove man. I had to prove a lot man. (Interview with Paul, November 6, 2013)

In the summer of 2011, Simon—a small, white male who dressed in all blue— cycled through the neighborhood almost every night. Like Paul, Simon also wanted to put in work for the Crips. Normally, he would just pass the Crips, but his day he got of his bike. With his bike still clamped between his legs, he started greeting Dré, Jayden, Marvin, and Rick. He looked rather nervous, and after he greeted everyone, he asked Rick: “Can we talk for a minute?” Rick, who was sitting on one of the concrete benches, made Simon repeat his question by saying “What?” Simon restated his question, but when he was in the middle of his sentence, Rick interjected him by saying: “Talk? We’re not going to talk. Dré, talk to this man.” Dré then took Simon aside and talked to him for a couple of minutes. When Dré got back, he informed Rick that Simon expressed a desire to put in work for the gang by selling weed. The presence of the Crips in the neighborhood attracted more young people over the course of the fieldwork. However, most of the employees of the h200d office were introduced by already active gang members. For example, Dré was introduced by Quincy, and Tyrell was brought to the h200d by Jayden, someone he knew from the street. Tyrell, in turn, introduced his friend Daniel. At that time, Daniel was selling cocaine on the street. When his regular connection was sent to prison, he looked for a new contact to buy his cocaine. Tyrell told him that the h200d office could provide him with the product, and Daniel remembered saying: “So I said: let him hook me up with 25 grams.” Tyrell made an appointment, and Daniel bought the 25 grams from the h200d office. After this transaction, he did some more business with the Crips. When I asked Daniel how he ended up joining the gang, he stated that it was a combination of more opportunities to earn money, interesting new contacts on the street, and “back-up in case of problems.” Despite the many hours I spent near the Crips in the h200d office, it was difficult to estimate the number of active employees. There are about a dozen members I saw several times a week in the h200d office for over a year. Some only frequented once a week, and other only came by a few times a month. Their physical presence in the h200d office was closely related to their role in the gang, as well as their school activities and, for some, their regular work schedule. To keep an overview of the active gang members, Raymond kept a so-called “roll call” in his phone: a list of names of Crips that were part of the gang. In the summer of 2011, Raymond’s list had almost 40 names on it. Because of conflicts within the gang that will be discussed in the following sections, only a dozen Crip members remained during the final stage of my fieldwork in late 2013.

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The Crips’ Business In the early days of my fieldwork, the Crips were rather cryptic about how they made money on the streets. However, since some of the criminal activities that individual members were involved in were well documented in the media (Viering, 1994; Van Stapele, 2003; Van der Valk, 2009), I was aware of their criminal history of some of my informants. Spending a lot of time with and near my informants gave me some insight into the Crips’ business. The group engaged in serious criminality, including violence and drug trafficking (marijuana and powder cocaine), and several members were incarcerated during my fieldwork for their role in stabbings, assaulting police officers, weapons charges, and possession of illegal narcotics. Unlike their involvement in violent criminality, my informants would be rather open about running different weed plantations in the city, and these activities were discussed on several occasions in the h200d office. Moreover, it could be deduced in various ways from mutual conversations or observations. Marvin, for example, carried a large keychain and visited different houses in The Hague on his scooter daily. With comments like “I still have to visit that osso [Surinamese word for house, RR], those plants still have to njang [Surinamese word for eating, RR],” he referred to these frequent visits to check in on the nutrition, lighting, and growth of the crops. Furthermore, during the harvesting of the weed crops, several members would typically give off a penetrating odor of weed that had soaked into their clothing and hair. Depending on the quality of the weed, the final product was sold to coffeeshops and criminal contacts or sold in smaller amounts on the streets. One of the unwritten rules was that drug dealing would not take place in the h200d office. However, whenever the opportunity presented itself, weed was sold to residents or passersby. In July 2021, I was sitting on a concrete bench in the h200d office with Quincy—a younger member of the Crips—as we enjoyed some chicken that was cooked by two older Crip members on a barbecue in the h200d office. Two scooters arrived with three young white males who asked: “Where’s the shoppa [Dutch slang for coffeeshop, RR], is it here? We are from Noordwijk and I looked on Google Maps and it said it should be here somewhere. Fly High, do you know that?.” Younger members Tyrell, Reynaldo, and Quincy saw this as an opportunity to move some of their own weed. Tyrell responded: “What do you want? We’ve got what you need right here. We have Amnesia Haze, that’s good right?.” After a brief back and forth, Reynaldo sold 40 euros of weed to the three males on the scooter. After the transaction, one of them asked: “Do you also have discount bags?” Tyrell immediately replied: “Here, take my number, you can always hit me up. We deliver, day and night. We also have cigarettes by the way. 3.50 per pack.” Like Tyrell, other (younger) members of the Crips sold various narcotics on the streets and occasionally also counterfeit cigarettes that they would sell below market prices. Instead of selling the knockoff cigarettes in bulk, younger members of the Crips would roam the streets of The Hague and frequent bars and clubs to sell the counterfeit cigarettes, often combined with weed or cocaine. However, some

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would also make use of technology to sell their products, as indicated by the following message sent by Tyrell: Lil 200 M † NHC 20X10 Gang: If yall need some green Holla @ me main eastside Up !!Bitch nigga Down. Lil 200 M † NHC 20X10 Gang: I have tabaka 3 euros Holla @ me main. Lil 200 M † NHC 20X10 Gang: Green H and malboro 35 euro for carton 3.50 for pack So Holla’. (Tyrell communication via Blackberry ping, July 18, 2012) Using the broadcast functionality of the chat service BlackBerry Ping, Tyrell and several other younger gang members would inform their contact list about the prices of counterfeit “tabaka,” a word used in Dutch street slang to refer to cigarettes, and “green” (marihuana). In addition to the criminal activities that the Crips undertook collectively, such as growing weed and selling counterfeit cigarettes, individual members also had their own business aside from the Crips. Remarkably enough, I learned that within the generally tight-knit Crips, there was a lack of clarity about how various members made their money. Just after his release from prison in 2011, Raymond made this clear to me while we were working out in a local gym, stating: “Only a handful of people on the set know how I make my money. Just Rick and a few more.” Moreover, there was no equal distribution of the money that was made by the Crips, which meant that a few of my informants were (partly) dependent on financial support from a wife, girlfriend, or their parents. Others collected unemployment benefits or had regular jobs to guarantee the necessary income to make ends meet. During my fieldwork, it became apparent that Raymond was the leader and that he played a vital role in the Crips’ business. He was always involved in a myriad of (criminal) activities, with both members of the Crips but also with different people from outside of the gang: Raymond looks absent. He greets me, but immediately looks back at the screen of his phone. I hear a lot of beeps and Raymond is busy sending different text messages. Without looking up from his screen, he says: “We are just selling a few kilos.” He mentions that he almost sold the coke yesterday, but that the deal fell through at the last minute: it was good quality, but too bitter according to the customer. Raymond utters that it’s been really hard on the street lately, much harder than it used to be, because there’s a lot more competition now. “Then deals fall through because the coke is too bitter, or that it is not shiny enough, that kind of bullshit. In the past, if you had something, you could sell it right away.” (Excerpt from fieldwork notes, August 8, 2013)

What struck me during my research was the different types of crimes the Crips were involved in, both as a collective and individually. Rather than specializing, the Crips seemed to engage in a variety of different criminal activities. When I spoke about this observation to Raymond, he explained that the frequently changing criminal activities of the Crips were rooted in the Surinamese culture of hustling. This street-­ oriented lifestyle originated in Suriname and refers to all kinds of everyday, creative ways to earn money, often outside of the confines of the law (Buiks, 1983; Sansone,

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1992). However, this is a not an exclusively Surinamese phenomenon. For instance, Valentine (1978) uses “hustling” to refer to “a wide variety of unconventional, sometimes extralegal or illegal activities, often frowned upon by the wider community but widely accepted and practiced in the slums and ghettos of large cities” (Valentine, 1978: 23). Moreover, according to Wacquant (1998) hustling should be interpreted more broadly as a range of survival strategies without a specific specialization that often take place outside the formal framework of the law. In addition to this cultural explanation, Raymond also stresses that switching up criminal activities was a conscious choice: he argued that engaging in certain forms of crime for a longer period of time would result in too much attention from the police. Therefore, by changing their business activities every now and then, Raymond and the Crips try to stay out of the sight of law enforcement agencies. However, as the next section will illustrate, this way of conducting business also has its downsides.

Business Problems in the h200d Office Since the beginning of our contact—dating back to late 2004 (Roks, 2021)— Raymond has urged me to finalize my research because the Crips were about “to make it big,” referring to the fact the Crips were on the verge of making a lot of money so that they could leave the street and the street level crimes they were involved in. To that end, Raymond put a lot of energy into establishing connections with the legal world. For instance, he did business with people who owned car shops or restaurants, but he also spoke about having friends who were in real estate. Moreover, he tried to take over a local gym, and he alluded to helping a few local entrepreneurs with short-term private (illegal) loans. In addition, he also registered with the Chamber of Commerce to set up a legal business. However, the big break for the Crips did not come during my fieldwork, but there were moments I got the feeling that things were going rather well. For example, during 2012, Raymond purchased two expensive BMWs that were given a visible spot in the h200d office. Furthermore, Raymond and other informants showcased large amounts of cash money on their profile pictures on their phones and on social media. At other times, however, there seemed to be a lack of money: Raymond: Cuzz, a strange question but I’d rather ask you than other people. Raymond: But I need 5000 before Friday. Raymond: I’ll give you 6000 back. Raymond: I know you’re not very rich either, but I have to save a big investment. (Raymond communication via WhatsApp, April 2, 2014). When I told Raymond that I could not help him, he reiterated that “every little bit helps.” A few days later, he let me know that he collected the money and was able to save his investment.

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My fieldwork shed light on several factors that seemed to limit the Crips in financially succeeding in their criminal businesses. A first reason was a limited criminal specialization, something that became apparent in the Crips’ experience with the cultivation of cannabis crops in houses in The Hague area. Research in the Netherlands shows that the production of cannabis has a rather low threshold for offenders but that the process requires the necessary expertise and skills (Spapens et al., 2007: 57–58). Within the gang, a few older members had the needed knowledge and experiences and were able to set up and maintain weed plantations. Several younger members slept in couches or mattresses in homes where these plantations were located and had the job of protecting the weed from potential rippers and to oversee the growth of the crops. Even though the Crips had set up a routine, with different members having different jobs and tasks in the production process, things regularly went wrong. As I arrived in the neighborhood in May 2012 at around eight o’clock in the evening, I saw Raymond and Rick talking to Dré: Raymond: “Didn’t you see that cuzz?” Dré: “Yeah cuzz, I saw it.” Raymond: “Then why don’t you say anything? You are a kaolo junkie with that jonko. Brada, leave that shit alone. You’re not cool, you’re a busta. That’s not cool. Smoking all day long. And then niggas wonder how they lose money?” (Excerpt from fieldwork notes, May 4, 2012). In the h200d office, Dré—one of the younger members—was yelled at by Raymond and Rick and called names like “busta” and “punk.” From their conservation, I could deduce that Dré had the responsibility over the growth of the crops, but that he messed up. A few days after this incident, Dré approached me in the neighborhood. He informed me that the house he stayed at was raided by the police, and that they took all his clothes and also confiscated some of the DVDs he borrowed. After I told him that he didn’t have to worry about the DVDs and that I felt bad that all his clothes were gone, he muttered “It is what it is, cuzz.” In 2012, several of the plantations operated by members of the Crips were dismantled by the police due to leaks, power outages, penetrating weed odors, and noise complaints. In addition, (parts of the) crops were stolen by people who rented or owned the houses that the Crips used for the installation of the weed plantations. Because of these business problems, the Crips lost a lot of money. In June 2013, I spoke to Rick and Marvin about these issues. Rick, who was normally not that eager to talk about the criminal activities of the Crips, said: “Last year, we lost 1000 kilograms of weed.” Moreover, they also lost all kinds of material like filters and equipment because of different police raids. Marvin stated that “We’re nowhere near what we had Rick, but we broke even.” Rick claimed that the Crips lost money— even though Marvin kept disagreeing with him—because the younger members were not doing their jobs: “Because not everyone is tight. Just like those pipos who were here [Rick refers to the members who left the set after conflicts at the end of 2012, RR]. They go upstairs with a hundred people in a house. There was like five or six kilos lying there. Thirty-five, forty doezoe, just gone!” In addition to problems with the police, the Crips encountered the problem that, at times, they produced

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poor-quality weed, making it difficult to sell the drugs not only in bulk but also on the streets. In conversation with the younger members of the Crips, I was made aware of their perspective on the business problems. From early 2012 onward, different younger members started to voice their feelings of discontent about the inner workings of the gang. In the summer of 2012, several members up and left the gang after being disillusioned with the gang life experience (Roks, 2018). After their departure, former members talked rather openly about the nature of the criminal activities they were involvement in and also the circumstances surrounding these criminal endeavors. Younger members were forced to stay at houses where the Crips cultivated marijuana, not only supervising the growth but also protecting the yields from being stolen. Others had to help during the harvesting of the cannabis or sold the product on the streets. Some, however, saw this as “child’s play” and wanted to do “grown man shit,” as former member Fernando explained to me. Next to their communal criminal activities, some individual members sold drugs on the streets. One day, I spoke to former members Daniel, Tyrell, and Pedro about their experiences with selling drugs. They started laughing and dishing up stories about the bad quality of the narcotics they had to sell. For instance, Tyrell told a story about weed that was so old and dry that he simply could not sell it. Pedro had a similar experience: he was once given speed to sell as coke on the street. Daniel also gave examples of poor-quality drugs that he tried to sell. One time, Raymond gave him some cocaine to sell on the street. Daniel explained that usually when you put coke on a spoon and heat it, part of it will evaporate, and some of the coke will get hard. When the remaining part hardens, Daniel explained, you know it is good-­ quality coke. However, the cocaine Daniel had gotten from Raymond did not get hard, but it became “some crazy toothpaste.” His regular customers complained about the poor quality, and he was not able to sell all his product. When he addressed this problem, older members said, “If you are a good hustler, you can sell anything.” Most of the problems among the younger gang members related to the disillusionment with Dutch gang life. More specifically, these problems seemed to stem from having to “put in work for the gang” but not being financially compensated for it. Looking back, Fernando stated: If you’re protecting this guy all day, watching his back, opening doors and shit, then you’re a goon, right? And goons have to get paid, right? Real talk: I’d do that, if I would get paid for it. If there’s some money in my pocket every day, it’s a different story right there. But I’m not playing a goon without getting paid. (March 23, 2013, interview with Fernando)

A central theme in the stories told by former members was the notion of unbalanced reciprocity, not just in terms of the distribution of money but also in terms of respect. According to the members that left the Crips, these circumstances were at the heart of their disillusionment about Dutch gang life. Younger members encountered a lack of financial compensation for the work they put in for the gang, which in the long run outweighed the benefits associated with being part of the Crips (Roks, 2018). After members of the Crips started to leave the gang from the summer of 2012, the business problems of the Crips were discussed openly in the h200d office.

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However, also other people who frequented the h200d office talk about the issues that haunted the business endeavors of Crips. Majid, for instance, visited the h200d office in August of 2012. As he waited for Raymond, we started up a brief conversation. Looking at the younger members of the Crips in the h200d office, he said: They really can’t do anything. They don’t know how to steal. They don’t know how to cook [crack cocaine, RR]. They don’t know the price of weed. They don’t know who’s a big player in the weed game. They don’t know the price of a pony pack. They don’t know anything. All knowledge stays with one man, I don’t get that. That’s not going to work, right? (August 8, 2012, conversation with Majid)

In the past, as Majid explained more than a week prior to the abovementioned conversation, he did do business with Daniel. For example, Majid was the one who supplied Daniel with bullets and a bulletproof vest. However, this collaboration ended when Daniel joined the Crips. When I asked Majid why no longer wanted to work with Daniel, he answered: Because now it’s not just him anymore, right? You are no longer only doing business with him, now you suddenly have to share that doekoe [Dutch street slang for money, RR]. But my friend, when I do something, I do it alone. I want a piece of that saaf [Dutch street slang for money, RR], right? Of course, you must share with people you did business with, that’s normal. But not also with other people, are you crazy asahbi? [Arabic for friend, RR] (07/26/2012, conversation with Majid)

As I spend more time in the h200d office, I got a better understanding of the way Raymond ran the Crips. He was the leader and virtually made all business decisions, leaving little room for input from other. Jermaine, an older former member who was Raymond’s road dog for a long time, also complained about his: I’ve ALWAYS tried to make it clear to Raymond in the past that you shouldn’t jack everyone…in the long run it pays off…that’s how Tarik has become so big…people saw he was reliable and he got more and more … only he should have stopped in time. (Jermaine, conversation via Whatsapp, October 28, 2013)

Jermaine outlines a rather opportunistic and parasitic way of operating by Raymond. In the short run, this provided financial benefits. However, this way of conducting criminal business limited building a reputation as a reliable business partner. Tarik, who Jermaine refers to, was also part of the Crips in the past. With the same contacts as Raymond, Tarik worked his way up and over the years supposedly made a lot of money in the international drug trade. On the social media account of Tarik, the pictures in penthouses, in fancy sport cars, on big yachts, and with expensive watches on his wrist seem to indicate that he is indeed living a rather prosperous life in the United Arab Emirates.

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Conclusion This chapter dealt with the depiction by the Dutch Crips of their local neighborhood as a “h200d office.” From a “crime as work” perspective (Letkemann, 1973), this metaphor was used not only to shed light on the applicability of conventional career concepts to the case of the Dutch Crips but also to examine the local embeddedness of this gang from the Netherlands and their criminal activities. First, the idea of the h200d office speaks to the local roots of the Dutch Crips. Since the early 1980s, a small neighborhood in the city of The Hague has been the home base of the Dutch Crips. This “h200d” constitutes an important part of the gang’s (group) identity (Roks, 2019). Over the years, their presence in the neighborhood has transformed a square behind a local Youth Center into an “office”: a physical space where (criminal) contacts from inside and outside the neighborhood would meet to discuss ongoing and future criminal activities, exemplifying what Felson (2006) describes as an “offender convergence setting.” In that sense, the h200d office resembles earlier conceptualizations of parts of the urban space as a “bazaar” (Ruggiero & South, 1997; Ruggiero, 2000) or a “marketplace” (Huisman et al., 2003; Kleemans, 2012). Second, the metaphor of the h200d office sheds light on the local embeddedness of the Dutch Crips. Historically, the Dutch Crips were a group of brothers, relatives, and friends from the local neighborhood in The Hague. Over the years, the composition of the gang changed: friends of friends joined the set, and prison became a place where new members were recruited. This has resulted in a gang that no longer consists of just local gang members but sees members stemming from different parts of The Hague and in some cases even from different cities (Roks, 2018). One of the reasons for joining this Dutch gang was the prospect of “putting in work” and making money as an employee of the h200d office. For most of the gang members, the h200d office provide them with criminal opportunities. However, the business endeavors of the Dutch Crips described in this chapter also signal the limits of their local embeddedness. Although being part of a gang may promote trust—something that is essential for groups engaging in illegal activities (Densley, 2012; Van de Bunt & Kleemans, 2007)—this strength of strong ties might also result in encapsulated networks (Granovetter, 1983). Specifically, this chapter illustrates that Dutch Crips can be seen as “local heroes” (Kleemans et al., 2002: 74–75; Kleemans & De Poot, 2008: 81), operating from the local h200d office and without the needed “weak ties” to bridge structural holes (Burt, 1992). However, the Dutch Crips are not just local heroes because of the composition of the gang: their lack of criminal specialization also plays an important part. Over the years, the Crips have dabbled in a variety of different criminal activities, illustrating what Klein (1995: 132) describes as “cafeteria style offending”: “a little of this, a touch of that, two attempts at something else” (Klein, 1995: 22). According to the Dutch Crips, this lack of criminal specialization is rooted in the (Surinamese) street culture of hustling. Moreover, they claim that their changing criminal activities also contribute to a lack of problems with Dutch law enforcement agencies over the years. Although this explains their longevity as a street gang, this chapter also

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illustrates that their lack of criminal specialization has also perpetuated their status of local heroes when it comes to their criminal activities. Finally, the “crime as work” perspective also directed attention to some of the business problems experiences by employees of the h200d office. After some members of the Crips were dissatisfied with the inner workings of the gang, especially when it came to making money, they left the gang (Roks, 2018). As illustrated in this chapter and bearing in mind the “ingenuity” and “organized-crime fallacy” (Felson, 2002: 11–13), the conventional career concepts used throughout chapter do not imply that the criminal activities carried out by the Dutch Crips are necessarily planned, well-organized, or carried out in a professional manner. In fact, several problems related to the business endeavors of the Crips and the business experiences of the employees of the h200d office were highlighted, some of which mirror the everyday struggles experiences in regular jobs. As shown throughout this chapter, problems with upper management, issues related to payment, and a general dissatisfaction with work also apply to crime as work. However, there are important differences between these legal and illegal jobs. Therefore, in future research, it would be worthwhile to examine in further detail the impact and consequences of employee dissatisfaction and work-related conflicts when it comes to crime as work.

References Buiks, P. E. J. (1983). Surinaamse jongeren op de Kruiskade. Overleven in een etnische randgroep. Van Loghum Slaterus B.V. Burt, R. S. (1992). Structural holes. Harvard University Press. Densley, J.  A. (2012). Street gang recruitment: Signaling, screening, and selection. Social Problems, 59(3), 301–321. Fagan, J., & Freeman, R. B. (1999). Crime and work. Crime and Justice, 225–290. Felson, M. (2002). Crime and everyday life. Pine Forge Press. Felson, M. (2006). The ecosystem for organized crime, HEUNI paper No. 26. Helsinki: HEUNI. Granovetter, M. (1983). The strength of weak ties: A network theory revisited. Sociological Theory, 1, 201–223. Hobbs, D. (1998). Going down the glocal: The local context of organised crime. The Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, 37(4), 407–422. Huisman, W., Huikeshoven, M., Van de Bunt, H.  G., & Boelens, G.  I. (2003). Marktplaats Amsterdam: Op zoek naar de zwakste schakel in de logistiek van criminele processen aan de hand van Amsterdamse rechercheonderzoeken. Boom Juridische Uitgevers. Kleemans, E. R. (2012). Georganiseerde misdaad en de zichtbare hand. Boom Lemma Uitgevers. Kleemans, E. R., & De Poot, C. J. (2008). Criminal careers in organized crime and social opportunity structure. European Journal of Criminology, 5, 69–98. Kleemans, E.  R., & van de Bunt, H.  G. (1999). The social embeddedness of organized crime. Transnational Organized Crime, 5(1), 19–36. Kleemans, E. R., Brienen, M. E. I., & van de Bunt, H. G. (2002). Georganiseerde criminaliteit in Nederland. Ttweede rapportage op basis van de WODC-monitor. [Organised crime in the Netherlands. Second report based on the WODC monitor]. WODC. Klein, M.  W. (1995). The American street gang: Its nature, prevalence, and control. Oxford University Press. Letkemann, P. (1973). Crime as work. Prentice-Hall.

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Polsky, N. (1967). Hustlers, beats and others. Aldine. Roks, R. A. (2018). Crip or die? Gang disengagement in the Netherlands. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 47(5), 695–716. Roks, R. A. (2019). In the ‘h200d’: Crips and the intersection between space and identity in the Netherlands. Crime, Media, Culture, 15, 3–23. Roks, R. A. (2021). “I showed you what I thought was appropriate”: Reflections on longitudinal ethnographic research and the performativity of Dutch gang life. Conflict and Society, 7(1), 175–191. Roks, R. A., & Densley, J. A. (2020). From breakers to bikers: The evolution of the Dutch Crips ‘gang. Deviant Behavior, 41, 525–542. https://doi.org/10.1080/01639625.2019.1572301 Ruggiero, V. (2000). Crime and markets. Essays in anti-criminology. Oxford University Press. Ruggiero, V., & South, N. (1997). The late-modern city as a bazaar: Drug markets, illegal enterprise and the ‘barricades’. British Journal of Sociology, 54–70. Sansone, L. (1992). Schitteren in de schaduw. Overlevingsstrategieën, subcultuur en etniciteit van Creoolse jongeren uit de lagere klasse in 1981–1990. Het Spinhuis. Spapens, A. C. M., van de Bunt, H. G., Rastovac, L., & Sueiro, C. M. (2007). De wereld achter de wietteelt. Boom Juridische Uitgevers. Sullivan, M.  L. (1989). “Getting paid”: Youth crime and work in the Inner City. Cornell University Press. Valasik, M., & Tita, G. (2018). Gangs and space. In G. Bruinsma & S. Johnson (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of environmental criminology. OUP. Valentine, B. (1978). Hustling and other hard work: Life styles in the ghetto. Free Press. Van de Bunt, H.  G., Siegel, D., & Zaitch, D. (2014). The social embeddedness of organized crime. In L.  Paoli (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of organized crime (pp.  321–339). Oxford University Press. Van der Valk, J. (2009). Strapped ‘n Strong. https://revolver.nl/film-­tv/2120/crips-­strapped-­n-­ strong. (Accessed 30 June 2021). Van Stapele, S. (1998). Crips. Nieuwe Revu, 43–47. Van Stapele, S. (2003). Crips.nl: 15 jaar Gangcultuur in Nederland [Crips.nl: 15 years of gang culture in the Netherlands]. Vassalucci. Viering, P. (1994). “Straatroof, Inbraak, Doodslag.” [street robbery, burglary, and manslaughter]. Panorama, 3, 37–42. Wacquant, L. (1998). Inside the zone. The social art of the hustler in the black American ghetto. Theory, Culture & Society, 15(2), 1–36. Van de Bunt, H. G., & Kleemans, E. R. (2007). Georganiseerde criminaliteit in Nederland. Derde rapportage op basis van de Monitor Georganiseerde Criminaliteit. Boom Juridische Uitgevers.

Chapter 9

Contract Killings by Organised Crime Groups: The Spread of Deadly Violence Barbra van Gestel

Introduction Over the past decade, the Netherlands has been shaken by dozens of violent contract killings carried out by organised crime groups. It started with a double murder in Amsterdam in 2012, which saw bullets hitting random cars and houses, which were also aimed at police officers. The motive for this contract killing was the disappearance of a shipment of cocaine in the Port of Antwerp, which was followed by a kidnapping and torture and the targeted shooting of a Dutch citizen in Antwerp. This, in turn, resulted in the double contract killing in Amsterdam. In the wave of contract killings that followed, murders were committed on both sides of competing drugs organisations. This conflict took place against the background of international cocaine trafficking, and its main participants became known as the ‘Mocro maffia’ (Laumans & Schrijver, 2015).1 Many hitmen and key players of criminal organisations involved in this ‘Mocro war’ have since been arrested and prosecuted. A number of suspects have been convicted, and several major criminal trials were underway at the time of writing this chapter. In the summer of 2021, almost 10 years after the double murder in Amsterdam, there was a fatal attack on a prominent Dutch crime reporter.2 A few years earlier, a crown witness’s lawyer had been murdered. This crown witness plays an important  People of Moroccan descent are overrepresented in these groups, although a considerable proportion of members are also of other backgrounds and particularly of Dutch and Antillean origin. 2  This concerns the murder of Peter R. de Vries on 6 July 2021. As well as being a journalist, De Vries was also confidential adviser to a major crown witness in criminal proceedings. 1

B. van Gestel (*) Research and Documentation Centre of the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Safety (WODC), The Hague, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_9

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role in major ongoing criminal trials against a criminal organisation suspected of committing contract killings. The crown witness’s brother, who was not a member of the criminal organisation, had already been murdered earlier. These assassinations of people outside of the criminal world have deeply shocked Dutch society and placed the issue of organised drugs crime high on the political agenda. Although contract killings are not a new phenomenon in the Netherlands – the Dutch anthropologist Van de Port conducted a study on this subject as far back as 20013 – and there has been a decrease in the number of killings recently, there are signs that the nature of the offence is changing. New developments include the increasing use of excessive gun violence in the streets, reckless public shootings and the growing number of victims who were not involved in organised crime but had the misfortune to be killed by a stray bullet. This chapter describes recent developments in the nature of the phenomenon of contract killings in the Netherlands. By ‘recent developments’, we refer to changes over the last 10 years, namely, the period from 2012 to 2021. Before addressing the main developments, I will first briefly describe changes in the international drugs trade, since this is the backdrop against which contract killings occur.

Sources and Research Methods The analysis in this chapter is based on various sources and methods. In-depth interviews were conducted with police officers and public prosecutors. These officers have a wealth of knowledge about this phenomenon due to their close involvement in investigations into contract killings.4 We also consulted various confidential police documents based on operational investigative information. Public sources were also used: 4  days of hearings were attended (in 2016 and 2021) at the Amsterdam District Court where suspects were being tried for involvement in contract killings, court rulings were studied and investigative journalism publications were consulted along with other literature. To conclude this introduction, the following should also be noted. In recent years, investigators have succeeded in hacking a vast number of encrypted text messages from what are known as ‘pretty good privacy’ (PGP) phones. Organised crime groups often use these encrypted phones for internal communication, including during the preparation and execution of contract killings. Criminal groups believed that these encrypted telephones protected them from detection and that they could therefore operate unobserved. But after the seizure of four servers belonging to crypto communication providers, police were able to retroactively decrypt and read these messages. This gave investigators a major new source of information that could  van de Port (2001). See also Roks (2017).  The interviews with investigating officers were conducted in two rounds: in 2016 and in 2020/2021. For a detailed justification of the methodology used, see van Gestel and Verhoeven (2017a) and Van Gestel and Kouwenberg (2021). 3 4

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serve as evidence in criminal proceedings. Access to these encrypted messages has also provided academics with a better understanding of how principals communicate and thus the context in which contract killings are ordered, the methods employed by organised crime groups and the potential motives, which together has led to new insights. The encrypted text messages go back to around 2014. The analysis in this chapter is partly based on knowledge derived from these messages. We obtained information about the text messages via interviews with investigating officers, during hearings, from rulings, from police documents and from media reports and investigative journalism sources. The next section of this chapter first briefly describes developments in the drug market, with a particular focus on the growth in international cocaine trafficking. We then look at three identified developments: (1) the crude and sloppy methods used by hitmen, (2) the spread of excessive violence by the leaders of organised crime groups and (3) subdivision of labour, remote management and the use of digital technology.

Developments in the Drug Market Recent years have seen a number of developments in the drugs market that form the background to today’s conflicts in the drugs world. Over the last decade, wholesale prices of cocaine and heroin have fallen sharply, while the scale of drugs trafficking has increased. The investigators we interviewed have the impression that more people are now working in the drugs trade in the Netherlands than 20 years ago. At the same time, some of the traditional ‘Dutch criminal networks’ have been eliminated as a result of contract killing or the apprehension of leading figures in the intervening period.5 The resulting vacuum has been filled by new players and groups (for a description of these new groups, see the next section). New criminal groups tend to gravitate towards international cocaine trafficking, which generates exorbitant amounts of money. ‘These are the multimillionaires of today’, according to a crime investigator. One of the signs that cocaine trafficking has increased in scale is the increase in drugs seized. Batches of drugs seized at ports in recent years have greatly exceeded the volumes in previous years. In 2018, 19,000 kg of cocaine were seized; in 2019,

 Drug trafficker Willem Holleeder, who is currently serving a life sentence, is probably the best-­ known example. Since the emergence of international drugs trafficking in the 1970s, the traditional Dutch networks have played a key role in organised crime in the Netherlands, with a primary focus on trafficking in hashish and later also cocaine. This group is based in Amsterdam, and most of its members are of Dutch origin, though people of other descent also form part of the network. Conflicts within this network that have led to contract killings relate to payment problems, extortion, threats and betrayal, presumed or otherwise (Klerks, 2000; Middelburg & Vugts, 2006; Van de Pol & Verweij 2011; Vugts, 2014). 5

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33,000 kg and in 2020, 40,000 kg, and by 2021, this number had risen to 70,000 kg.6 Interviews and literature reveal a number of factors that may explain the increase in cocaine trafficking to the Netherlands. Firstly, political developments in South America, Colombia in particular, have led to a rise in cocaine production and consequently a significant increase in the supply of cocaine from South America.7 Secondly, cocaine consumption has risen in Europe, which is viewed as a potential growth market for cocaine use (EMCDDA, 2019, 2021; Boekhout Van Solinge, 2021; McDermont, 2021).8 Alongside Spain and Belgium, the Netherlands is the main country of destination, from which further distribution to European countries takes place. This is partly due to the Netherlands’ excellent infrastructure and Rotterdam’s status as Europe’s largest port (Staring et al., 2019; Roks et al., 2021; Meeus, 2021). Criminological literature also refers to an unintended consequence of the rise in seizures: rather than inhibiting cocaine production and trafficking or bringing it to a halt, it appears to be stimulating these factors and unintentionally intensifying international cocaine flows (e.g. Paoli et al., 2013). The growth of the international cocaine trade in Europe has been followed by changes to the drug transport routes: existing trafficking routes that were traditionally used for the international transport of hashish from Morocco are now being used by the ‘owners’ of these hashish routes for the trafficking of cocaine. Groups traditionally involved in the international hashish trade have thus applied their knowledge of trafficking routes and their international network to the cocaine trade, a move which has seen their profits rise exponentially. This has enabled new groups of cocaine dealers from the Netherlands and Belgium to expand in a short period of time (Voeten, 2020; Boekhout Van Solinge, 2021). People of a Moroccan ethnic background are overrepresented in these groups.9 However, this does not mean that all cocaine traffickers from the Netherlands with a Moroccan background use the route via Morocco to transport their cocaine. Nor does it mean that these new cocaine networks consist exclusively of people from this ethnic background. People of different origins make up a significant part of these networks, mainly individuals of Dutch, Antillean and Surinamese descent (Laumans & Schrijver, 2015, 2019; Boekhout Van Solinge, 2021).

 www.om.nl/actueel/nieuws/01/10/harc-team  This concerns the introduction of a legal ban on the spraying of coca plants with pesticides (for environmental reasons) and peace agreements with FARC in Colombia, which have resulted in more groups becoming involved in cocaine production (Van der Pol, 2021; Boekhout van Solinge, 2021; McDermott,2021). 8  Europe is now considered the ‘epicentre’ of the international cocaine trade (EMCDDA, 2021). 9  The European Drug Report from 2019 recommends that the growing importance of North Africa and Morocco in particular be recognised in terms of cocaine trafficking to Europe and the same applies to the involvement of Moroccan criminal groups in the European cocaine trade. The advice in this context is to also be aware of links between cocaine and the hashish trade (EMCDDA, 2019). 6 7

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Multi-ethnic and Multi-drugs Alongside new cocaine groups dominated by people of Moroccan origin, various other Dutch criminal networks are active in the international cocaine market. They operate in varying combinations, as best suits the situation. There is Dutch network involvement, caravan dwellers are represented, and motorcycle clubs are also involved in cocaine trafficking, as well as Albanian criminal groups and networks that are dominated by people of a Turkish background. Although a group may primarily consist of members of one ethnic background, most networks can be described as multi-ethnic.10 Moreover, coordination and execution sometimes involve collaboration with people from Eastern Europe, as well as liaisons between leaders in the Netherlands and members of criminal organisations from other countries, such as Italy and Ireland. Meetings between key players in international criminal cocaine organisations take place in  locations like Málaga, which is strategically located between Europe and Africa. Stays abroad are also common, for instance, in Morocco, the United Arab Emirates (Dubai), Ireland and South America. In addition, many criminal networks do not limit themselves to trafficking and dealing just one type of drug, but combine the trade in cocaine with other narcotics. The trafficking, dealing and production of other drugs such as heroin, cannabis and synthetic drugs have continued throughout the past decade but is now more often combined. Long-standing distinctions between groups, based on drug type and group type, are much less clear today.

The Drug Market and Contract Killings Contract killings by organised crime groups in the Netherlands in the past decade can be linked to various drugs markets and different criminal networks. In addition to contract killings and assassination attempts perpetrated by new cocaine groups, targeted killings have also been committed by criminal groups active in the heroin market and the cannabis trade. However, contract killings that are more conspicuous in terms of the use of violence can often be linked to new groups of cocaine dealers, in contrast to the contract killings committed by other drugs circuits, which generally attract less attention. The conspicuous contract killings by these new groups are also characterised by a different modus operandi, as we will discuss below.

 In addition to leaders and central frameworks of organised crime groups, there may be a different social and ethnic composition at the grassroots level. For example, the past year has seen ‘uithalers’ (individuals tasked by an organised crime group with illicitly removing drugs from a shipping container in advance of customs checks) in the ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp originating from Amsterdam Southeast and in many cases of Antillean descent. Eastern European labour migrants are employed in laboratories that produce synthetic drugs. 10

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In this chapter, we report new developments. These new developments are principally associated with new criminal groups that have become active in the cocaine market. For this reason, this chapter focuses on those groups in which new developments are taking place. This chapter therefore does not presume to give a representative picture of all contract killings perpetrated by organised crime groups in the Netherlands in recent years, but instead focuses on changes and developments.

Spotters, Hitmen and Murder Brokers The criminal script that is usually followed to commit a contract killing can be divided into different phases: ordering the killing, preparation, execution, escape and cool down. According to this schedule, the principal approaches an intermediary, known as a ‘murder broker’, who then looks for people who can prepare and execute the assassination. This broker can contact specialist groups that take on a murder as a ‘job’. A number of executive groups that specialise in carrying out assassinations have come to prominence in the Netherlands in recent years, such as motorcycle gangs. It is more common now than in the past to have a clear division of tasks between ‘spotters’ and hitmen. The spotters gather information on the potential victim’s routes, whereabouts and security in advance. Other preparations are also made in this phase, such as the theft of vehicles needed for the murder, false number plates and obtaining firearms and ammunition. Investigators have the impression that preparing for contract killings has become a business in itself, an industry that has become a specialist area and for which a market exists. This type of executive murder group was central to a criminal trial in 2016, with the public prosecutor referring in its closing argument to ‘an employment agency for murders to order’.11 We will come back to the division of tasks later in this chapter. Once the preparations are complete, the hitmen can carry out the murder.

The Crude and Sloppy Methods Used by Hitmen The threshold for contract killings seems to have become lower, and there appears to be a larger group of people who are willing to commit a murder in exchange for payment. Hitmen are increasingly home grown. In other words, they are not ‘flown in’ from abroad but were born and raised in the Netherlands. According to investigators, they have little previous involvement in organised crime, but they do, however, usually already have experience of other types of violent crime such as burglaries, (armed) robberies and shooting incidents, and some have risen up through criminal

11

 The ‘26Koper’ criminal trial.

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youth gangs. In terms of the lower threshold, there seems to be a greater willingness to use firearm violence, which is a quick way to make money. Also, committing a murder appears to have a status-enhancing effect, at least so investigators believe. Shows of strength seem to play a role, and relatively young hitmen appear to identify with ‘Mafia film stars’. Investigations reveal that some hitmen posted photos of themselves on social media with weapons and bags of money. Another striking aspect of contract killings perpetrated by organised crime groups in the last decade is the frequent use of automatic weapons. Although weapons such as Kalashnikovs or Scorpions have become more easily available in the Netherlands, using them requires a certain level of skill, something that many of the new hitmen in the Netherlands do not seem to possess. They are not used to handling such weapons and often have to fire off multiple rounds before successfully hitting their mark. Moreover, in recent years, a larger number of assassinations have taken place in broad daylight and in public spaces, including locations where a large number of people were present. On several occasions, bullets have flown through streets and public spaces, seriously endangering random passers-by and local residents. The hitmen seem to accept this collateral damage. Their crude and sloppy methods are also demonstrated by the fact that they sometimes shoot the wrong person. There has been at least one case of mistaken identity almost every year since 2013, because the victim resembled the target, drove the same type of vehicle or lived in the same block of flats or in the same area. This sloppiness and ‘overkill of violence’ is particularly apparent in cases of hitmen acting on the instructions of the new generation of cocaine traffickers. Previously, the preference was for more experienced hitmen, who needed fewer bullets to hit their target. Some jobs were assigned to experienced individuals from the Netherlands who were part of the criminal group. Others were assigned to people who had gained experience with weapons in former war zones, such as former militiamen from Yugoslavia. Experienced hitmen flown in from abroad also stayed in the Netherlands for some time to familiarise themselves with the target’s routes and whereabouts. The crude and sloppy methods displayed by today’s hitmen can be explained in part by their inexperience, combined with the wide availability of heavy fully automatic firearms. However, information from hacked text messages on communication about contract killings shows that the hitmen’s sloppy work can also be attributed to the methods of the principals.12 On the one hand, principals have adopted a crude and intimidating approach that is reflected in the broadening of the target at whom excessive violence is aimed. On the other hand, remote management through the use of digital technology and the division of tasks also plays a role. In the next section, we first look at the crude methods used by the leaders of criminal organisations, reflected in the spread of excessive violence. We then go on to discuss the link between management (use of digital technology) and the sloppy execution.

12

 These principals often have a leading role in international drug trafficking.

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The Spread of Deadly Violence The encrypted text messages show that the principals have an indifferent attitude towards ordering contract killings. Officers who were interviewed reported that they had observed a lack of regard for human life, combined with a sense of urgency, impatience and the apparent ease with which assassinations are sometimes ordered. An attitude of indifference is also evident in the response to mistaken identity killings. As described by an investigating officer based on text messages: I sometimes get the feeling that an extra death or two really don’t matter, so to speak (…) From the conversations you see, you get the impression that they are not at all concerned that the wrong person has been shot dead. Other than it's annoying because they need to go out again. (…) and the person they should have got has been warned and will therefore go into hiding. That’s the response you see. Not: oh, how terrible, we got the wrong person, but mainly oh, how terrible that we got the wrong person, because that means the right person er… [is aware of the assassination plan].

However, we do not know how principals previously talked about contract killings, because investigators had much less access to these communications in the past. It is entirely possible that the attitude of indifference is not new, but merely more visible due to the availability of chat messages. It is true, however, that this attitude towards taking a life is reflected not only in the intercepted text messages but also in the spread of deadly violence to a broader target group. Interviews and case reports illustrate a sliding scale in this broader application of violence, and we can roughly distinguish three different categories in which this becomes apparent. The first category concerns members of the organisation’s own ranks who are punished for their behaviour – the contract killing as an internal punishment and to keep other members of the group in line. In the second instance, it appears that in the case of some contract killings, a deliberate choice was made to kill the victim in front of their children or other family members in order to intimidate other criminals and society in general. Thirdly, targeted deadly violence is being extended to circles outside the criminal world, to include people who are not part of the criminal underworld. These three categories are discussed in more detail below.

Sacrifice of ‘Own’ People In the first instance, members of organised crime groups seem to be at greater risk of assassination if, for example, they have made a mistake or are viewed by those in charge as a potential risk. The element of ‘revenge’ appears to feature highly on the current list of motives behind contract killings. The idea that a contract killing is a ‘last resort’ for resolving conflicts and that the criminal organisation first tries to use less extreme measures, such as threats, assault or kidnapping, no longer applies if we look at some of the contract killings carried out in the past decade. Assassinations have also been employed as an internal punishment or a means of retaliation within the criminal group, without first seeking a less extreme solution. According to a public prosecutor:

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What I find to be typical, and what I consider the difference between [old networks] and [new networks] is the ease with which murders are committed. (…) It used to be that, before someone was murdered, penalties were first imposed on people within the network itself and they were given the opportunity to do something good for the [criminal] organisation, so a lot more happened before someone was eventually murdered. If someone was a massive threat to the organisation or to an individual, only then were they assassinated, whereas I see within the current [criminal networks] that assassinations can be ordered for very little reason. And that the decision to commit a murder is made to show that the leadership is not to be messed with.

‘Own’ people within the criminal network itself are killed for relatively minor mistakes to show that those at the top of an organised crime group are ‘not to be messed with’, to intimidate people and as a show of power.13 In this context, there appears to be a culture of score settling within criminal associations, driven mainly by a desire for revenge and the need to display a show of power. This ties in with what the Dutch anthropologist Van de Port calls a violent ‘performance’. Van de Port understood contract killings by organised crime groups within the context of the leadership establishing a violent reputation within their own organisation (2001: 99). The principle of trust, usually key to successful criminal collaboration within organised crime, appears to give way here to mutual distrust, fear and the presence of the threat of targeted deadly violence.14 Whatever the case, loyalty to people within the criminal organisation no longer seems to be the underlying principle in these situations. A disloyal attitude on the part of the leadership towards people from their own group is also reflected in contract killings that need to be carried out quickly and seem to involve sacrificing hitmen. The sometimes rushed execution of killings, with minimal protection, means that hitmen are regularly apprehended by the police. In this context, a judicial officer talks about ‘a calculated risk at the top’, referring to the fact that the principal has already considered the apprehension and long-term detention of hitmen. This risk is accepted, provided that the principal remains out of sight of the criminal investigators.

Intentionally in the Sight Of In the second instance, contract killings are carried out at locations where members of the target’s family are also present. Evidence of such an approach can be found in intercepted communication concerning murders committed in the presence of children and other family members. In these cases, the risks to bystanders do not appear to be due to clumsiness on the part of the hitmen, but rather the result of

 This does not alter the fact that most conflicts within the organised drugs trade may be resolved more or less peacefully. These analyses are based on cases in which contract killings occur, where the run-up shows that no interim steps were taken. 14  With regard to trust, see e.g. Kleemans et al 1998; Zaitch (2005), van der Bunt and Kleemans (2007), and Spapens (2012). 13

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deliberately seeking situations that also pose a risk to non-criminal family members. The principal presses for a murder in the immediate vicinity of the home or in a car with fellow passengers. The idea is that an assassination poses an extra threat if it takes place ‘in the sight of’. One example is the murder of a man who drove his seven-year-old daughter to mosque-school at set times. The hitmen were instructed to commit the murder at exactly that time in that car and to give the man a ‘headshot’ in the girl’s presence. The hitmen shot the man but not in the head, as they were trying to avoid his daughter, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him. Afterwards, an investigating officer told that intercepted text messages written in the immediate wake of the murder revealed that the principal had responded furiously to the fact that there was no headshot. There are also other examples of people who were deliberately killed in front of their spouse, parents or children.

Outside the Criminal Network In the third instance, individuals outside of criminal organisations have been specifically targeted in assassinations during the past decade. This started in 2014, with the shooting of the girlfriend of a leader of a criminal network. This man was wanted by a rival criminal group, and although the police claim that his girlfriend was not part of her boyfriend’s criminal organisation, she was murdered to draw him out. The woman was shot while getting out of her car on returning home, in the presence of her children and mother. ‘Killing a criminal’s girlfriend in the hunt for a criminal is something we saw as a further escalation of the spiral of violence’, states an officer. The murder of a spy shop owner in 2015 and an online journalist in 2016, who had written in detail about the criminal underworld, can also be regarded as examples of targets outside criminal circles. According to officials, these individuals were not part of any current criminal network but had been killed because the principals believed that they had spoken to the police or written about them in the online press in negative terms. The heavy explosive attacks on two buildings belonging to Dutch media companies in 2018 are in line with this development and can also be viewed as attempts to intimidate journalists. These attacks did not result in any fatalities; they were probably perpetrated by criminal organisations and can be linked to drug trafficking. As mentioned in the introduction, the brother of a crown witness was assassinated in 2018 along with the witness’s lawyer a year later. Both individuals can be linked to the crown witness, but were not part of organised crime groups. The same applies to the journalist Peter R. de Vries, who was the victim of a contract killing in 2021 and who, as well as being a journalist, was also confidant to the crown witness. De Vries was murdered shortly before the start of the court case against the suspects in the lawyer’s murder. The extension of deadly violence to wider circles outside the criminal world is a new development that has not been witnessed among older criminal networks. Although, in the past, individuals who were suspected of planning to give evidence

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to the police were also liquidated, this punishment for betrayal was limited to people who were part of the criminal network and who had spoken to the police in this capacity; the violence did not extend to their non-criminal relatives. ‘Before, boyfriends and girlfriends and lawyers were off limits, you didn’t go there’, says a judicial officer. The shift is viewed as retribution against people and institutions that talk to the police, with the aim of instilling fear and exerting pressure on others not to cooperate with the judicial process. A number of officers generally note that these contract killings place a great deal of pressure on criminal trials. Attempts are made to influence participants in proceedings right up to the court hearings, both through the actual murder of persons involved and through threats and attempts to intimidate members of the judiciary, the legal profession, the press and law enforcement.

Counterproductive At the same time, it is highly doubtful whether this grudge-fuelled approach serves the business interests of the international drugs trade. After all, the attacks draw the attention of investigators to the criminal drug organisations to which the murder is linked. This can ultimately weaken the position of individuals and of drug trafficking groups as a whole, as well as having a counterproductive long-term effect in terms of the criminal profits from drug trafficking. ‘Derailing into excessive violence is not good for business’, explained one investigating officer. ‘Those who use brute force may be feared, but they are also considered stupid, which is just not helpful’, said another one. The drug underworld is also looking at this excessive violence with suspicion, since it does not benefit drug trafficking earnings and ultimately compromises the revenue model for the Dutch cocaine market as a whole.

Remote Management and the Use of Digital Technology It has already been described how there is often a division of labour between the spotters, who explore the area and observe the intended victim in preparation for the murder, and the hitmen, who carry out the shooting. One difference compared to contract killings by organised crime groups in the past, for example, those conducted by traditional Dutch networks in the 2000s, is that there is now a much stricter division of tasks for the preparation and execution of contract killings. This differentiation of tasks is characteristic of the targeted shootings carried out by the new cocaine trafficking groups. One investigating officer talks in this context about ‘a cell structure, where A doesn’t know what E is doing’, while another officer believes that ‘the layered structure of organisations has become more transparent, whereas previously, there weren’t as many layers and fewer people were involved in the execution of a murder. Although this division of tasks gives the appearance of

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being efficient and professional, it may also lead to risks and errors in the actual execution of a murder. It used to be the case that the routes and habits of the target and their surroundings were observed by the actual hitmen, giving them a clear picture of the intended victim and the setting. Even when hitmen were ‘flown in’ from abroad, for instance, from Yugoslavia, they took time to familiarise themselves with the setting and the intended victim (see van Gestel & Verhoeven, 2017a, b). Now that many hitmen no longer carry out the preparation tasks themselves, there is a risk of incorrect information being passed on, as described by a number of investigating officers. I think that mistaken identity killings are more common now; I think that more time was spent before on focusing on the correct target. Also by the hitmen themselves. Back then, there wasn’t a division of tasks between spotters and hitmen. It was more of a one-man job, meaning there was less risk of passing on false information.

There is an even greater risk of information being lost if the spotters and the hitmen do not communicate directly with one another, but receive messages via an intermediary or from the top level of the criminal organisation. Communication about the execution often takes place by written text message, which also poses a risk in terms of the transfer of information. According to one interviewee: The way people communicate is not always clear (…) Aside from linguistic errors, sometimes it is just not clear what is being said. Because street language is being used, and in that case, you just have to hope that the person you’re communicating with understands this language in the same way you understand it, and that he passes it on properly, and that you [if you are the recipient] understand it in turn. So it’s a question of whether the message comes across properly. I think that’s a risk factor that was non-existent or much lower before.

It is entirely possible that incorrect information transfer – in some cases, all a hitman has to go on is a photograph and a car colour – may lead to the wrong person being assassinated. A clumsy execution is then mainly due to a strict division of tasks and cell structure from the top. In addition, more time was spent in the past on observing the target in their own physical environment. Professional IT equipment such as GPS trackers, cameras and spy software, used by spotters to identify potential victims, mean that the intended target can be monitored remotely. Spotters are therefore less likely to be observed but are also less familiar with the surroundings of the intended victim. The principal is also separated from the location of the victim and the hitman by this geographical distance.

Remote Management Encrypted telephone technology has made it possible to communicate quickly and easily over long distances. For a long time, leaders of organised crime groups believed themselves to be unobserved and therefore freely used this method of communication to set up and manage targeted killings. In a number of cases, at the time

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of ordering a killing, the principals made sure that there was a substantial physical distance between themselves and the intended victim (travelling to places such as Dubai, Morocco, Chile and Spain). New technology has made it easier to order assassinations. From their location abroad, leaders of criminal organisations can manage killings and issue commands relatively quickly and easily, while remaining far removed from the future crime scene. This might lead to impulsive decisions, which are then executed in an organised, methodical manner.

Concluding Observations Generally speaking, conflicts within the organised drugs trade still form the backdrop to contract killings by organised crime groups. However, these murders are not exclusively motivated by the business benefits of resolving a conflict or establishing a stronger position within the drugs market. Assassinations are also ordered for irrational, more emotional reasons with the primary aim of taking revenge, showing power and instilling fear. This is in line with the emphasis placed by Van de Port in 2001 on the interwovenness of business motives and emotional motives for contract killings. Van de Port asserted that the primary gains for the initiator of a targeted shooting are ‘emotional satisfaction’ and ‘establishing a violent reputation’. Information about recent contract killings confirms that establishing a violent reputation is indeed a motive. This development is taking place against the background of a changing drugs market, which has seen the continuing growth of the international cocaine trade and the establishment of new groups of drug traffickers in recent years. Access to encrypted text messages has provided further insight into the mentality and methods of the leadership of criminal organisations with regard to contract killings. However, we do not know how principals previously talked about contract killings, because investigators had much less access to these communications in the past. It is entirely possible that the attitude of indifference identified in this chapter is not new, but merely more visible due to the availability of chat messages. It is true, however, that this attitude and these methods are reflected not only in the intercepted text messages but also in the spread of assassinations to a broader target group. We are witnessing a sliding scale in the spread of excessive violence. Members of organised crime groups are being punished for relatively minor mistakes, and according to officials, there is now a much stronger internal punishment culture within organisations. It also appears that some contract killings are being carried out in the presence of family and children in order to create an intimidating effect. In these cases, the risks to bystanders do not appear to be due to any clumsiness on the part of the hitmen, but to the deliberate choice to seek out locations that also pose a risk to non-criminal family members. Moreover, targeted deadly violence has spread to circles outside the criminal world, to people who are not part of criminal networks. Assassinations of people who are not involved in organised crime lead to fear among the general public as they no longer remain limited to a

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select criminal group, but are aimed at key players in the administration of justice: the legal profession, the magistrature, law enforcement and the press. This extension of deadly violence marks a shift in the phenomenon of contract killings by organised crime groups towards terrorism. Criminal organisations, like terrorists, use violence to instil fear in broad groups of people in order to provoke action by the state. This chapter also emphasised that the crude methods used by hitmen and the mistakes they make can be partly attributed to the methods of and management by principals. The strict division of tasks in the preparation and execution of contract killings leads to specialisation in subtasks, but it can also lead to miscommunication between various players. This is particularly true now that hitmen often receive instructions via short text messages. An additional consideration is that, now more than in the past, killings are prepared at a geographical distance using new technologies. The impression is that, prior to the assassination, hitmen have little knowledge of the intended victim and their physical surroundings, in any case less than before, when hitmen often carried out their own reconnaissance on location. Access to crypto messages has provided a great deal more insight into the communication surrounding contract killings and into actions and management at the top level of these organisations. Consequently, we have a more detailed picture of the world behind contract killings. A paradoxical finding here is that, on the one hand, major financial interests are at stake for organised crime groups in view of the huge sums earned through drug trafficking, while on the other hand, contract killings seem to be strongly motivated by emotions and resentment. Strict business and economic interests seem to play a secondary role in the ordering of assassinations, given that the excessive and conspicuous use of violence attracts more attention from investigators, drawing their focus to the underlying drugs organisations. The question here is whether these developments are of a temporary and incidental nature due to their connection to current criminal groups or whether they are structural changes that reflect a different social reality.

References Boekhout Van Solinge, T. (2021). Global cocaine flows, geographical displacement and crime convergence. In E. U. Savona, R. T. Guerette, & A. Aziani (Eds.), The evolution of illicit flows: Displacement and convergence among transnational crime. Springer. European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction (EMCDDA). (2019). European drug report 2019: Trends and developments. EMCDDA. European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drugs Addiction (EMCDDA). (2021). European drug report 2021: Trends and developments. EMCDDA. Kleemans, E. K. R., van de Berg, E. A. I. M., & van de Bunt, H. (1998). Georganiseerde criminaliteit in Nederland: Rapportage op basis van de WODC-monitor (Onderzoek en beleid 173). WODC. Klerks, P. (2000). Groot in hash: Theorie en praktijk van de georganiseerde criminaliteit. [Dissertatie.] Samson/Kluwer. Laumans, W., & Schrijver, M. (2015). Mocro maffia. Lebowski Publishers.

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Laumans, W., & Schrijver, M. (2019). Wraak: Het vervolg op mocro maffia. Lebowski. McDermont. (2021). Cocaine to Europe: An underestimated threat. Insight Crime, online https:// insightcrime.org Meeus, J. (2019). De Schiedamse cocaïnemaffia: Een doorgewinterde douanier, doorgewinterde criminelen en duizenden kilo’s coke. Nieuw Amsterdam. Meeus J. (2021). Crystal meth in Nederland: ZZP’ers stampen drugslabs uit de grond. NRC, 9 mei 2021. Middelburg, B., & Vugts, P. (2006). De Endstra tapes: de integrale gesprekken van Willem Endstra met de recherche. New Amsterdam. Paoli, L., Greenfield, V. A., & Zoutendijk, A. (2013). The harms of cocaine trafficking: Applying a new framework for assessment. Journal of Drug Issues, 43, 407. Roks, R. (2017). Liquidatie van een Solid Soldier? Het ‘niet-zeker-weten’ en de ‘realness’ rondom de dood van Sin. Justitiële verkenningen, 43(5), 66–80. Roks, R. A., Bisschop, A., & Staring, R. (2021). Getting a foot in the door. Spaces of cocaine trafficking in the port of Rotterdam. Trends in Organized Crime, 24(3), 171–188. Spapens, A. C. M. (2006). Interactie tussen criminaliteit en opsporing: De gevolgen van opsporingsactiviteiten voor de organisatie en afscherming van xtc-productie en -handel in Nederland (diss.), Antwerpen. Spapens, A.  M. C. (2012). Netwerken op niveau: Criminele micro, meso en macronetwerken. Tilburg University. Staring, R., Bisschop, L., Roks, R., Brein, E., & van der Bunt, H. (2019). Drugscriminaliteit in de Rotterdamse haven: Aard en aanpak van het fenomeen. Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. van de Pol, W. (2021). Dossier Coke & Co. Follow the Money. https://www.ftm.nl/dossier/coke-­co van de Pol, W., & Verweij, V. (2011). De liquidatiedossiers: Geheimen uit het politie archief. crimesite. van der Bunt, H., & Kleemans, E. K. (2007). Georganiseerde criminaliteit in Nederland op basis van de Monitor georganiseerde criminaliteit (Onderzoek en beleid 252). Boom. van der Port, M. (2001). Geliquideerd: Criminele afrekeningen in Nederland. Meulenhoff. Van Gestel, B., & Kouwenberg, R.  F. (2021). Tweede verkennende studie Liquidaties (Cahier 2021–27). WODC. van Gestel, B., & Verhoeven, M.  A. (2017a). Verkennende voorstudie Liquidaties (Cahier 2017–7). WODC. van Gestel, B., & Verhoeven, M. A. (2017b). Liquidaties nieuwe stijl. Verruwing en professionalisering bij liquidaties in Nederland. Justitiële verkenningen, 43(5), 09–28. Voeten, T. (2020). Drugs: Antwerpen in de greep van Nederlandse syndicaten. Van Halleweijk. Vugts, P. (2014). Doorgeschoten: De nieuwe generatie onstuitbare criminelen. De Kring. Zaitch, D. (2005). The ambiguity of violence, secrecy, and trust among Colombian drug entrepreneurs. Journal of Drug Issues, 35(1), 201–221.

Part II

Responses

Chapter 10

The Criminalization of the Trade in Wildlife Daan van Uhm

Introduction Throughout the twentieth century, large trade flows of endangered species have become embedded in the global economy, with wildlife products entering into the market as ‘consumable commodities’ that serve a wide variety of purposes. Products derived from wildlife species are used as medicines, meat and eggs are served as food, skins are used for leather products, and live animals are bought, sold, and kept as domestic pets (Moreto & Pires, 2018; Nurse, 2015; Petrossian, 2019; Sollund, 2019; Van Uhm, 2016; Wong, 2019; Wyatt, 2022). This consumption of wildlife species contributes to a severe global defaunation1 that has extensive consequences (Dirzo et al., 2014; Hooper et al., 2012; Ipbes, 2019). With the five previous mass extinctions on Earth being caused by meteorite impacts, volcanic activities, and large-scale climate change, scientists now posit that we are currently at the beginning of a sixth mass extinction caused by human activity (Barnosky et al., 2011; Butchart et al., 2010; Dirzo et al., 2014; Kolbert, 2015; Leakey & Lewin, 1995; May et al., 1995; Pimm et al., 1995). At least 680 vertebrate species have been eradicated by human activity since the sixteenth century, and as many as 0.5 to 1 million species are currently threatened with extinction (IPBES, 2019). For example, 26–37% of mammals, 17% of birds, 38% of chameleons, 31% of sharks and rays, 33% of reef-forming corals, and 41–56% of amphibians are at extinction threat level (Dirzo et al., 2014; Hoffmann et al., 2010). The rate of decline in invertebrates, such as

 Defaunation is the equivalent of “deforestation”; the term refers to the loss of animal species and the local decline of animal populations (Dirzo et al., 2014). 1

D. van Uhm (*) Faculty of Law, Pompe Institute, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_10

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insects and worms, is at least as severe as in vertebrates, their numbers having decreased by 45% in the past 40 years (Dirzo et al., 2014). In contrast to the previous waves of extinction, humans are implicated as the central cause of the sixth mass extinction in the present scenario (Barnosky et al., 2011; Myers, 1990). In addition to the mass killing of species, the introduction of invasive species, the fragmentation of natural habitats, and the changing global climate, The trade in wildlife is also disastrous for the biodiversity on Earth (Van Uhm, 2018). Wilson (2002: 24) has already noted how “we have been too self-­absorbed to foresee the long-term consequences of our actions.” The consequences of defaunation are not limited to the many wildlife species that are on the brink of extinction or are already extinct; the complex effects can threaten all life on Earth (Sollund, 2019). A recent example of the dangerous consequences of defaunation is the COVID-19 pandemic, in which the highly contagious zoonosis was probably transmitted through wild animals being bought and sold in animal markets (Van Uhm & Zaitch, 2021). From the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, various moral entrepreneurs have underlined the need for regulation and criminalization of the trade in wildlife species. This chapter elaborates how the trade has become regulated and criminalized in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, influenced by socioeconomic, political, and ecological processes and how the recent criminalization raises new questions in the contexts of prevention, conservation, and enforcement.

Colonialism and European Interference in Wildlife Protection European colonialism and imperialism had a significant impact on wildlife populations; extensive hunting and trading in the European colonies caused many species to decline in number. For instance, in Africa and Asia, the demand for ivory expanded rapidly with the increased demand and manufacture of cutlery, pianos, billiard balls, combs, and ornaments, and in Latin America, birds were traded on a large scale for the fashion industry in Europe (Boekhout van Solinge, 2010; MacKenzie, 1988). During the twentieth century, the impact of the trade in endangered species became more transparent, and a conservation ethic began to take shape (Van Uhm, 2016). Humans became aware of the damage their activities had upon the environment and of the subsequent civic duty to protect the environment and its species against this exploitation. The extinction of several species in the nineteenth century, including the sudden or near-extinction of certain species such as the passenger pigeon and the North American bison, was widely noted (Harper, 1942). At the beginning of the twentieth century, several organizations were established that sought to conserve and protect nature and the environment: the Sierra Club in North America, the National Trust in the United Kingdom, and the Dutch Society for the Conservation of Nature Reserves were all developed in respect to nature conservation and protection of wildlife species. Membership in such conservation

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organizations was typically limited to hunters and fishermen and a small group of the social elite (Van der Heijden, 2004). This small group of elites, with a passion for natural history and hunting, was often influenced by worldviews concerning the relationship between humans and nature. Natural history was strongly linked to European exploration and trade; the expansion into the world to gain power and access to exclusive exotic products was viewed as a privileged domain of the aristocracy. This is illustrated, for example, by the demographic background of the Fauna Preservation Society in London, whose membership included the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Colonial Governors, and members of the House of Lords (Jepson & Whittaker, 2002). Historically, European imperialism and wildlife conservation are strongly interconnected (Duffy, 2000; Grove, 1995; MacKenzie, 1988; Sollund & Runhovde, 2020). By the beginning of the First World War, hunting as a sport had become the norm in the colonies, and following European expansion and the advent of the railways, the sport of hunting became extremely popular. During this period, the “values and abilities embodied in hunting” were seen as role models for children (Jepson & Whittaker, 2002). Excessive European hunting led to a significant decline in the number of exotic animals in the colonies, and consequently, conservation efforts were developed as a way to maintain viable wildlife populations for continued hunting by Western elites (MacKenzie, 1988). Many of the first game reserves and related regulations were developed to protect the interests of Western elites and to further export their moral values. This resulted in several disadvantages for indigenous populations regarding restrictions around their natural resources and social differentiation with settler communities (Duffy, 2022). In 1930, the Fauna Preservation Society reported, based on visits to the British colonies in East and Central Africa, that many species in Africa were heading for extinction. Long-term survival would only be possible by the separation of humans and nature through national parks and sanctuaries (Jepson & Whittaker, 2002). The role of imperialism in conservation remained strong as the displacement of local communities and restrictions on hunting were ratified through the establishment of many National Parks and Game Reserves (Van Uhm and Grigore, 2021; Hutton & Dickson, 2000; Ranger, 1989). African tribes were not only removed from their land by force when such reserves were created, but they were also forbidden to hunt their “natural resources” in the context of racial separation. Conservation efforts were mainly developed to protect the interests of the elites by sealing off natural areas and exclude local people through so-called fortress conservation (Brockington, 2002). Meanwhile, hunting for sport, leisure and trade by Europeans was legal and accepted. Western European hunting methods would ensure a quick kill without animals having to suffer, while the “degrading” African hunting methods with snares and traps were defined as cruel and unsporting. Africans were represented as uncivilized, barbaric, and greedy poachers (Duffy, 2010; Nurse, 2015). From this perspective, it was both a conservation of wildlife and a conservation of the social order (Dickson, 2000; Duffy, 2000, 2010). Not only was conservation (as social order) of great importance for the European settlers, but it also played a crucial political and economic role. For example, according to Carruthers (1989), the establishment of the Kruger National Park played a pivotal role in connecting Afrikaans

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and English speakers and establishing “cross-class alliances among the whites” (Dickson, 2000: 165). In this context, the first environmental protection agreements and national parks—the Virunga National Park in 1925 and the Kruger National Park in 1926— were developed not only to reduce environmental degradation but also to control overhunting and poaching (Duffy, 2022; Marijnen & Verweijen, 2016; Roe et al., 2002; Van Uhm et al., 2022). In Europe, the London Convention Designed to Ensure the Conservation of Various Species of Wild Animals in Africa Which Are Useful to Man or Inoffensive was signed in 1900.2 Although this treaty was important for the colonial states of Africa, it never entered into force (Schneider, 2012). Another regulation was the London Convention Relative to the Preservation of Fauna and Flora in their Natural State of 1933 for the protection of African fauna and flora that brought together delegates from colonial powers and African territories. These countries, together with the colonies in Africa, committed themselves to protecting endangered species and to regulating the importation of such animals and the products thereof (Fitzgerald, 1989; Jepson & Whittaker, 2002). Other countries could accede to this convention, and to import protected animals or products derived thereof, permits were required. Though the convention came into force in 1936, it was not entirely effective due to the lack of enforcement and supervision. Poaching and the trade in products such as elephant tusks and animal skins proved difficult to subdue as a result of continued demand from Europe and North America. Four years later, in 1940, the Washington Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere was established. This convention intended to control the trade in endangered species by creating a licensing system. This convention reflects the modern regulations that soon followed (Nurse, 2015; Schneider, 2012; Wyatt, 2022). While international efforts to reduce the trade in endangered species were obstructed for a long time by strong economic and industrial interests, environmental and ecological concerns began to take precedent during the second half of the twentieth century (Nadelmann, 1990). On October 5, 1948, 18 governments, 7 international organizations, and 107 national conservation organizations came together to create the first global environmental network, called the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with the major goal of protecting nature from harmful interventions by human activities (Christoffersen, 1994). Public awareness significantly increased in the 1960s and 1970s due to the international wave of environmental protest movements. These were strengthened by authoritative groups, such as the Club of Rome, that warned against the impact of economic growth upon the environment. Growing concern within the international  One of the most famous US laws regarding the protection of wildlife is the US Lacey Act dating from 1900, originally focussing on the conservation of wild birds, due to the large domestic trade in feathers for the fashion industry. The domestic trade in native species was restricted, and the importation of certain wildlife products was protected by foreign laws and banned. Similar legislation was enacted at the same time in other countries such as Australia (1913) and Canada (1914) (Roe et al., 2002). 2

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community about the rate of species extinction began to materialize (Jenkins, 2000). As a result of the increasing attention to declining wildlife in the 1960s and 1970s, the IUCN adopted a resolution. This resolution led to an agreement between 80 countries entering into force in 1973, regarding the trade in endangered animal and plant species. This multilateral treaty is the “Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora” (CITES).

Regulating or Banning the Trade? CITES is the governing international legal framework that regulates the trade in wild animals and plants through CITES issued permits. In 1975, CITES officially entered into force (Inskipp & Wells, 1981). It should be noted that the conception of CITES was an initiative led by the Northern countries, while developing countries were largely unaware. According to Dickson (2003), the convention was developed with little attention being paid to the background problems faced by poor source countries regarding their need to maintain their “natural resources”. While several authors see this development as a continuation of the colonial approach to conservation in a post-colonial world of the white man’s burden, the notion slowly changed into the idea of conservation for all humans (Dickson, 2000; Van Uhm, 2018). CITES, as the main multilateral treaty regulating the international trade in wildlife, is viewed as the most important instrument for the regulation of the trade in wildlife; CITES has been adopted by 184 parties (182 countries and the European Union). However, while its aim is “to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival” (Dickson, 2003: 24), there is little empirical evidence that such trade measures will work whenever a wild species is threatened (Wyatt, 2021). According to Dickson (2003), it could be effective in some cases, while in others, alternative measures would have to be implemented. According to Hutton and Dickson (2000), part of the weakness of CITES is that it is not always successful in enforcing its bans on CITES I species and is often unable to successfully regulate the trade in CITES II species. Jenkins (2000) proclaims that, in practice, the condition that CITES II categorization of a species will not be detrimental to its survival is often violated, and as a consequence, such species have become more endangered elevated them in categorization to CITES from CITES II to I. Moreover, CITES is an agreement that regulates the trade in endangered species. Its purpose is not to ban trade or to conserve nature but to regulate the possibilities that are available in the trade in endangered species. Consequently, it has been observed by Wyatt (2021) how CITES gives little attention to animal welfare. According to Sollund (2019), CITES is designed to maintain the trade in wildlife and, therefore, the continued consumption of animals; species’ rights or animal welfare issues are rarely touched upon. Moreover, the effectiveness of CITES depends on the Parties that implement its decisions (Martin, 2000a; Reeve, 2014; Wyatt, 2021). Wyatt (2021) critically notes how the lack of implementation and

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compliance of CITES by the member countries is a serious issue—nearly half of CITES parties have not fully implemented the Convention, many parties have not prohibited violations of the Convention, and parties that do not comply are rarely held to account. In the context of historical regulation and criminalization, together with the establishment of CITES, political, cultural, and emotional considerations are also important (Wyatt, 2021). For instance, the Netherlands tried to get Merbau and Ramin timber on the CITES II list in 1992. Many developing countries voted against the proposal, with the main argument being the colonial position of the Netherlands (Van Uhm, 2016). Moreover, still criticized by several scholars (Duffy, 2022; MacKenzie, 1988; Wu & Wen, 2015), CITES has been largely developed by conservationists from the North, while Southern developing countries see the preservationist approach as a legacy of the colonial period, suggesting instead that a more successful conservation plan must provide benefits for the local people in source areas (Hutton & Dickson, 2000).

The Further Process of Criminalization During the 1990s, reports on the decline in biodiversity highlighted the impact of human activities on the environment and strengthened concerns with warnings of the beginning of the sixth mass extinction; the criminalization of the trade in wildlife continued (Leakey & Lewin, 1995; May et  al., 1995; Pimm et  al., 1995). Nadelmann (1990) distinguishes four stages in this process of criminalization. In the first stage, the targeted activity is regarded as entirely legitimate, whereby states are often the principal protagonists and are aiders and abettors of the activity. For a long period, the trade in wildlife was completely legal. As described in this chapter, the first regulations regarding wildlife trafficking were established by colonialists in the early twentieth century. During the second stage, the targeted activity is redefined as a problem by moral entrepreneurs (Nadelmann, 1990). The process of the criminalization of the trade in wildlife has traditionally been driven by global attention by Western moral entrepreneurs, with a dominating influence by environmental organizations (Duffy, 2022). Environmental nongovernmental organizations (NGO’s) emphasize the rational drivers behind the wildlife trade, such as low probability, low penalties, and high profits, or the emotional aspects, such as the harm to animals during poaching, transport, or at the final destination (RSPCA, 2004; WWF, 2021). The influence of NGOs on the criminalization process is also illustrated by those that financially support and cooperate with law enforcement. The Memorandum of Understanding signed by the IFAW (International Fund for Animal Welfare) and Interpol to tackle wildlife crimes is a principal example of such a relationship. During the third stage of criminalization, regime proponents start to actively push for the suppression and criminalization of the targeted activity. In addition to intensified lobbying by several NGOs, prominent persons of a political status have

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also contributed to the process of criminalization in recent years. For instance, former president of the US Barack Obama, signed the “The Eliminate, Neutralize, and Disrupt (END) Wildlife Trafficking Act” on October 7, 2016, to help combat wildlife trafficking. He referred to an escalating international crisis: “The poaching of protected species and the illegal trade in wildlife and their derivative parts and products (...) represent an international crisis that continues to escalate. Poaching operations have expanded beyond small-scale, opportunistic actions to coordinated slaughter commissioned by armed and organized criminal syndicates.”3 Another example is the UK government hosting the London Illegal Wildlife Trade Conference that brought together global leaders to “help eradicate illegal wildlife trade and better protect the world’s most iconic species from the threat of extinction.” They called upon the international community to “act together to support and build urgent collective action to tackle the illegal wildlife trade as a serious crime carried out by organized criminals, and to close markets for illegally traded wildlife.”4 The active push from such initiatives takes many forms, from diplomatic pressure to propaganda campaigns. Mass media also reflects this development by publishing such headlines as “Wildlife crime ranks among trafficking in drugs, arms, and humans,”5 “Organised crime sets sights on wildlife,”6 and “$213 billion illegal wildlife and charcoal trade funding global terror groups.”7 Traditionally, mass media has played a substantial role in the process of criminalization (Brisman & South, 2014). According to Ferrell et al. (2008: 71), “the emotions engendered by media images and collective representations of crime affect individual and collective behaviour.” The role of the media is illustrated by the presentation of images of environmental disasters or nonhuman animal victims of the wildlife trade (Benton, 1998). Such attention may lead to “moral panic” caused by the aggravating factors of media, politics, and the public (Cohen, 1972). In stage four, the targeted activity becomes the subject of criminal law, and laws and regulations are modified or become stricter. In this context, international institutions and conventions start to play prominent roles (Nadelmann, 1990). This is illustrated by the agreement of the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in April 2013 that illegal wildlife trade should be treated as a “serious crime” (Article 2b), an offence punishable by a maximum deprivation of liberty of at least 4 years or a more serious penalty. UN countries are encouraged to adapt their sentences so that a custodial sentence of 4 years or more can be imposed in the context of the illegal trade in wildlife.8 This means that the trade in wildlife is formally  The White House Office of the Press Secretary, “Executive Order—Combating Wildlife Trafficking.” 4  https://www.gov.uk/government/topical-events/London Conference on the Illegal Wildlife Trade 2018 5  The Guardian, “Wildlife crime ranks among trafficking in drugs, arms and humans.” 6  BBC, “Organised crime sets sights on wildlife.” 7  The Guardian “$213 billion illegal wildlife and charcoal trade funding global terror groups.” 8  CITES, “CITES Secretary-General welcomes adoption of UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice draft resolution recognizing wildlife crime as a serious crime.” 3

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transformed into a criminalized industry that is defined as a “serious crime” in a relatively short period of time. Moreover, it has become a global problem in the context of the ecological crisis but also due to the involvement of transnational criminal organizations.

The Organized Crime Narrative and its Consequences Organized crime group’s involvement in wildlife trafficking is not a new phenomenon (ECOSOC, 2002, 2003; Moreto & Van Uhm, 2021; Søyland, 2000). Cook et al. (2002: 4) noted 20 years ago that “organised crime elements are becoming increasingly involved in the most lucrative parts of the illegal trade and they are prepared to use intimidation and violence.” The process of criminalization outlined above has shaped perceptions in recent years such that greater attention is now given internationally to the role of organized crime networks in regard to wildlife trafficking (Van Uhm, 2023). But how can we understand the increasing involvement of powerful criminal actors in the illegal wildlife trade, influenced by the same process of criminalization? In addition to the social construction of wildlife trade as a serious crime, involving the framing of illegal wildlife trade as being controlled by organized crime networks (Massé et al., 2020), one explanation is that increasing globalization in the past 20  years has allowed opportunists to professionalize quickly (Van Uhm & Nijman, 2022). For example, illegal wildlife traders that started their career as opportunistic entrepreneurs expanded into multimillion-dollar organizations in recent decades due to the profitability of the business combined with the internationalization of the trade facilitated by globalization (Van Uhm, 2020). The rising black-market prices for endangered species are another major incentive for organized crime: a kilogram of rhino horn is now worth more than its weight in gold or cocaine. Former members of organized crime groups that have turned to the illegal trade in wildlife illustrate this career shift. Driven by perceptions of low risks and high profits, organized crime groups, including Chinese organized crime and Mexican drug cartels, have diversified their portfolios from “traditional” criminal activities, such as drug trafficking or human trafficking, into the illicit trade in wildlife (Martínez & Alonso, 2021; Van Uhm, 2023). Furthermore, political priorities can also influence the focus of criminal organizations. In the “Golden Triangle,” the border region where Laos, Myanmar, and Thailand meet, repressive policies on the opium and methamphetamine trade influenced a switch of criminal organizations to the wildlife trade; rhinoceros’ horn, tiger bones, and ivory have become important contraband in the local political economy (Van Uhm & Wong, 2021). In other words, the activities of organized crime continuously evolve in response to socioeconomic, political, legal, and ecological changes. By shifting their operations, organized crime groups are able to diversify into new illegal markets, including wildlife markets (Interpol, 2016; Van Uhm & Nijman, 2022). This allows them to infiltrate, cut across borders, penetrate fragile governments, and open up branches

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abroad devoted to a specific set of activities (Campana, 2013). Some organized crime groups make a career shift to new businesses and infiltrate new markets in an effort to adapt to changing conditions (Von Lampe, 2015), whereas other groups attempt to dominate new markets completely (Varese, 2011). Furthermore, organized crime is known to thrive in economically vulnerable and underdeveloped areas where governments fail to effectively enforce the monopoly on violence (Bovenkerk et  al., 2003). Several biodiversity hotspots that harbor endangered species are faraway regions that suffer from high levels of poverty and a lack of social services. Reference can be made to small villages along the Caspian Sea where the “caviar mafia” cooperates with corrupt police and fish inspectorates (Van Uhm & Siegel, 2016), or the Rif Mountains of Northern Morocco, traditionally known as a “smugglers’ paradise” with a high degree of poverty where opportunists have become part of criminal wildlife networks (Van Uhm, 2016). In addition to socioeconomic and geopolitical influences, the transparency of trade is also changing. Until recently, there was little expertise on wildlife trade due to a lack of in-depth investigations. However, international organizations such as Interpol, the FBI, and CIA as well as NGOs have put more efforts and resources into investigating this form of crime. “If you search more for this type of crime, you will find more,” one Europol specialist highlighted.9 However, this drive toward securitization, and criminalization of wildlife products can also have a paradoxical effect (Duffy, 2022). A significant amount of illegal wildlife trade previously occurred in broad daylight, yet the majority of trade now takes place under the cover of darkness and with new criminal alliances being established in response to the increasing criminalization and arrests of recent years. This is reflected by more sophisticated equipment and heavy arms used by the criminal networks involved (Van Uhm, 2022). Members of crime groups indicate that their operations and modi operandi had to be adjusted and improved to anticipate and adapt to law enforcement activities (Van Uhm, 2016; Van Uhm 2023). Moreover, the wildlife trade as a gradually criminalized business has also impacted ground-level conservation efforts, particularly within the scope of managing and monitoring protected areas. Poachers and park rangers are increasingly arming themselves in the context of so-called green militarization, whereby repressive policies are proposed as a solution against poaching, resulting in increasing casualties on both sides (Duffy, 2022; Marijnen & Verweijen, 2016). Many have lost their lives in the wildlife battles that take place in Africa’s National Parks or in the clashes between poachers and federal government enforcers in Russia over the valuable eggs of the sturgeon. Critics have questioned the overreliance on aggressive, militarized anti-poaching strategies that are justified by authorities who claim that such strategies are inevitable in the fight against heavily armed hunters supported by transnational organized groups. For example, the involvement of organized crime groups in funding and supporting the poaching of fauna, including elephants and rhinoceroses in Africa, has led to the reliance on militarized anti-poaching strategies

 Nieuwsuur 2016 Europa speelt grote rol in illegale dierenhandel.

9

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to achieve conservation goals (Duffy et al., 2010). This has resulted in a reinforcement of the neocolonial fortress conservation mentality and a shift away from localized and contextualized community-based conservation initiatives that might be more suited for particular settings. This in turn may negatively impact community-­ based approaches and relations due to a disproportionate effect on indigenous or local peoples, further minimizing their support and role as frontline guardians and stewards (Duffy, 2022).

Discussion and Conclusion During the mid-twentieth century, Sellin (1938) and Sutherland (1940) already emphasized the social construction of crime; crime depends on the time and place in the context of changing norms and morals. Deviance is not “a quality of the act the person commits, but rather a consequence of the application by others of rules and sanctions to an ‘offender’” (Becker, 1963: 9). In other words, crime has no ontological reality; crime is not the object but the product of criminal policy (Hulsman, 1986). For the trade in wildlife, the criminalization that emerged during the 1900s was influenced by socially dominant groups with a passion for natural history and hunting. Although initiatives for the protection of endangered species regularly stagnated due to the economic and personal interests of powerful stakeholders, the second half of the twentieth century saw growing public concern regarding the environment due to the significant decline in animal populations. Public awareness has continued to rise from the 1960s onwards, punctuated by waves of international environmental protests enhanced by authoritative groups that underlined declining species populations. The media increasingly focused on environmental and ecological concerns, such as the harmful effects of whaling and the ivory trade on remaining populations (Benton, 1998; Jenkins, 2000; Nadelmann, 1990) and the rate of species extinction during our lifetime (Seidensticker, 1987). Consequently, CITES came into force to regulate the trade of endangered species, and their protection has become a global concern in the context of the environment and human interests. In the 1980s, the term “biodiversity” (biological diversity) introduced by Wilson (1998) gained widespread recognition and stimulated serious concern regarding global defaunation and its effects on biodiversity, and in the 1990s, reports on the decline in biodiversity highlighted the impact of human activities on the environment and strengthened concerns regarding the beginning of the sixth mass extinction (Leakey & Lewin, 1995; May et al., 1995; Pimm et al., 1995). During the 1990s and 2000s, perceptions of actors behind the trade in endangered species shifted and moral entrepreneurs pushed to further criminalize the trade by linking it to organized crime structures. Socioeconomic, political, and environmental changes thus followed and paved the way for the actual diversification of organized crime into the illegal wildlife trade (Van Uhm, 2021). Consequently, the involvement of organized crime poses new socioecological threats, and responses are presently mediated through a law enforcement-first approach. This promotes

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legal and judicial reform, criminal investigations, intelligence gathering, law enforcement technologies, and informant networks that moves illegal wildlife trade away from a conservation issue and toward an issue of criminality. The perpetrators of the wildlife trade are construed as “serious” and “ruthless” criminals, and part of organized crime syndicates linked to drugs and human trafficking (Massé et  al., 2020). On the one hand, there is sufficient evidence that organized crime groups have infiltrated into the illegal wildlife trade, which complicates traditional conservation approaches and further demands more sophisticated forms of local and global prevention and reaction strategies (Van Uhm, 2023). On the other, portraying the myth that all actors involved in illegal wildlife trade are dangerous and violent organized crime members is erroneous, fails to capture the full scale of empirical realities, and paradoxically diminishes community-based conservation initiatives. Now in the twenty-first century, wildlife crime is no longer only a conservation issue but is being linked to serious organized crime structures. This discursive move stimulates a trajectory of criminalization and attract similar levels of attention and resources afforded to other serious forms of crime. The United Nations encourages member states to codify illegal wildlife trade as a serious crime in their national legislation and urges countries to coordinate and allocate resources to tackling illegal wildlife trade in accordance with the United Nations priorities (Van Uhm, 2018; 2016). This has promoted new reflections on the need for combatting wildlife trafficking, for example, by developing its own protocol under the United Nations Declaration on Transnational Organized Crime. The criminalization of the illegal wildlife trade may lead to an increased prioritization in tackling organized crime groups involved in the illegal wildlife trade, greater focus on tackling the corruption linked to wildlife trafficking, and more efforts to reduce the social and environmental harms, such as animal harm, affected ecosystems, and the vulnerable young people being recruited by organized syndicates for poaching or smuggling illegal wildlife. Such responses however require tailored solutions, since many actors in the illegal wildlife trade are not part of organized crime structures, but rather opportunistic individuals (Pires et  al., 2015). Strictly repressive approaches channeled through a “war on illegal wildlife trade” discourse and manifest in forms of predictive policing based on risk assessments may cause significant collateral damage (Massé et al., 2020). The focus on conservation as crime fighting may affect local community-­based initiatives and detract from the income, livelihoods, and prosperity of vulnerable people. Poaching and the illegal wildlife trade is considered by many local communities as a way out of poverty and as a calculated livelihood strategy. The organized crime discourse overshadows discussions about sustainable livelihoods, long-term preventative initiatives and eco-centric approaches that consider the local communities as crucial guardians of the local ecosystem. Strategies should therefore be developed alongside local communities to reduce wildlife crimes and to consider justice for human and nonhuman inhabitants and ecosystems (Hübschle, 2016; Titeca, 2019; Van Uhm, 2023). This chapter has illustrated how the criminalization of the trade in wildlife is continuous. For a long period, the trade in wildlife was legal but has recently transformed in a relatively short period of time into a criminalized industry that is defined

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as a “serious crime.” Even though increasing diversification of organized crime groups into the illegal wildlife trade requires sophisticated enforcement reactions, blanket criminal policies may simultaneously have detrimental effects. By criminalizing the wildlife trade, it should not be expected that these criminal networks will disappear. Although the trade will become less attractive for criminal networks due to increased risk of apprehension and more severe punishments, prices on the black market may also rise and alongside the appeal for other criminal networks. In the near future, it can be expected that the mass extinction of species will continue, concerns regarding biodiversity will increase, and that the entire wildlife business will be increasingly framed as a more serious form of crime. As such there is a crucial need for critical thinking about the impending social and environmental consequences, reflecting upon the long history of attempts to prohibit other serious crimes such as drugs and human trafficking. Eco-justice, species justice, and reparative justice mechanisms may assist in developing preventive and reactive strategies by integrating interests of the human and nonhuman inhabitants, alongside the ecosystems of the last bastions of biodiversity.

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Chapter 11

Policing the Environment: The Prosecution of Wildlife and Environmental Crimes Angus Nurse

Introduction Green criminologist Rob White (2007, 2012) suggests that given the potential for environmental harms to extend far beyond the impact on individual victims that are the norm with ‘traditional’ crimes of interpersonal violence and property crime, green crimes should be given importance if not priority within justice systems. Wildlife crime is one area of green crime that has already gained acceptance within both green and mainstream criminology as an area of importance. Toxic waste crimes, particularly those where the involvement of organised crime is recognised, have also been the subject of criminological attention. Yet, other environmental crimes and the prosecution of wildlife and environmental crimes are arguably under-researched within criminology. The acceptance of wildlife crime as an area of study arguably reflects the ‘value’ afforded to wildlife trafficking where the value of the black market ‘is thought to be between USD 10 and USD 20 billion’ (Wyatt, 2013: 9).1 In addition, when considering the transnational nature of wildlife trafficking as well as the involvement of organised crime and corporate crime, green criminology has noted this area of crime as one of significance in respect of its impact on non-human nature. In respect of environmental crimes, there are opportunities for organised crime in areas such as ‘carbon emission fraud, illegal trafficking of people and substances, dumping of waste, and

 This number does not include fisheries and timber commodities, which are also subject to illegal trade and so the actual value is likely much higher. 1

A. Nurse (*) Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_11

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illegal trade in food and water’ (White, 2018: 46). Thus, a strong argument exists for considering environmental and wildlife crimes alongside other crimes as part of an offender profile and as an area where green crimes and mainstream crimes overlap (Nurse, 2013). Yet, the prosecution of environmental and wildlife crimes arguably remains outside of mainstream criminal justice and policing activity. Environmental crimes are often dealt with by environmental regulators such as the Environmental Protection Agency (in the United States) and the Environment Agency (in the United Kingdom) rather than by mainstream policing agencies. Research shows that prosecution of wildlife crimes has historically been inconsistent, reliant on NGOs in some areas and failing to achieve any perceived deterrent effects or to repair the harm caused to wildlife (Felbab-Brown, 2017; Nurse, 2015; Wyatt, 2013). Environmental crime sanctions are often regulatory in nature and similarly fail to achieve deterrence or reparation. These problems may be magnified in respect of corporate and organised crime offending where the perception of a weak enforcement regime and the use of laws primarily intended as conservation, wildlife management or environmental regulation may be inadequate to address the nature, scale and volume of persistent offending. This chapter brings together several themes concerning policing, regulation and prosecution of environmental harms. Its focus is the prosecution of organised environmental crime with a consideration of how varied judicial and regulatory approaches can more effectively address environmental harms. This chapter discusses the potential ineffectiveness of criminal law approaches where wildlife and environmental laws have been designed as administrative, regulatory and conservation management law rather than as ‘pure’ criminal law (Nurse, 2015; Vincent, 2014). This chapter notes the benefits of civil and administrative mechanisms that focus more on repairing harm and changing behaviour while noting how these mechanisms may be under-used. In examining the prosecution of organised environmental crime, this chapter identifies how green criminology’s engagement with legal discourse examines complex issues in criminological enquiry that extend beyond the narrow confines of individualistic crime.

Green Criminological Approaches to Environmental Crimes Concepts of green justice incorporate a range of different perspectives. An overriding consideration within the green criminological literature is that justice systems (and criminology itself) need to consider harms inflicted on non-human nature and should also consider the wider impact of environmentally damaging activity rather than focusing on whether such harms are defined as crimes (Lynch & Stretesky, 2014). Thus, justice system approaches to environmental harms should consider both harm and crime and should incorporate non-human nature and the environment as victims of crime. Green justice approaches can incorporate various issues including the impacts on future generations, property rights issues linked to environmental

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destruction, illegal taking of resources, rights of and inclusion of marginalised groups within environmental justice, consideration of procedural justice, conflict management and ethical and moral perspectives. However, many of these issues are anthropocentric in nature, and thus they arguably overlook the reality (and necessity) ‘that green justice can also be defined in relation to biocentric and eco-centric orientations related to justice that spans beyond human interests in ecological preservation’ (Lynch et al., 2019: 42). Green criminologists have identified that in contrast to the individualised nature of much crime and criminal behaviour, corporations and organised crime groups are substantially involved in environmental and wildlife crimes. The approach to environmental crimes is predominantly based on a socio-legal perspective, situated within use of existing legal systems (White, 2008). Use of the criminal law arguably dominates the approach to wildlife crimes (Nurse, 2015). While in principle this approach is also deployed for environmental crimes, in practice, many pollution and waste offences are dealt with as regulatory or administrative offences reflecting the fact that environmental law ‘is distinctly public law, with widespread regulation of activities, through substantive and procedural constraints; including process controls, emission limits, and environmental quality requirements’ (Stallworthy, 2008, 4). Thus, environmental law’s response to wrongdoing is arguably not one of criminalisation but instead allows continued exploitation of natural resources subject to regulatory control. This conflicts with a green criminological perspective that is concerned with preventing harm to the environment and seeking appropriate redress and restoration where such harm has occurred, Accordingly, environmental law seeks to regulate harmful activities in accordance with sustainable principles, and wildlife law seeks to punish prohibited acts. But a green criminological approach would seek to ensure that organised and corporate groups are both prevented from causing environmental harm and when caught doing so are made to repair the harm in accordance with a broadly construed application of the ‘polluter pays’ principle and a conception of the environment as a public good (Weston & Bollier, 2013). The extent to which prosecution of environmental offences through mainstream criminal justice approaches achieves this is questionable.

Policing the Environment: Legislative Perspectives While it is beyond the scope of this chapter to provide an exhaustive analysis of environmental and wildlife protection law, it is worth providing an overview of international environmental law, much of which is concerned with ‘managing’ the continued use or exploitation of non-human nature (including animals) rather than entirely prohibiting negative human impact on the environment. International law is of importance in creating the framework for environmental protection primarily using treaties and conventions to impose legal obligations on states in respect of their environmental protection mechanisms (Schaffner, 2011). The principle of

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‘sustainable use’ permeates environmental and wildlife law such that priorities and requirements for environmental protection are potentially in conflict with eco-­ justice needs. Stallworthy identifies that the fundamental role of law ‘lies in its capacity to contribute in just and meaningful ways to society’s balancing of interest and resolution of conflicts’ (2008: 5). Ruhl (1997) suggests that environmental law discourse is dominated by six principles: • Libertarianism (freedom of contract and markets) • Limited acceptance of regulatory restraint • A regulatory approach that balances (market) interests with minimising environmental harm • Substantive environmental law though the use of sustainability and precautionary principles • Environmental justice and the sharing of costs and benefits among citizens • A deep green perspective prioritising ecological over human interests Ruhl’s principles articulate a conflict between market interests (e.g. economically based natural resource extraction and exploitation) and contemporary conservation, protectionist and environmental ethics principles. The ideal ecological justice and species justice approach may well be a ‘deep green’ protectionist approach (Shantz, 2012; Ruggiero & South, 2013), which makes all wildlife exploitation and environmental harm unlawful and adopts a preventative approach to environmental crime. However, the key environmental and wildlife law approaches tend to prohibit only certain acts or excessive consumption or exploitation of environmental and wildlife resources. In principle, international measures exist to prevent and protect against environmental harm, and the foundations of environmental protection are contained in several international environmental law mechanisms. The World Charter for Nature, adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1982, contains five key principles for conservation as follows: 1. Nature shall be respected, and its essential processes should be unimpaired. 2. Population levels of wild and domesticated species should be at least sufficient for their survival, and habitats should be safeguarded to ensure this. 3. Special protection should be given to the habitats of rare and endangered species, and the five principles of conservation should apply to all areas of land and sea. 4. Man’s utilisation of land and marine resources should be sustainable and should not endanger the integrity or survival of other species. 5. Nature shall be secured against degradation caused by warfare or other hostile authorities. The UN Charter signals the requirement for states to implement principles of sustainability into environmental protection. This dictates that both natural resources and wildlife should be protected and conserved. The principles were further

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developed via the Convention on Biological Diversity (the Rio Declaration), which was signed by 150 world leaders at the 1992 Rio Earth Summit.2 • Principle 1 – Human beings are at the centre of concerns for sustainable development. They are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. • Principle 2 – States have, in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations and the principles of international law, the sovereign right to exploit their own resources pursuant to their own environmental and developmental policies and the responsibility to ensure that activities within their jurisdiction or control do not cause damage to the environment of other States or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction. • Principle 3 – The right to development must be fulfilled so as to equitably meet developmental and environmental needs of present and future generations. • Principle 4 – In order to achieve sustainable development, environmental protection shall constitute an integral part of the development process and cannot be considered in isolation from it. In addition, Principle 7 of the Rio Declaration specifies that: States shall cooperate in a spirit of global partnership to conserve, protect and restore the health and integrity of the Earth’s ecosystem. In view of the different contributions to global environmental degradation, States have Common but differentiated responsibilities. The developed countries acknowledge the responsibility that they bear in the international pursuit of sustainable development in view of the pressures their societies place on the global environment and of the technologies and financial resources they command.

Thus, the Convention requires states to implement environmental protection measures aimed not just at preserving the status quo of environmental protected but to actively protect and improve (restore) environmental quality. Stallworthy identifies that national sovereignty is at the core of the Convention as ‘many aspects regarding conservation are premised upon what amounts to encouragement of appropriate protection measures’ (2008: 11). Thus, National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans (NBSAPs) are the principal instruments for implementation of the Convention at the national level. The Convention requires states to produce such strategies and action plans and to monitor these. Arguably, this also requires states to establish a robust prosecution and sanctioning mechanism for environmental harm. In addition, measures to provide for wildlife protection are contained in various international law mechanisms such as the 1946 International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (the Whaling Convention), the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) (1974) and the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (1979). These international law mechanisms create a framework for wildlife protection while simultaneously allowing use or exploitation of wildlife. For example, the preamble to the whaling convention states that ‘it was intended to provide for the

 At time of writing, the Convention has 196 parties (1688 signatures) according to the CBD Secretariat. 2

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proper conservation of whale stocks and thus make possible the orderly development of the whaling industry’. Thus, its focus is arguably on allowing whaling to continue along sustainable lines, rather than being prohibitive. Similarly, CITES is arguably wildlife trade management or regulation legislation rather than wildlife protection legislation. The Convention essentially does the following: • Prohibits international commercial trade in species listed in Appendix I of CITES. • Allows commercial trade in Appendix II specimens only subject to export permits or re-export permits. • Allows commercial trade in Appendix III specimens only subject to export permits, re-export permits or certificates of origin. Given that CITES allows trade, there are potential problems in assessing the extent of both the legal and the illegal trade. In effect, the legal trade ‘is vast, encompassing hundreds of millions of individual wildlife from the entire spectrum of species diversity’ (Wyatt, 2013: 8). In principle, CITES provides for monitoring of trade in wildlife as it is required to be implemented by means of enacting national legislation giving effect to CITES and is implemented across Europe by European Regulations (European Council Regulation 338/97). In addition, enforcement provisions (Article 16 of Regulation (EC) No 3388/97) require states to take ‘appropriate measures’ to ensure that sanctions can be imposed for breaches. Given the obligation on states to implement appropriate environmental protections, prosecution of offending is of key importance, albeit the precise codification of offences is socially constructed according to jurisdiction specific considerations. White identifies different philosophical conceptions that can be at play in environmental law as follows: The anthropocentric perspective emphasises the biological, mental and moral superiority of humans over other living and non-living entities. Biocentricism views humans as simply ‘another species’ to be attributed the same moral worth as such organisms as, for example, whales, wolves and birds. Ecocentrism, refuses to place humanity either above or below the rest of nature. (2008: 11)

Anthropocentric considerations arguably influence and determine the precise scope of legal environmental protections and sanctioning regimes although a wide range of offences have been created in environmental and wildlife protection laws. Thus, ‘when viewed on paper, one might be forgiven for thinking that adequate protections have been developed to ensure their continuing viability and vitality. Unfortunately, species, habitat, and genetic diversity loss is now considered to be reaching crisis proportions’ (Rayfuse, 2008: 364–365). But a key criticism of international environmental law is that it does not, by itself provide for effective enforcement in respect of breaches that cause harm to the environment and non-human nature. Instead, the concept of state sovereignty dictates that states have considerable discretion in how to apply international law once ratified, particularly in those areas, such as CITES, where national legislation is required to give effect to the Convention’s provisions. Definitional problems also exist in relation to wildlife and environmental law. The reality is that ‘official classifications of wildlife crime vary

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from jurisdiction to jurisdiction with some (such as the US) focusing predominantly on wildlife trade and environmental crimes such as pollution or habitat destruction’ (Nurse, 2015: 14).

Organised Crime and Environmental Harms A considerable body of existing literature identifies the involvement of organised crime in environmental harms and both environmental and wildlife crime. The range of involvement considers activities as varied as illegal waste disposal, through to trafficking in endangered species and even trading in water (Eman & White, 2020). Walters (2013) identified environmental crime as being one of the most profitable forms of criminal activity, perhaps unsurprisingly given the attraction of organised criminal groups to the high profit margins possible in certain types of environmental crime. The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), for example, estimates that organised crime syndicates earn between US$20 and US$30 billion from environmental crimes (Clarke, 2011; UNEP, 2005). In addition, both the acceleration and by-products of global trade have created new markets as well as underground economies that are attractive to organised crime groups able to work at both global and local levels. In addition, in areas such as disposal of waste, the inability of modern consumer society to cope with the problem of mass production of waste has created opportunities for organised crime to enter waste disposal markets. The failures of municipal services to provide for effective waste disposal creates opportunities for both legal and criminal entrepreneurs to offer services that promise but fail to ‘dispose’ of the problem (Ruggiero & South, 2010). Thus, organised crime groups may initially step in to address failures by local government and the state. For example, the refuse crisis in Naples in 2008 was caused by corporate malpractice and institutional complicity, and while organised crime was intent on exploiting the situation, it was not a determining factor (Dines, 2013). Similarly, Lambrechts and Hector (2016) identify limited state capacity to deal with the tons of hazardous waste that makes its way illegally into Africa from the developed North and large volumes that are produced domestically as providing a source of income that organised crime and corrupt corporations can exploit, damaging the local environment (and human health) in the process. Waste trafficking is a transnational crime issue accelerated by globalisation, and by-products of global trade have created new markets as well as underground economies (Meško & Eman, 2015; Walters, 2013). Arguably, labelling waste crime as organised crime is both indicative of and results in a governance response situated in traditional crime control policy, policing of illegal markets and trying to eliminate and deter perpetrators (Bisschop & Huisman, 2018). In the case of wildlife trafficking, different types of organised groups are also able to take advantage of the opportunities for engaging with the illegal trade. In this area of criminal activity, Wyatt et al. (2020) identified that the historical notion of organised crime as homogenised mafia-style groups had developed such that in

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wildlife crime they identified three types of organised crime groups, organised, corporate and disorganised groups. All three are involved in the illegal wildlife trade, and arguably, the different types of organised crime group require a varied approach in terms of investigation and prosecution. Earlier research identified that within organised crime groups, there was some variety such that a typology of organisation could be established as follows: 1. Trading charities – This includes collectors and practitioners of traditional medicines who are involved in the illegal wildlife trade because of their ideological commitments to traditional medicines. Thus, for trading charities, profit is a secondary motivation for wildlife trading. 2. Mutual Societies – This incorporates traffickers and traders whose involvement in wildlife trafficking is linked to the demands of consumers; thus, the notion of mutuality is one in which traders are smuggling to order and target wildlife species for specific reasons. 3. Business sideliners – Legally operating businesses who trade in illegal wildlife as an ‘adjunct’ to an otherwise or ostensibly legal business. Thus, traders who may legally be able to take wildlife (e.g. fur traders, fisheries) may take more than their permits and regulated business activity allows in order to supplement their income. 4. Criminal diversifier – This illustrates, for example, ‘the entrance of organized crime into the black market of wildlife because of the opportunity for large profits and the low risk of detection’. 5. Opportunistic irregulars – Individuals engaged in the illegal wildlife trade who may, for example, accidentally trap and endangered or protected species and then take advantage of opportunities to sell this wildlife or products derived from it (e.g. a pelt) (South & Wyatt, 2011: 554–553). South and Wyatt’s analysis identifies that a range of motivations and activities exist within the conception of organised involvement in wildlife trafficking. Thus, the notion of organised crime as being primarily situated within the conception of the hierarchical organised, mafia style, group is contested. Wyatt et al.’s definition of organised groups concluded that these are ‘highly organized, disciplined, rational, and may use violence or corruption to control illegal goods and/or services for profit. In addition, the group has existed for a significant length of time’ (2020: 353). Wyatt et  al. (2020: 353) also note that in respect of some wildlife-related crimes, the nature of the organisation and the crime need not define a crime as ‘serious’ according to the United Nations definition of seriousness as ‘conduct constituting an offence punishable by a maximum deprivation of liberty of at least four years or a more serious penalty’ (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 2004: 5). As outlined in the five categories of organisation outline above, some organised activity is small scale, arguably local, and has minimal impact on wildlife. Activities may also be linked to small technical offences (e.g. breaches of permits and quote levels) rather than being the distinctly organised crimes of violence or large-scale criminal activity.

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Prosecuting Organised Crime Prosecution philosophy arguably treats all offenders as rationally driven, profit-­ oriented offenders. Thus, fines and prison are generally the accepted solutions to offending as part of a retributive justice approach. In practice, prosecution activities in relation to organized crime may be related to individuals or to groups (see later discussion of RICO) and can serve different purposes: punishing offenders, both general and individual deterrence and seeking compensation or restitution. But the emphasis of current criminal justice policy is primarily retributive rather than restorative (Zaibert, 2016). However, even within the sphere of organized and corporate offenders, evidence indicates variation in the nature of environmental and wildlife offending (Nurse, 2013; Wyatt, 2013). Thus, organized crime may engage with aspects of masculinities, or economically driven offending (e.g. the trading charities or business sideliners mentioned earlier) alongside activity considered to be profit-­ driven. The public policy (and investigative and prosecutorial) response to masculinities crimes involving animal harm (such as dog-fighting) reflects acceptance of the propensity towards violence of offenders involved in such offences, while the approach to toxic waste or pollution offences may well reflect a more regulatory approach (Nurse, 2013). By necessity, investigations into violent activities like dog-­ fighting may be complex and require techniques such as infiltration of gangs, surveillance activities, undercover operations and in-depth financial investigations. Investigations can also be lengthy and resource intensive. For example, Massagee (2015: 2) notes that the conviction of an Alabama dog-fight organiser to an eight-­ year prison term came only after a four-year investigation. Ortiz (2010) suggested that dog-fighting attracted a low level of prosecution in the United States. The reasons for this were identified as ‘differences in the values people place on prosecution, the costs involved in investigating cases, and the difficulties of proving the criminal violations’ (Ortiz, 2010: 27). By contrast, pollution-related crimes may be relatively straightforward and engage with visual evidence of illegal dumping, permit breaches and easily obtained evidence of failure to comply with relevant regulations. Despite evidence of successful prosecution activity in some areas, the valuation of environmental and animal crime as not being a mainstream enforcement priority has been commented on by several green criminologists. Figures show that in financial year 2020, 94 cases involving an organisational offender were reported to the US Sentencing Commission. The most common offenses committed by organisations were fraud (31.9%), environmental (27.7%), food and drug (10.6%) and antitrust (6.4%) crimes. Of the types of environmental offenses, 50.0% were water related, 23.1% were hazardous material related, 15.4% were wildlife related and 11.5% were air related (USSC, 2020: 1). While this is arguably a relatively low level of offending, the potential harm from environmental offences can be considerable. Where organisations and corporate crime are concerned, prosecution activity may need to combine use of dedicated organised crime law alongside environmental law to effectively address the organised nature of offending.

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Several states have deployed specific legislation to deal with organized crime that could be adapted to organised environmental crime, and that states should arguably consider introducing or applying for environmental crime purposes. For example, in the US, the Federal Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), which was included in the Organised Crime Control Act of 1970, has been enacted. RICO was arguably originally conceived as an anti-mafia tool but has developed to engage with other forms of corruption and organised activity. One of its key advantages is in allowing enforcement action to target the organised nature of offending and organised crime activities. The four key themes of RICO are that: First, income acquired through racketeering or illegal debts may not be used to purchase interest in an enterprise. Second, the racketeering proceeds or illegal debts may not themselves be used to gain or maintain interest in an enterprise. Third, an enterprise may not conduct its affairs through a pattern of racketeering or the collection of illegal debts. Finally, any conspiracies to commit the above acts are prohibited. (Heger, 2011: 256)

RICO charges may be based either on a ‘pattern of racketeering’ or on the collection of unlawful debt notwithstanding some of the challenges of establishing that a pattern of racketeering exists (Massagee, 2015: 1). Racketeering as defined by the statute refers to committing any of the approximately 100 offenses or ‘predicate offenses’ specifically listed within the RICO statute. In addition, 187 predicate offenses exist, which include certain state charges involving, for example, murder, kidnapping, gambling, arson, robbery, bribery, extortion, dealing in obscene matter, or dealing in a controlled substance, as well as an expansive list of federal offenses. The advantages of such statutes are that while legal theory, even that which considers group activity, is predicated upon the individual criminal act, the Rico statute ‘makes the criminal enterprise the focus of analysis. Thus, the law enforcement goal is not merely to catch and punish individual wrongdoers. The ultimate goal is to dismantle entire criminal organizations’ (Cloud, 2000: 246). Thus, enforcement and prosecution activity that focuses on the criminal enterprise has scope to consider the extent to which organised crime is involved in environmental harm or wildlife crime and to consider, for example, the manner in which group activity is an integral part of the offending activity. Some consideration is given to the organised nature of environmental crime if not organised crime itself within the provisions of wildlife and environmental laws where aggravating factors can be taken into account. For example, the US Sentencing Commission guidelines on sentencing organisations states that ‘if the organization operated primarily for a criminal purpose or primarily by criminal means, the fine should be set sufficiently high to divest the organization of all its assets’ (USSC, 2021, no page). Thus, investigators and prosecutors can assess types of environmental harm and level of profit as factors to consider when seeking an appropriate penalty for organised activity as the following sections discuss in more depth.

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Prosecuting Wildlife and Environmental Crimes Ultimately, the detection and investigation of environmental and wildlife crimes is wasted effort unless it is accompanied by effective implementation of appropriate sanctions. Prosecution of environmental and wildlife crimes through the criminal law reflects the criminal justice system’s primary focus on retributive punishment; that which is primarily focused on offenders and offending behaviour and that seeks primarily to impose punishment. The application of appropriate sanctions as well as implementing mechanisms to address the harms of environmental and wildlife crimes is integral to effective environmental and wildlife enforcement and protection of the environment and non-human nature. However, environmental and wildlife crimes are arguably different from mainstream crimes where punishment seeks to redress anthropocentric harms. The sustainability principles outlined earlier in this chapter are important given that many wildlife and natural resources are finite, and once wildlife has been harmed or killed and natural resources such as timber have been exhausted, punishment of the offender, while arguably satisfying in a retributive sense, does little to address the underlying environmental harms. Accordingly, environmental justice systems need to go beyond the deterministic punishment approaches of the criminal law to also incorporate reparation and restoration. Underlying sentencing philosophy generally dictates that the more serious an offence is, the more serious the penalty. For example, the Lacey Act, the US law that prohibits the import, export, sale, acquisition or purchase of fish, wildlife or plants that are taken, possessed, transported or sold illegally contains specific offence characteristics that enhance a crime’s seriousness and increase the potential penalty (Webb, 2013: 11). US sentencing guidelines indicate aggravating factors that could lead to an increased penalty being applied. These include: where the offence was committed for pecuniary gain or otherwise involved a commercial purpose; where the offence involves marine mammals, listed as depleted under the Marine Mammal Protection Act; fish wildlife or plants that are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act, or fish, wildlife or plants that are listed in Appendix I of CITES. Thus, a conception exists that crimes committed primarily for financial or commercial gain should attract a higher penalty commensurate with the idea that unsustainable commercial exploitation carried out for personal financial benefit should not be discouraged. Endangered species crime also attracts higher penalties and should be prosecuted as more serious crime, consistent with the generally higher levels of legal protection afforded to endangered species under both international and domestic law. This also reflects the perception that trade in endangered species carries with it risk of pushing species to the brink of extinction as these species are less likely to withstand human intervention. Arguably, a retributive element is also at play in seeing commercial activity, profit-driven exploitation and predation of endangered species as particularly problematic and more serious crimes given the existence of legal markets and the agreed upon principles of sustainable use that exist within international law.

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Sentencing guidelines from the United Kingdom’s Sentencing Council identify the following factors that increase the seriousness of an environmental offence. Statutory aggravating factors: • Previous convictions, having regard to (a) the nature of the offence to which the conviction relates and its relevance to the current offence and (b) the time that has elapsed since the conviction Other aggravating factors include the following: • History of non-compliance with warnings by regulator • Location of the offence, for example, near housing, schools, livestock or environmentally sensitive sites • Repeated incidents of offending or offending over an extended period of time, where not charged separately • Deliberate concealment of illegal nature of activity Ignoring risks identified by employees or others • Established evidence of wider/community impact • Breach of any order • Offence committed for financial gain obstruction of justice (Sentencing Council, 2014: 11) A principle of sentencing is that the court should remove any economic benefit the offender has derived through the commission of the offence including avoided costs, operating savings and any gain made as a direct result of the offence. Thus, where a fine is imposed the amount of economic benefit derived from the offence should normally be added to the fine as part of a sentencing approach designed to negate any benefit. Some environmental laws contain options for civil penalties to be imposed, commensurate with the idea of law as a restorative mechanism capable of being used to resolve disputes. Environmental regulatory regimes sometimes provide for restorative approaches that allow for environmental harm to be addressed where a regulated activity has caused environmental harm or killed wildlife. For example, the European Environmental Liability Directive provides potential for restorative justice techniques to be applied to remedying the harm caused in environmental damage cases.3 Thus, environmental damage and damage to protected species can be addressed through a regulatory justice approach that provides a remedy separate from criminal prosecution. In this way, ‘statutory regulation opens possibilities for proactive environmental protection, especially in targeting behaviour so as to pre-empt or limit harmful consequences’ (Stallworthy, 2008: 76). The Directive (and national legislation or regulations derived from it) provides a means for restorative techniques to be used to remedy environmental damage based on the

 The Directive defines environmental damage as covering the most serious environmental harms including: damage to protected species and natural habitats, adverse effects on surface water or groundwater and contamination of land that results in a significant risk of adverse effects on human health. 3

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‘polluter pays’ principle of ensuring that polluters meet the cost of and remedy the environmental harm that they cause. Punishments in criminal law are generally primarily intended to convey social disapproval and are often retributive in nature, seeking to ensure that the harm inflicted on an offender is roughly equivalent to the harm caused by the offence. In the context of corporate or organised crime environmental offending, the purely punitive approach is potentially problematic and arguably of limited effectiveness from a green criminological perspective. Environmental exploitation and harm committed by organised and corporate actors sometimes takes place within the context of neoliberal markets where legal and illegal activities both take place within market structures (Lynch & Stretesky, 2014). Thus, in the case of waste disposal, for example, elimination of one organised crime group or actor within that group may simply open up the field for another actor to enter into the field. Accordingly, a broad enforcement regime may be required, such as that contained within the UK’s Regulatory Enforcement and Sanctions Act 2008, which contains measures that include the opportunity for enforcers to make use of enforceable undertakings and other flexible enforcement tools. These are intended to achieve ‘cessation of the conduct, redress for parties adversely affected, implementation of compliance measures to address further breaches’ and accordingly seek to change offender behaviour by seeking commitments to comply with regulations and change behaviour to achieve regulatory compliance (Peysner & Nurse, 2008: 204). Within such legislation, enforcers are provided with a wide range of discretion to impose appropriate restorative conditions within enforceable takings such that enforcement action is tailored to the specific harm of an offence or act of non-compliance. Accordingly, enforcement action can require offenders to repair the harm they have caused in a manner determined by the enforcer based on the circumstances of the case and the means of the offender.

Practical Enforcement and Prosecution Considerations In respect of corporate and organised crime activity, environmental and wildlife crime enforcement has arguably not kept pace with developments in the transnational operations of organised crime and major corporations (Akella & Allan, 2012; Nurse, 2016). The enforcement approach is often largely reactive rather than preventative albeit opportunities exist to deploy situational crime prevention to wildlife offending and also within the illegal waste trafficking industry where there are opportunities for intervention at various stages of the waste cycle (Andreatta & Favarin, 2020). As indicated earlier, prosecution of wildlife offences often falls outside of mainstream criminal justice activity, whereas environmental crime is often dealt with via regulatory justice. Thus, mainstream criminal justice systems and agencies (including the courts) may only encounter such offending infrequently and thus lack expertise in dealing with such crimes when they occur (Nurse, 2012). Considerable academic discourse exists on the extent to which problems exist in the

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prosecutorial and judicial knowledge base and in the complexity, perceived adequacy and effectiveness of wildlife legislation as a tool for dealing with criminal behaviour. Indeed, the purpose of wildlife law is arguably centred around ideas of conservation, management and continued exploitation of wildlife with protection only a minor aspect of wildlife law and often linked to specific prohibited acts (Nurse, 2015; Vincent, 2014). White and Heckenberg also express concerns about how environmental cases are dealt with by the courts including the following: • • • •

Whether cases are heard in magistrates or superior courts. Whether cases are heard in general or specialist courts. The types of penalty applied (fines, prison or action orders). What remedies are involved for the harm caused (White & Heckenberg, 2014: 256).

Thus, from a green criminology perspective, legitimate questions might be asked concerning the extent to which wildlife and environmental crimes are taken seriously by the courts. Indeed, concerns about the adequacy of the courts to deal with environmental crimes have been expressed by environmental law scholars and even senior judges identifying the complexity of environmental cases as well as the challenges for investigators and prosecutors in bringing cases (Woolf, 1992). Previous research has also identified that sentencing in wildlife cases tends to be at the lower end of the scale and that inadequate sentencing practices may fail to provide the required deterrence (Nurse, 2012, 2015; Wyatt, 2013). In addition, action mechanisms (such as banning orders or disqualification from keeping animals) are inconsistently applied (often relaying on prosecutors to specifically ask for them to be imposed) and are poorly monitored when they are imposed. Thus, irrespective of any concerns about the efficacy of environmental and wildlife laws, problems exist both with bringing cases to court and in in the handling of cases that proceed through the court process. In addition, the nature of sentencing also raises concerns. Green criminological perspectives would likely favour an earth jurisprudence approach, which puts the environment at the hearty of judicial decision-making. The concept of wild law incorporates taking ‘an eco-centric or nature-centred approach rather than a human-centred approach’ (Preston, 2017: 21). Thus, the harm caused to the environment and wildlife becomes a central concern in the prosecution and the judicial determination of the case and should arguably drive the courts to consider environmental impact and situate the repair of harm at the centre of judicial decision-making.

Prosecutorial Problems Previous research has identified a number of prosecutorial problems with environmental and wildlife crime prosecutions:

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1. Areas where there are difficulties getting statutory agencies to investigate crimes and where insufficient resources are provided for them to do so. For example, there may be a lack of available scientific or technical support in gathering evidence. 2. Difficulties in investigating cases due to the lack of specialist environmental and wildlife knowledge, insufficient legislative knowledge. Legislative knowledge gaps may exist both for mainstream law enforcement and on the part of wildlife and conservation investigators trained outside of mainstream law enforcement and those in Global South countries who are part-time. 3. Perceived loopholes in legislation that result in similarity between legal activities and some illegal ones, or environmental legislation that provides for specific and qualified defences. This creates a practical difficulty for investigators in determining whether a crime or breach of regulations has been committed and in deciding how best to proceed with enforcement action. 4. Difficulties in bring cases to court due to a lack of expertise on the part of prosecutors and the low priority afforded to these cases in some areas. 5. The nature of discretion afforded to investigators and prosecutors, which allows some offenses to be dealt with via informal means such as out of court disposals or regulatory processes. In some cases, criminal prosecution is resorted to only in the most serious cases with regulators preferring civil or administrative penalties. 6. The current use of sentencing options is often at the lower end of the scale, and accordingly for some offenders (and particularly business and organised crime groups), fines and prosecution can simply be absorbed as one of the costs of doing business (Adapted from Nurse, 2015: 146). In addressing corporate and organised crime environmental offending, consideration should also be given to how policing agencies deal with such crimes. Evidence exists to indicate that wildlife crimes are not generally classed as mainstream criminal justice priorities. Thus, resources allocated to wildlife crime enforcement are generally lower, and various policing models are in place for how wildlife and environmental crimes are dealt with which can, for example, indicate that wildlife crime may be dealt with by officers alongside other duties. Thus, in certain areas, wildlife crime is a secondary consideration and is not allocated as a priority, nor does it benefit from application of all possible policing measures (Wellsmith, 2011). It is also worth noting that wildlife and environmental crimes may not integrate into the core training for police staff.4 Research evidence suggests that courts and other formal institutions of social control treat environmental crimes more leniently than non-environmental crime. For example, analysing environmental offences over a 15-year period in Florida, Cochran et  al. (2018) concluded that punishments for environmental crimes are  In the United Kingdom, for example, all police officers are now required to undertake a degree. Yet wildlife crime is not included in the curriculum specified by the main policing education body (College of Policing, 2021). 4

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more lenient than sanctions assigned to comparable non-environmental offenses when the environmental crime is ecological. However, punishments are sometimes harsher when the environmental crime involves animals. This is consistent with the analysis of environmental offences elsewhere. For example, research conducted for WWF in the United Kingdom examined 174 cases of illegal wildlife trade between 1986 and 2013 and found the following: • Most cases (74%) resulted in non-custodial sentences with only 58% included a fine. • Fines were low – 88% were for £2500 or less, and 70% were less than the wildlife product value. • When custodial sentences were used, the length of imprisonment was short  – usually under 10 months (Flynn, 2016: 4). Thus, the evidence raises questions about the extent to which prosecutions achieve the desired deterrent effect, particularly when fines and prison sentences are not commensurate with the benefit that can be accrued from trade in wildlife or illegal exploitation of wildlife resources. Judicial understanding of environmental crimes and the application of sentencing guidelines may also be factors in what appear to be inconsistent sentencing and the application of sanctions that do not fully assess the harms contained in environmental crimes (Woolf, 1992; Nurse, 2015). Sentencing guidelines (discussed earlier in this chapter) provide guidance on how the level of severity, harm and complexity of a crime should be addressed. However, the reality is that wildlife and environmental crimes generally fall outside of the mainstream of criminal activity. Thus, most prosecutors and jurists will have limited knowledge of the complexity of these areas of law, albeit specialist prosecutors exist in some areas, such as the specialist environmental and wildlife crime prosecutors in Scotland (COPFS, 2022). In addition, some states have specialist environmental courts (e.g. Australia, China, India, Kenya) able to develop environmental law expertise and apply restorative approaches and not just punitive ones to their decision-making (Preston, 2014). A specialised environmental court arguably has value in situating the nature of environmental harm within its judicial decision-making. The reality is that different enforcement and prosecutorial policies may also be deployed in addressing environmental and wildlife crimes. Regulatory theory acknowledges that regulatory regimes frequently consist of a ‘cocktail of different regulatory approaches’ (Prosser, 2008). Thus, the purpose of action by environmental regulators is about securing compliance with regulations rather than simply seeking to punish offenders, with criminal prosecution being a ‘last resort’ where negotiated compliance has failed (Watson, 2005). This principle is in part based on the purpose of regulation as being to ‘help’ business and is situated within risk-­ based regulation, which aims to lessen the burden on business and prioritise activities considered as high risk (Baldwin & Black, 2016; Dahlström et  al., 2003). However, Kagan and Scholz (1984) identified that corporations may be ‘amoral calculators’ rather than political citizens or incompetent actors. Thus, while risk-­based approaches may be successful in the case of legitimate, law-abiding

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operators who may simply be struggling with the demands of compliance, they are arguably inadequate to deal with ‘rogue’ operators, persistent offenders and organised crime groups whose entire operation is geared towards evading regulations and carrying out illegal operations, sometimes under the guise of a legal activity. Accordingly, environmental and wildlife enforcement and prosecution needs to distinguish between the accidental non-compliance of small-scale operators and the deliberate and systematic non-compliance of criminal operators. In this case, prosecutions should implement Rico-style principles of targeting the criminal enterprise as a whole and ensuring that investigators and prosecutors seek to address not just the individual criminal act but also the profits derived from it (Cabana, 2014; Sproat, 2009). In addition, where possible restorative approaches that seek to repair the harm caused by offending activity are required.

Conclusions This chapter identifies that organised crime is heavily involved in environmental and wildlife crimes and is engaged in various types of activity. Various research has identified how both organised crime and corporate offenders operate at different levels within environmental offending. Thus, the evidence shows that a typology of organised crime groups is involved in wildlife crime, including diverse types of organisation (organised, corporate and disorganised) with varied motivations and justifications for engagement with environmental and wildlife crimes (Wyatt et al., 2020; Nurse, 2013). Given this variety in organisation, crime type and motivation for offending, the effectiveness of enforcement activity is heavily dependent on the ‘quality’ of enforcement and the extent to which enforcement and prosecutorial activity is tailored towards the specifics of the offence and offending behaviour (Situ & Emmons, 2000; Nurse, 2015). Yet, the reality of the enforcement and prosecutorial landscape is that it remains heavily geared towards a detection, apprehension and prosecutorial model that is arguably targeted at the individual offender and situated in a retributive punishment model that seeks to mete out an appropriate level of ‘harm’ on an individual basis. Thus, fines and prison sentences are arguably the default options although the use of prison is underutilised in wildlife and environmental offences, and research evidence suggests that a problem common to most jurisdictions is that sentencing tends to be at the lower end of the scale (White, 2014; Nurse, 2015). While in principle the individual offender may be deterred by the threat of fines or low-level prison sentences (although deterrence in these cases is questionable), the deterrent effects may be minimal in respect of both organised crime groups and corporations who have both the resources to resist or negate fines and have considerable incentive to continue with illegal activity in order to serve the needs of and continued activity of the organisation. Environmental and wildlife laws are arguably inadequate to deal with organised crime activities and prosecutorial practice given their focus as conservation, wildlife management and regulatory law. Instead,

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legislation such as RICO (or equivalent) statutes targeted at the organised activity should be deployed together with restorative approaches that are aimed at repairing the harm caused by activity that causes harm to the environment and non-human nature. Where appropriate, this requires a revision of prosecutorial strategy to align use of criminal or regulatory law with organised crime and financial/asset recovery law with scope to recover assets and negate any financial benefit. Thus, anthropocentric and biocentric principles might combine to address environmental harms through a holistic prosecution approach.

References Akella, A.S and Allan, C. (2012). Dismantling Wildlife Crime. World Wildlife Fund/TRAFFIC Andreatta, D., & Favarin, S. (2020). Features of transnational illicit waste trafficking and crime prevention strategies to tackle it. Global Crime, 21(2), 130–153. https://doi.org/10.1080/1744057 2.2020.1719837 Baldwin, R., & Black, J. (2016). Driving priorities in risk-based regulation: What’s the problem? Journal of Law and Society, 43, 565–595. https://doi.org/10.1111/jols.12003 Bisschop, L., & Huisman, W. (2018). Waste crime from three criminological perspectives: Implications for crime control and harm prevention. In T. Spapens, R. White, D. van Uhm, & W. Huisman (Eds.), Green crimes and dirty money. Routledge. Cabana, P. F. (2014). Improving the recovery of assets resulting from organised crime. European Journal of Crime, Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 22(1), 13–32. Available from: Brill https://doi.org/10.1163/15718174-­22012037. Accessed 23 Dec 2021. Clarke, E. (2011, March 2). Environmental crime and national security. United Nations environment programme, environmental crime and security workshop, Antigua. Cloud, M. (2000). Organized crime, RICO and the European Union. Syracuse Journal of International Law and Commerce, 27, 243–267. Cochran, J. C., Lynch, M. J., & Toman, E. L. (2018). Court sentencing patterns for environmental crimes: Is there a “green” gap in punishment? Journal of Quantitative Criminology., 34, 37–66. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-­016-­9322-­9 College of Policing. (2021). Policing education qualifications framework (PEQF). Available at: https://www.college.police.uk/guidance/policing-­education-­qualifications-­framework-­peqf. Accessed 1 Dec 2021. COPFS. (2022). Specialist reporting agencies. Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service. Available at: https://www.copfs.gov.uk/about-­us/what-­we-­do/10-­about-­us/296-­specialist-­ reporting-­agencies. Accessed 3 Dec 2021. Dahlström, K., Howes, C., Leinster, P., & Skea, J. (2003). Environmental management systems and company performance: Assessing the case for extending risk-based regulation. European Environment, 13, 187–203. https://doi.org/10.1002/eet.323 Dines, N. (2013). Bad news from an aberrant city: A critical analysis of the British press’s portrayal of organised crime and the refuse crisis in Naples. Modern Italy, 18(4), 409–422. https:// doi.org/10.1080/13532944.2013.801677 Eman, K., & White, R. (2020). Water and organised crime. In K.  Eman, G.  Meško, L.  Segato, & M.  Migliorini (Eds.), Water, governance, and crime issues. Springer. https://doi. org/10.1007/978-­3-­030-­44798-­4_4 Felbab-Brown, V. (2017). The extinction market: Wildlife trafficking and how to counter it. Oxford University Press. Flynn, M. (2016). Sentencing wildlife trade offences in England and Wales consistency, appropriateness and the role of sentencing guidelines. WWF.  Available at: https://www.wwf.org.uk/

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sites/default/files/2017-­01/WWF-­UK%20Report%20-­Sentencing%20wildlife%20trade%20 offences%20in%20England%20and%20Wales.pdf. Accessed 1 Dec 2021. Heger, M. C. (2011). Bringing RICO to the ring: Can the anti-mafia weapon target dogfighters? Washington University Law Review, 89(1), 241–271. Kagan, R. A., & Scholz, J. T. (1984). The criminology of the corporation and regulatory enforcement strategies. In K. Hawkins & J. M. Thomas (Eds.), Enforcing regulation. Kluwer-Nijhoff. Lambrechts, D., & Hector, M. (2016). Environmental organised crime: The dirty business of hazardous waste disposal and limited state capacity in Africa. Politikon, 43(2), 251–268. https:// doi.org/10.1080/02589346.2016.1201727 Lynch, M., & Stretesky, P. (2014). Exploring green criminology. Ashgate. Lynch, M., Long, M. A., & Stretesky, P. (2019). Green criminology and green theories of justice. Palgrave Macmillan. Massagee, C. (2015). Prosecuting dogfighting: The case for the expansion of the federal RICO statute. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2600232 or https://doi.org/10.2139/ ssrn.2600232 Meško, G., & Eman, K. (2015). Organised crime involvement in waste trafficking – Case of the Republic of Slovenia. Criminal Justice Issues, 5–6, 79–96. Nurse, A. (2012, October). Repainting the thin green line: The enforcement of wildlife legislation. Internet Journal of Criminology. 1–20. Nurse, A. (2013). Animal harm. Ashgate. Nurse, A. (2015). Policing wildlife. Palgrave Macmillan. Nurse, A. (2016). An introduction to green criminology and environmental justice. Sage. Ortiz, F. (2010). Making the dogman heel: Recommendations for improving the effectiveness of dogfighting laws. Stanford Journal of Animal Law and Policy, 3, 1–75. Peysner, J., & Nurse, A. (2008). Representative actions and restorative justice. University of Lincoln. Preston, B. J. (2014). Characteristics of successful environmental courts and tribunals. Journal of Environmental Law, 26(3), 365–393. https://doi.org/10.1093/jel/equ019 Preston, B. (2017). Writing judgments ‘wildly’. In I. N. Rogers & M. Maloney (Eds.), Law as if earth really mattered. Routledge. Prosser, T. (2008). Self-regulation, co-regulation and the audio-visual media services directive. Journal of Consumer Policy, 31(1), 99–113. Rayfuse, R. (2008). Biological resources. In D. Bodansky, J. Brunnée, & E. Hey (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of international environmental law. Oxford University Press. Ruggiero, V., & South, N. (2010). Green criminology and dirty collar crime. Critical Criminology, 18, 251–262. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-­010-­9122-­8 Ruggiero, V., & South, N. (2013). Green criminology and crimes of the economy: Theory, research and praxis. Critical Criminology, 21, 359–373. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10612-­013-­9191-­6 Ruhl, J. B. (1997). The case of the speluncean polluters: Six themes of environmental law, policy, and ethics. Environmental Law, 27, 343–374. Schaffner, J. (2011). An introduction to animals and the law. Palgrave Macmillan. Sentencing Council. (2014). Environmental offences. Available at: https://www.sentencingcouncil. org.uk/wp-­content/uploads/Environmental-­offences-­definitive-­guideline-­Web.pdf. Accessed 1 Dec 2021. Shantz, J. (2012). Radical criminology: A manifesto. Radical Criminology, 1, 7–17. Situ, Y., & Emmons, D. (2000). Environmental crime: The criminal justice system’s role in protecting the environment. Sage. South, N., & Wyatt, T. (2011). Comparing illicit trades in wildlife and drugs: An exploratory study. Deviant Behavior, 32, 538–561. Sproat, P. A. (2009). To what extent is the UK’s anti-money laundering and asset recovery regime used against organised crime? Journal of Money Laundering Control, 12(2), 134–150. https:// doi.org/10.1108/13685200910951901 Stallworthy, M. (2008). Understanding environmental law. Sweet and Maxwell.

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UNEP. (2005). Green customs initiative targets environmental crime. http://new.unep.org/ United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). (2004). United Nations Convention against transnational organized crime and the protocols thereto. https://www.unodc.org/documents/ treaties/UNTOC/Publications/TOC%20Convention/TOCebook-­e.pdf. Accessed 30 July 2021. USSC. (2020). Quick facts: Organizational offenders. US Sentencing Commission. Available at: https://www.ussc.gov/sites/default/files/pdf/research-­and-­publications/quick-­facts/ Organizational-­Offenders_FY20.pdf. Accessed 5 Jan 2022. USSC. (2021). Sentencing of organizations’ sentencing guidelines manual. US Sentencing Commission. Available at: https://www.ussc.gov/guidelines/2021-­guidelines-­manual/ annotated-­2021-­chapter-­8#NaN. Accessed 5 Jan 2022. Vincent, K. (2014). Reforming wildlife law: The law commission proposals for wildlife law and wildlife sanctions. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 3(2), 67–80. https://doi.org/10.5204/ijcjsd.v3i2.175 Walters, R. (2013). Eco mafia and environmental crime. In K. Carrington, M. Ball, E. O’Brien, & J. M. Tauri (Eds.), Crime, justice and social democracy. Critical criminological perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137008695_19 Watson, M. (2005). The enforcement of environmental law: Civil or criminal penalties? Environmental Law and Management, 17(1), 3–6. Webb, J. (2013). Prosecuting wildlife traffickers: Important cases, many tools, good results, Vermont Journal of Environmental Law, 2(1), 1–12. Wellsmith, M. (2011). Wildlife crime: The problems of enforcement. European Journal of Criminal Policy and Research, 17, 125–148. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-­011-­9140-­4 Weston, B., & Bollier, D. (2013). Green governance: Ecological survival, human rights, and the law of the commons. Cambridge University Press. White. R. (2007). Green criminology and the pursuit of social and ecological justice. In P. Beirne and N. South (Eds.), Issues in green criminology: Confronting harms against environments, humanity and other animals, Willan Publishing. White, R. (2008). Crimes against nature: Environmental criminology and ecological justice. Willan Publishing. White. R. (2012). The foundations of eco-global criminology. In R.  Ellefsen, R.  Sollund, and G. Larsen (Eds.), Eco-Global Crimes, Ashgate. White, R. (2014). Eco-justice and problem-solving approaches to environmental crime and victimisation. In T. Spapens, R. White, & M. Kluin (Eds.), Environmental crime and its victims: Perspectives within green criminology. Routledge. White, R. (2018). Climate change criminology. Bristol University Press. White, R. & Heckenberg, D. (2014). Green Criminology. Abingdon: Routledge. Woolf, H. (1992). Are the judiciary environmentally myopic? Journal of Environmental Law, 4(1), 1–14. Wyatt, T. (2013). Wildlife trafficking, Palgrave Macmillan. Wyatt, T., van Uhm, D., & Nurse, A. (2020). Differentiating criminal networks in the illegal wildlife trade: Organized, corporate and disorganized crime. Trends in Organized Crime. https:// doi.org/10.1007/s12117-­020-­09385-­9 Zaibert, L. (2016). Punishment and retribution. Routledge.

Chapter 12

Why The Hague Convention Is Not Enough: Addressing Enabling Environments for Criminality in Intercountry Adoption Kristen E. Cheney

‘ Adoption Is a Drop in the Orphan Ocean’: Normalizing Criminality in ICA In 2016, the independent Council for Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles was commissioned by the Dutch government to write a report on intercountry adoption (Raad voor Strafrechtstoepassing en Jeugdbescherming (RSJ), 2016). To many people’s surprise, the RSJ recommended that, due to documented illegalities and unethical practices, the Netherlands should cease engaging in intercountry adoptions (ICAs) altogether.1 Proponents of ICA kicked into action, speaking out against the recommendation: among others, members of Leiden University Knowledge Centre for Adoption and Foster Care (ADOC) took to their blogs and social media sites to defend ICA as a legitimate means of child rescue. Rien van IJzendoorn, a decorated child psychologist in the Netherlands, immediately wrote a blog post on his personal site, dismissing not only the RSJ report but the scholarship on which it was based (van IJzendoorn, 2016). Comparing the numbers of foreign adoptions with the numbers of orphanages and/or the number of children in institutional care,2 he concluded that ICA was just “an adoption drop in the orphanage ocean” (Een  Moreover, the RSJ concluded that ICA negatively impacts countries of origin’s developing child protection systems, compromising the quality of services. RSJ therefore called upon the Dutch government to invest in improvement of those child protection systems, rather than encouraging private citizens to adopt internationally. 2  Van IJzendoorn failed to take into account previous research that had shown that 98% of these children are not in fact orphans, that is, children whose parent(s) have died and are without parental care (Williamson & Greenberg, 2010). 1

K. E. Cheney (*) University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_12

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adoptiedruppel op een gloeiende weeshuisplaat) and should therefore not be a matter of concern. Unfortunately, van IJzendoorn’s dismissal of the RSJ’s concerns about ICA misses the point. It fails to take into account the ways in which ICA is linked to other activities in what I call the “Orphan Industrial Complex” and how these seemingly innocuous activities can put children at risk. The point is that, even when few children are internationally adopted, the market created by ICA spurs unnecessary separation of children from their families by creating perverse incentives to place children into orphanages, where many are exploited, abused, and deprived of family life (van Doore, 2016). This happens regularly despite both domestic and international safeguards or (in fact, often because of) people’s “good intentions.” To dismiss these factors as irrelevant only helps to normalize criminality in ICA as acceptable. But this example points out another pattern: many people fail to see or acknowledge the unethical and illegal patterns in ICA because of the prevalent and recurrent narratives that posit ICA as a valiant means of “rescuing” children from supposedly dire circumstances in their home countries (Cheney, 2014b). In the Netherlands, for example, multiple adoption scandals have been exposed through the years—and not just in individual cases but across the board in adoptions from Brazil,3 Colombia, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh4—enough that a clear and discernible pattern of corruption had emerged well before the RSJ report. Yet, ICA reform advocates complain that in each instance the Dutch public, and the government, have characterized them as unfortunate but isolated incidents; they have refused to acknowledge the pattern in favor of reasserting ICA as a vital lifeline for children in need of families, when the truth is much more complex, and ICA often in fact serves to find (poor) children for (wealthy) families who want them. Narratives of ICA as charitable “child rescue” must therefore be challenged if we are to tackle the ways in which criminality in ICA persists, despite legal efforts to thwart it. The objective of this chapter is thus to broaden our understanding of the “enabling environments” for illegal adoption by considering not only legal frameworks but the broader sociocultural considerations that create environments around orphans amenable to illegality in adoption practices. I do this through discussion of how the Orphan Industrial Complex (OIC)—a political-economic analysis of the global commodification of orphanhood (Cheney & Ucembe, 2019)—works to undermine legal protections against criminality in ICA. I primarily use examples from my own advocacy in the Netherlands and my longitudinal ethnographic research in Uganda5 to illustrate the machinations of the OIC.  However, it should be noted that these practices are by no means limited to the Netherlands and/or Uganda. In fact, I have  https://open-pilot.overheid.nl/Details/ronl-13b06d4e-feae-4dd4-b061-3737952d5c66/1?hit=191 2&sort=title-desc&page=192 [accessed 10 September 2021]. 4  https://www.dw.com/en/netherlands-rocked-by-foreign-adoptions-scandal/av-57179401 [accessed 10 September 2021]. 5  I have been conducting ethnographic research with children in Uganda since 2000 and on orphanhood specifically since 2007. 3

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argued elsewhere that they manifest themselves time and again, wherever ICA takes hold (Cheney, 2014b). For this reason, I first discuss past trends of criminality in ICA and provide some background on the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption (HCIA) as a global response to irregularities in ICA. Next, I examine how the OIC creates and maintains an enabling environment for criminality in ICA. Finally, I consider the ways in which we can address criminality in ICA by tackling the broader enabling environment of the OIC.

Criminality in ICA Ethically questionable practices have mired ICAs since their beginnings. Taking advantage of gaps in the law, children were moved across international borders and “adopted” by foreign parents without much opposition—especially when it was seen as a humanitarian act (Noonan, 2007; Marre & Briggs, 2009; Bergquist, 2012). This was particularly the case in States weakened by war, natural disasters, and civil strife, from the Korean War (Oh, 2015) to Romania and the fall of the Ceauceścu regime (Cartwright, 2005), from the Latin American juntas of the 1970s and 1980s (Briggs, 2012: 160–196) to Chinese adoptions in the wake of the One-Child Policy (Johnson, 2005). The vast majority of children adopted internationally have ended up in North America or Europe. In each of these cases, once the possibility of ICA was established, a market quickly emerged—and the specter of corruption in that market soon followed (Cheney, 2014b). Once the 1989 United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) was promulgated, however, it became clear that ICA could be conceived of as a violation of children’s rights. Article 7 states that children have a right to a name and a nationality, as well as the right to know and be cared for by their parents. Moreover, Article 9 states that children have a right to family life (United Nations, 1989). ICA could put any or all of these in jeopardy (although Article 9, the right to a family, has also been used to justify ICA).

 he Hague Convention: An International Legal Instrument T for Thwarting ICA Criminality The 1993 Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption (popularly known as the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption, or HCIA) was promulgated soon after the UNCRC to address the need for greater intercountry cooperation in cross-border adoptions in order to prevent the kidnapping and sale of children into adoption. Based on the UNCRC principles of best interests of the child and subsidiarity—that it is in children’s best interest to stay in their country of origin unless no suitable care can be arranged for them

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there—the HCIA establishes legally binding protocols for countries to establish a child’s adoptability and facilitate that process across borders in such a way that children’s rights are not violated. It also prohibits “improper financial gain” in adoption arrangements for the prevention of abduction, sale, and/or trafficking of children. Hans van Loon, former Secretary General of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (1996–2013) and one of the architects of the HCIA, has claimed that The HCIA restored control over intercountry adoption to the states of origin, and the subsidiarity principle in particular actually had a positive impact on domestic adoptions in those countries by increasing awareness of “good, bad, and dubious practices.” At the same time, Van Loon claimed, it provided a mechanism for streamlining intercountry adoption for the children who really needed it and enhanced its quality by reinforcing the legal status of adopted children. (Cheney, 2014a: 6)

One of the ways it does this is by mandating the establishment of a Central Authority through which all ICA in the country are supposed to be processed. However, as I will argue below, the HCIA still fails to address the broader social and cultural practices, in both the Global North and South, that lay the groundwork for criminality in ICA practice.

 he Orphan Industrial Complex: Creating ‘Enabling T Environments’ for Criminality in Adoption It is not just “illegal acts and illicit practices” that result in illegal adoptions (United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, 2016); it is also those acts that come from people’s best of intentions that can enable criminality in adoption. The enabling environment of the OIC is akin to what Needleman and Needleman (1979) have described as a crime-­ facilitative system, in which participants are “presented with extremely tempting structural conditions—high incentives and opportunities coupled with low risks— that encourage and facilitate crime” (Needleman & Needleman, 1979: 517). It can be difficult to address because of the positive public discourse around supposedly charitable acts toward orphans and adoption, which tends to mask the marketization of these activities. The concept of the Orphan Industrial Complex helps to develop a political economic analysis of such activities (Cheney & Rotabi, 2017; Cheney & Ucembe, 2019). This concept traces how charitable impulses toward orphans get monetized, therefore commodifying children without parental care and laying the initial groundwork for potential exploitation.

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The OIC Continuum: From Support for Orphanages to ICA The OIC actually incorporates a number of activities that fall along a continuum, a progression toward (illegal) adoption—though activities can also occur simultaneously. For example, the increased popularity of voluntourism—travel adventures linked with volunteering opportunities in low-resources contexts—in the last several decades, combined with a concern for children (especially in poor countries) has led to the rise of orphan tourism and orphanage volunteering, where individuals or groups of people (usually from Europe or North America) go abroad (typically to poorer countries) and visit an orphanage on their holiday, or even volunteer in the orphanage for a protracted amount of time (Punaks & Feit, 2014; Freidus, 2017). Go to any crowdfunding website and you will see individuals, schools, church groups, etc., raising money for such trips. Orphanage Support Sometimes, funds are solicited by individuals or groups wishing to establish orphanages abroad—even against the explicit wishes of the child protection authorities in that country. Time and time again, advocates spot fundraisers for orphanages abroad on social media. These serve the purpose of reinforcing the erroneous idea that there is an overabundance of “orphans” or even an “orphan crisis” (Cheney, 2017) in a particular part of the world—as well as the misguided notion that opening orphanages is an appropriate solution for children without parental care, when it has been well established that it is not. Over a half century of developmental research on children in institutions has demonstrated the deleterious effects of orphanages on children, to the extent that UNICEF issued a Call to Action asking that no child under 3 years old be in institutional care for more than 3 months (UNICEF, 2011). This is because, for every 3 months that a young child is in institutional care, they actually fall behind by 1 month in their development. Even where it is recognized that institutional care is not the answer, the establishment of orphanages can nonetheless draw vulnerable children from the community into institutional care in search of basic services, such as education and health care, which may be inaccessible, unaffordable, or otherwise unattainable for poor families. The artificial inflation of the numbers of children in orphanages—and the common misperception that all children in orphanages are “orphans” or children without caregivers—can in turn reinforce the perceived need for ICA as a solution for such children. This is why we must also distinguish between “orphans” and children who are “adoptable,” especially by international standards: making children available for adoption simply because their families are poor is unjust and a violation of children’s rights, as noted above. In fact, because the term “orphan” is often overused or misused in common parlance, many care reform advocates assert that the term

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“orphan” has become such a destructive misnomer that we should stop using it and instead refer more accurately to “children in need of parental care.”6 Orphanage Volunteering Orphanages and orphanage volunteering programs are often established by faith-­ based groups such as churches, who may establish links with sister churches in poor countries, partnering with them to build and maintain orphanages as an altruistic expression of their spiritual beliefs. In Uganda, it is estimated that up to 95% of the money funneled to orphanages comes from faith-based organizations abroad.7 They frequently arrange missionary trips to the orphanage for youth groups and other volunteers from their churches, creating a local dependency on them and the funds they bring. However, these mission trips also create perverse incentives to pull children from the community into the orphanages for the purpose of receiving charity from and entertaining the volunteers. Those who participate in such trips then “proselytize” about their experiences on social media and among their faith communities, describing their experiences with “the orphans” as transformative and encouraging others to do the same. Thus, the cycle repeats and sometimes expands the OIC.  As Stephen Ucembe and I have noted elsewhere, after witnessing how profitable orphanages can be, “…local intermediaries with less charitable intentions may establish orphanages for the sole purpose of exploiting the children to enrich themselves by soliciting donations from well-meaning Christians—leading to increased potential for neglect, exploitation, and trafficking” (Cheney & Ucembe, 2019: 42). Kathryn van Doore has therefore called for instances where families are enticed to place their children into orphanages so that they can be exploited for financial gain by unscrupulous orphanage staff to be considered child trafficking under international human trafficking protocols (van Doore, 2016). Often, local families are misled to believe that these institutions are boarding schools rather than “orphanages,” as they are marketed to potential volunteers and prospective adoptive parents in the Global North. But once a child has been drawn into such an institution for the purpose of profit, it can be very difficult for their parents or guardians to get them back out, especially when local law enforcement is complicit with orphanage trafficking practices. Similarly, some schools in Europe and North America (especially private, international schools) have funded orphanages as part of their efforts to encourage service learning amongst their students. Annual service-learning trips abroad become part of their curriculum and even their marketing to appeal to potential pupils (Cheney & Ucembe, 2019).

 Multiple personal communications in advocacy networks.  Based on an unpublished desk study conducted on fundraising websites for orphanages in Uganda by Alternative Care Initiatives, 2016. 6 7

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Even upon learning of the deleterious effects of such activities, faith-based and school groups alike may cling to the institutional model of care because of the perceived value to themselves and their communities (i.e., the prestige of committing such “charitable” acts), reluctance to jeopardize the relationships with local staff that they have built over time, and hesitance to “interfere” in “local responses” to orphanhood—even if they are in fact driven by foreign investment in institutional care. Orphanages (and other projects) supported by foreign donors also become conduits for ICAs, as orphanage volunteers and missionaries come into contact with vulnerable children and families. Local parents may solicit educational or medical assistance for their children from international volunteers who come to their communities. Though such parents may equate their requests more with local traditions of child circulation and informal fostering than with international, formal, or legal adoption (Cheney, 2016), foreign volunteers may interpret such solicitations for assistance with child rearing as an invitation by a parent or guardian to legally adopt their child. They may even begin to make adoption arrangements outside of the child protection system. Normalizing Adoption as Child Rescue News media can help normalize such practices: in the case of a missionary couple from Idaho, USA, who were attempting to adopt a girl from Uganda after contact on a mission trip, the local newspaper presented the story as one of complete altruism, even while acknowledging that the girl had a father willing and able to care for her (Cheney, 2018: 141). Encouraged in this way, prospective adoptive parents can become determined to make an adoption happen and come to see administrative procedures as unfair obstacles to their desires to “rescue” a child from perceived threats in the local environment (San Román, 2021), or just “give them a better life” (Cheney, 2014b). Churches have also commonly endorsed these practices and even encouraged them by engaging in fundraising for such adoptions; there are entire websites dedicated to helping families crowdsource the funds for their adoptions.8 In the Idaho case, the local newspaper framed adoption law and regulations as frustrating obstacles preventing the adoptive family from bringing “their” daughter home in time for a picture-perfect Christmas. Such positive reinforcement creates additional incentives for corruption, including the bribing of local officials to falsify and unduly expedite paperwork. These bribes then come to constitute yet another financial facet in the commodification of “orphans.” On a larger scale, I have argued in Dutch Parliament (Cheney, 2019) and elsewhere9 that—even where corrupt adoption markets do not open up as a result of OIC activities such as the introduction of ICA—the proliferation of orphanages tends to

 Cf. http://fundyouradoption.tv/adoption-fundraising/ [accessed 28 September 2021].  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jyxH366fVvw [accessed 28 September 2021].

8 9

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disrupt the development of the sending countries’ child protection systems, which are perpetually underfunded and “outmonied” by the OIC. These are the same systems that would monitor adoption processes, were they not undermined by OIC practices that incentivize corruption and illegality in ICA.

Dimensions of the OIC Linked to Criminality As we can see, then, illegal adoption may be at the extreme end of the OIC spectrum, but other activities that comprise the OIC can create an enabling environment and cultivate a climate of criminality in which illegal adoptions can flourish. We must therefore address the enabling environment of illegal adoptions across the entire OIC spectrum—not just in adoption law and/or its implementation. This is because people’s inclination to help children in orphanages rather than funding family/community strengthening is a key component of the OIC that creates perverse incentives for unnecessary child institutionalization—which can in turn serve as a pipeline into ICA, legal or illegal. In Crying for Our Elders (Cheney, 2017), I discuss how orphanhood in sub-­ Saharan Africa is not the problem per se but rather the ways in which poverty exacerbates orphanhood and vice versa. The OIC exploits poverty such that parents are encouraged to institutionalize children which they are struggling to feed, educate, or provide health care for. They are pushed by poverty but also pulled in; because orphan tourism and volunteering has been so popular of late, “child finders” lure children unnecessarily into institutions by promising parents that they will provide for their children’s needs—when in fact their primary concern is to meet volunteers’ demands for experiences with “orphans.” In this way, the OIC fuels the myth of an “orphan crisis.” Though the popular narrative is that there are many orphans out there in need of families, it is actually the other way around: For every child available for adoption, it is estimated that there are as many as 30 prospective adoptive parents and couples on adoption agency waiting lists (San Román & Marre, 2014; Cantwell, 2014: 79). This fact incentivizes agencies and their intermediaries to seek out children, putting them into orphanages and/or at risk of trafficking into adoption. Appealing to donors’ and potential adopters’ altruism, the “better life” child rescue discourse described above can be used, not only to justify ICAs in contravention of the subsidiarity principle of the HCIA but also to justify unethical/illegal acts such as coercion of consent from birth families, falsification of documents, and bribing of officials. The case of Stuart Bukenya is another good example of such OIC incentivization of corruption. In May 2009, 4-year-old Stuart’s parents in Uganda were approached by a relative who promised them he could get Stuart an educational sponsor in the United States through a local lawyer. The only catch was that the program was only for “orphans.” The parties contest whether it was the birth family or the adoptive family’s lawyer who issued a false death certificate for Stuart’s father, but regardless, it was entered into his legal guardianship case. The court granted legal

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guardianship to a family in the United States, but Stuart’s parents were still under the impression that Stuart was traveling there only to go to school, and they were promised regular contact with him. However, once they were back in the United States, the adoptive family immediately filed for adoption and changed Stuart’s name. Once Stuart’s parents in Uganda realized that they had been deceived into relinquishing their parental rights, they had no legal recourse to get him back (NTV Uganda, 2013; Cheney, 2016: 195). Moreover, though OIC activities, including ICA, are often intended to compensate for weak child protection systems, they can in fact undermine the development of more robust child protection systems. Despite the efforts of committed child protection advocates in Uganda, orphanages have popped up faster than authorities can monitor them. It is now estimated that Uganda has some 900 orphanages— more than any country per capita—and yet only 35 of them are currently licensed by the Ministry of Gender, Labour, and Social Development, which is responsible for child protection, despite its limited resources and capacity (Cheney, 2021: 3). In 2018, the Ugandan government tried to close about 500 illegal orphanages,10 but new ones funded by foreign, private donors keep popping up. The profitability of orphanages and ICA for their intermediaries has fueled corruption and impunity in the courts of countries allowing ICAs, such as Uganda. A US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) probe into illegal adoptions in Uganda revealed that at least two High Court judges were taking bribes to rule in favor of adoptive parents in legal guardianship cases (Cheney, 2021: 5). Too often, these “legal” rulings in Uganda are also accepted by courts in the receiving countries where children end up. No authorities in either country wants to take responsibility for faulty paperwork or lack of informed consent. For this reason, in 2019, Dilani Butink, a Sri Lankan adoptee to the Netherlands, sued the Dutch government for negligence in her adoption.11 The court dismissed the case due to statute of limitations, claiming that too much time has passed since the alleged incidents took place when Butink was adopted in 1992—but Butink appealed and won the case in July of 2022.12 Many more Dutch adoptees have come forward demanding that the government financially assist them in their quests for their origins and birth families. Again, all of these adoptions were deemed “legal” at the time by a country that is a signatory to the HCIA.

 https://allafrica.com/stories/201805160194.html [accessed 29 September 2021].  https://www.prakkendoliveira.nl/en/news/2019/dutch-state-and-adoption-agency-summoned-to-­ court-­by-unlawfully-adopted-woman [accessed 28 September 2021]. The court ruled that her case could not be heard because of a 20-year statute of limitations, but an appeals court overturned it and agreed to hear her case. 12  https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Organisatie-en-contact/Organisatie/Gerechtshoven/Gerechtshof-­ Den-­Haag/Nieuws/Paginas/Onrechtmatig-gehandeld-bij-Sri-Lankaanse-adoptiezaak.aspx?fbclid =IwAR1Ui61EPZfojyTtmAMurQub-AzOF0h6MZZpR3bEv-jUYcTbcdF4eqdi3EQ [accessed 14 July 2022]. 10 11

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Why Expansion of Legal Measures Is Not Enough Why is the law so hard to enforce when there is a legally binding international convention on ICA? One of the reasons is that, though over 50 States have ratified the Convention, the HCIA does not require signatory States to adopt from other signatory States—and some adoptions can take place between two States that are not signatories at all. Moreover, as I have argued elsewhere, the HCIA effectively acts as a regulatory device in what is otherwise a “free market,” so when States implement the HCIA or similar domestic measures to curb illicit adoption practices, the market tends to move on to less regulated States, or those which have not yet signed the HCIA (Cheney, 2014b). Despite Van Loon’s claim that the HCIA puts control in the hands of sending countries, Nigel Cantwell has countered that, Receiving countries can and do exert pressure on countries of origin in various ways to launch or develop intercountry adoption programmes. These include: diplomatic missions to encourage ‘cooperation’ on the issue; making the establishment or enhancement of intercountry adoption a condition of assistance programmes; and transmitting, or permitting the transmission of, applications from prospective adopters that outnumber the requirements for intercountry adoption from the country of origin concerned, creating an intimidating backlog of files to be handled. (Cantwell, 2014: 79)

This same backlog of prospective adopters can also be seen as a boon to intermediaries in both countries looking to profit from the desire to adopt, thus providing incentives to “procure” children for the adoption pipeline. The result is ICAs like that of Stuart Bukenya, which both Uganda and the United States deemed technically “legal” but may not have been “ethical.” Furthermore, establishing Central Authorities does not always solve the problem of preventing irregularities and corruption in adoption practices. Because ICA usually occurs between sending countries with weak child protection systems and/or government infrastructure—particularly when a country is weakened by civil strife (e.g., the Korean War) or natural disaster (e.g., post-earthquake Haiti)—those States often lack the resources and infrastructure to support the Central Authority. Moreover, in weak States, corruption can persist unchecked—and sometimes even operate through government systems. There is some concern among international advocates with whom I have interacted that in some countries, well-known traffickers in high-ranking government positions have merely coopted such legal measures as a way to continue trafficking into adoption after their country has signed the HCIA—the only difference being that now they do it under the legal veneer of the Central Authority. In Uganda, where I have conducted extensive fieldwork on orphanhood and adoption, they passed a revised Children Act in 2016. This closed a legal guardianship loophole that was being used to sidestep adoption law there (Cheney, 2021). However, advocates now worry that those who have profited from

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illegal ICAs in the past will try to wrest control of the Central Authority in order to continue their illicit practices.13 Such maneuvers are especially concerning given that the 2000 UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children does not consider selling or kidnapping children for the purpose of adoption a form of human trafficking because the intent to exploit the child at the end of the chain is absent (Loibl, 2019a: 2). This has allowed organized crime around ICA to flourish in new markets as ICA moves around the world to less regulated countries (Cheney, 2014b). The result is adoption irregularities from Guatemala (Rotabi & Bromfield, 2017: 64–88) to Cambodia (Wittner, 2003), Ethiopia (Mezmur, 2010; Steenrod, 2021) to Haiti (Selman, 2011). In 2016, the same year as the RSJ report in the Netherlands, the UNHRC Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, Maud de Boer-­ Buquicchio, issued her report on illegal adoption (United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, 2016). In it, she recommended strengthening legal measures and adherence to the 1993 Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption. While these are indeed important measures, in the landscape of profit that surrounds orphans and adoption, it is well known that it becomes difficult to prosecute wrongdoers because of the collusion of local law enforcement, judicial officers, social workers, and even birth or adoptive families. Legal measures can therefore have limited efficacy. Indeed, the UNSR report points out that “illegal adoptions can appear legal since many of the children concerned receive, at some point in the process, ‘official’ adoption papers” (United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, 2016: 7). Every international adoption is therefore technically “legal”; we must therefore make a distinction between illegality and criminality, thereby addressing the social conditions that can create an enabling environment for unethical and illicit practice in adoption.

 It was well known in Uganda that the former Attorney General Peter Nyombi (2011–2015) had a law firm engaged in unethical adoption practices. Even once he lost his position in a cabinet reshuffle, he argued fervently against restricting adoptions during the 2015/2016 Parliamentary debates over amendments to the Children Act. He even took out full-page advertisements in national newspapers attacking the Commissioner for Children at the time for endorsing the closing of the legal guardianship loophole that Nyombi and others had been using to execute intercountry adoptions. There was concern that someone like Nyombi might lobby for a position in the HCIA Central Authority in order to allow his firm to continue brokering questionable adoptions. These fears were allayed when he died suddenly in 2018 of heart failure (https://www.newvision.co.ug/ new_vision/news/1487164/attorney-peter-nyombi-dies, accessed 10 September 2021). However, there are others invested in profiting from adoptions who might try to utilize a Central Authority in this way. 13

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Tackling the OIC to Discourage Criminality in ICA Though the RSJ recommendations of 2016 were not taken up at the time, the Dutch Ministry of Justice and Security initiated a two-year investigation of “past wrongdoings in adoption” that ultimately reinforced the findings of the RSJ and prompted the government to ban foreign adoptions with immediate effect in February 2021. This was significant not only for being the first blanket ban by a receiving country but because the very country where the HCIA was promulgated, a signatory country with a Central Authority, effectively decided that adhering to the HCIA was not enough to prevent criminality in ICA. Yet, this is little consolation for adoptees and their biological families who have argued this for years and who are still trying to find each other across an ocean of misinformation. Moreover, the ban was lifted in 2022, against the advice of a number of child protection and adoptee advocacy groups.14 Criminality persists in ICA despite—and in some cases even under the guise of—the HCIA. Partly, this is because States rarely hold perpetrators of illegal and unethical adoptions accountable. Those involved, directly or indirectly, in trafficking children into unethical or illegal adoptions are rarely punished, and trafficked children are rarely returned to their families, even when wrongdoing is acknowledged. Often, the best interest of the child is invoked to argue that the trafficked child should stay with their adoptive family—even when the best interests of the child were never protected in the adoption process in the first place (Loibl, 2019b). Hopefully, the Dutch example will set a precedent for other countries to reconsider participating in international adoptions—but also to pursue redress in the justice system for adoptees, birth families, and adoptive families exploited by the OIC. The United States has also started to set a precedent: the FBI completed their investigation in Uganda and issued an indictment of one of the US adoption agency intermediaries, who pled guilty to bribing Ugandan officials.15 In August 2020, the United States issued official sanctions against four Ugandan lawyers and judges complicit in trafficking.16 They also suspended the licenses of two US agencies who had operated in Uganda. However, Uganda has issued no criminal indictments in the case (Cheney, 2021: 7).

 https://icdi.nl/media/uploads/useruploads/22%2006%2013%20Brief%20AO%20 Interlandelijke%20Adoptie%20ICDI%20DCI%20CoMensha.pdf [accessed 15 July 2022]. 15  https://www.cleveland.com/court-justice/2019/08/employee-of-strongsville-adoption-agency-­­ pleads-guilty-to-helping-bribe-ugandan-officials.html [accessed 28 September 2021]. 16  https://2017-2021.state.gov/financial-sanctions-and-visa-restrictions-against-ugandan-­ individuals-­involved-in-corrupt-adoption-scheme/index.html [accessed 28 September 2021]. 14

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Conclusion In this chapter, I set out to explain why, in addition to stronger legal measures at both the State and international levels—including limiting ICA to situations where both the sending and receiving countries are signatories to the HCIA—we must address the sociocultural and economic factors that sustain an enabling environment for criminality in intercountry adoptions. While we do need to “strengthen and invest more in effective national child protection systems” (United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children, 2016: 22), I have argued that they are perpetually “outmonied” by do-gooders and outmaneuvered by intermediaries who stand to profit from the crime-facilitative system of ICA. These efforts will therefore fail if we do not also address the demand side of the OIC so that all the dots connecting elements of the enabling environment for criminality in ICA are covered. Moreover, we must ensure that no government or multilateral donor funding goes into the OIC—but also strongly discourage private donations to orphanages and other schemes that unnecessarily separate children from their families. It is true that the OIC can create opportunities for unscrupulous individuals to manufacture “orphans” for private gain, but even good intentions and “good” orphanages erode traditional community childcare systems and hinder the development of national child protection mechanisms. We therefore need to shift the narrative from encouraging charitable responses to orphanhood, including ICA, to a critical discourse that helps people recognize the grave potential for illicit practices in ICA, to make it clear that ICA is part of an OIC that is built not on child need but on donor desire. It is therefore not responding to an “orphan crisis” so much as it is fueling a child protection crisis, especially in the global South. The OIC is thus not merely ‘a drop in the orphanage ocean’ but a massive threat to global child protection efforts. In addition, if we can redirect resources to supporting family-based care instead of orphanages and adoption, we can reform the international care system to strengthen local and global child protection structures. Redirecting even a portion of the vast spending power of people in the Global North to support community-based care instead of orphanages and adoption could end the era of orphanages in our lifetimes, giving tens of thousands of children that the OIC traps into growing up in institutional care a chance to fulfill their right to know their biological parents and grow up in their families, where they belong. We already have a blueprint for doing this responsibly in the UN Alternative Care guidelines (United Nations General Assembly, 2010), and the global care reform movement is growing, reaching a critical mass with the message that we need to decolonize aid and charity by addressing the tendency toward white saviorism in child rescue narratives that fuel the ICA market (Cheney, 2014b). The Netherlands, by taking a stand against orphanage tourism and ICA, has an opportunity to lead the way for Western countries to support a growing movement to change the way we care for vulnerable children. But if we are to battle criminality in ICA more broadly, we must also change “hearts and minds”—challenging the

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dominant narrative of ICA as child rescue—and instead promote social justice approaches that heroize people who support children in families and strengthen communities’ child protection capacities. Though these may be considered “soft” actions, I argue that they are in fact vital to the fight against child trafficking into orphanages and ultimately illegal adoptions. So, let us change the narrative, from child rescue to child protection and empowerment; strengthening child protection systems rather than undermining them; supporting families, not orphanages; and dismantling the Orphan Industrial Complex rather than fueling it.

References Bergquist, K.  J. S. (2012). Implications of the Hague Convention on the humanitarian evacuation and “rescue” of children. In J. L. Gibbons & K. S. Rotabi (Eds.), Intercountry adoption: Policies, practices, and outcomes (pp. 43–54). Ashgate. Briggs, L. (2012). Somebody’s children: The politics of transracial and transnational adoption. Duke University Press. Cantwell, N. (2014). The best interests of the child in intercountry adoption. Innocenti insight. UNICEF Office of Research. Cartwright, L. (2005). Images of “waiting children”: Spectatorship and pity in the representation of the global social orphan in the 1990s. In T.  A. Volkman (Ed.), Cultures of transnational adoption (pp. 185–214). Duke University Press. Cheney, K. E. (2014a). Executive summary of the international forum on intercountry adoption and global surrogacy (ISS working paper series/general series) (p. 40). International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University. Cheney, K.  E. (2014b). Giving children a ‘better life’? Reconsidering social reproduction and humanitarianism in intercountry adoption. European Journal of Development Research, 26(2), 247–263. Cheney, K. E. (2016). Blood binds: Confronting the moral and political economies of orphanhood and adoption in Uganda. Childhood, 23(2), 192–206. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568215602319 Cheney, K. E. (2017). Crying for our elders: African orphanhood in the age of HIV and AIDS. The University of Chicago Press. Cheney, K. E. (2018). The making of ‘orphans’: How the ‘orphan rescue’ movement is transforming family and jeopardizing child wellbeing in Uganda. In M. R. T. de Guzman, J. Brown, & C. P. Edwards (Eds.), Parenting from Afar: The reconfiguration of the family across distance (pp. 133–149). Oxford University Press. Cheney, K. E. (2019). Beyond trafficking and slavery: Orphanage volunteering and the orphan industrial complex. Position paper for the March 27, 2019, roundtable to discuss initiative paper 35069 from MP Van Haga [position paper K.  Cheney t.b.v. hoorzitting/rondetafelgesprek Initiatiefnota van het lid Van Haga: “Een goede bedoeling is niet altijd een goed idee: een voorstel tot bestrijding van weeshuistoerisme”]. The Hague: Tweede Kamer [the House of Representatives of the Netherlands]. Cheney, K. E. (2021). Closing new loopholes: Protecting children in Uganda’s international adoption practices. Childhood, 28(4), 555–569. https://doi.org/10.1177/09075682211027226 Cheney, K.  E., & Rotabi, K.  S. (2017). Addicted to orphans: How the global orphan industrial complex jeopardizes local child protection systems. In C. Harker & K. Hörschelmann (Eds.), Conflict, violence and peace (pp. 89–107). Springer. Cheney, K. E., & Ucembe, S. (2019). The orphan industrial complex: The charitable commodification of children and its consequences for child protection. In K. Cheney & A. Sinervo (Eds.),

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Disadvantaged childhoods and humanitarian intervention: Processes of affective commodification. Palgrave Macmillan. Freidus, A. L. (2017). Unanticipated outcomes of voluntourism among Malawi’s orphans. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 25(9), 1306–1321. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669582.2016.1263308 Johnson, K. (2005). Chaobao: The plight of Chinese adoptive parents in the era of the one-child policy. In T.  A. Volkman (Ed.), Cultures of transnational adoption (pp.  117–141). Duke University Press. Loibl, E. (2019a). Child trafficking for adoption purposes: A criminological analysis of the illegal adoption market. In J. Winterdyk & J. Jones (Eds.), The Palgrave international handbook of human trafficking (pp. 2–15). Springer Nature. Loibl, E. (2019b). The transnational illegal adoption market: A criminological study of the German and Dutch intercountry adoption systems. PhD, Maastricht University. Marre, D., & Briggs, L. (Eds.). (2009). International adoption: Global inequalities and the circulation of children. New York University Press. Mezmur, B. D. (2010). “The sins of the ‘Saviours’”: Child trafficking in the context of intercountry adoption in Africa. Paper presented at the Information Document No 2 for the attention of the Special Commission of June 2010 on the practical operation of the Hague Convention of 29 May 1993 on Protection of Children and Co-operation in Respect of Intercountry Adoption, The Hague, Netherlands. Needleman, M. L., & Needleman, C. (1979). Organizational crime: Two models of criminogenesis. The Sociological Quarterly, 20(4), 517–528. Noonan, E. (2007). Adoption and the Guatemalan journey to American parenthood. Childhood, 14(3), 301–319. NTV Uganda. (2013). Taken & never returned: When adoption profits the middleman. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEeDL70WKOA&list=PLPz47e2di8dP7rcrKxbsqoQqQk2wZ1l rk&index=4. Accessed 28 Jan 2015. Oh, A. H. (2015). To save the children of Korea: The cold war origins of international adoption. Stanford University Press. Punaks, M., & Feit, K. (2014). Orphanage voluntourism in Nepal and its links to the displacement and unnecessary institutionalisation of children. Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond, 1(2), 179–192. https://doi.org/10.1177/2349301120140206 Raad voor Strafrechtstoepassing en Jeungdbescherming [Council for Criminal Justice and Protection of Juveniles]. (2016). Bezinning op Interlandelijke Adoptie [Reflection on intercountry adoption] (p. 98). Raad voor Strafrechtstoepassing en Jeungdbescherming. Rotabi, K.  S., & Bromfield, N.  F. (2017). From intercountry adoption to global surrogacy: A human rights history and new fertility frontiers. Routledge. San Román, B. (2021). ‘I prefer not to know’: Spain’s management of transnational adoption demand and signs of corruption. Childhood, 28(4), 492–508. https://doi. org/10.1177/09075682211064970 San Román, B., & Marre, D. (2014, August 11–13). Understanding the fluxes of adoption demand: The case of Spain. Paper presented at the International forum on intercountry adoption & global surrogacy, International Institute of Social Studies. Selman, P. (2011). Intercountry adoption after the Haiti earthquake: Rescue or robbery? Adoption & Fostering, 35(4), 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1177/030857591103500405 Steenrod, S. A. (2021). The legacy of exploitation in intercountry adoptions from Ethiopia: “We were under the impression that her birth parents had died”. Adoption Quarterly, 1–28. https:// doi.org/10.1080/10926755.2021.1884157 UNICEF. (2011). End placing children under three years in institutions – A call to action. UNICEF. United Nations. (1989, November 20). United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. United Nations General Assembly United Nations General Assembly. (2010). Guidelines for the alternative care of children. United Nations.

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United Nations Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur on the Sale and Sexual Exploitation of Children. (2016). Report of the special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (UNHRC, Trans.) (p. 24). United Nations. van Doore, K. E. (2016). Paper orphans: Exploring child trafficking for the purpose of orphanages. International Journal of Children’s Rights, 24(2), 378–407. van IJzendoorn, R. (2016). Is een kind uit het buitenland halen nog van deze tijd? [Is getting a child from abroad still relevant today?]. In R. van Ijzendoorn (Ed.), Opvoeding & Wetenschop (Vol. 2016). http://www.opvoeding-wetenschap.nl/2016/11/03/is-kind-buitenland-halen-nog-tijd/. Williamson, J., & Greenberg, A. (2010). Families, not orphanages (Better care network working paper). Better Care Network. Wittner, K. M. (2003). Curbing child-trafficking in intercountry adoptions: Will international treaties and adoption moratoriums accomplish the job in Cambodia? Pacific Rim Law & Policy Journal, 12(2), 595–630.

Chapter 13

Tackling Criminal Family Networks in the Netherlands: Observations and Approaches Hans Moors and Toine Spapens

Introduction Criminologists and sociologists have been studying intergenerational transmission of criminal and antisocial behaviour since the mid-nineteenth century. Quetelet and Ducpétiaux, for instance, started using (comparative) crime statistics to unravel the causes of crime (Quetelet, 1831) and to show that families living in poor circumstances had lower ‘life chances’ (to phrase it like Max Weber did in the 1920s) and were more susceptible to committing crimes (Ducpétiaux, 1835). Some of the first studies focusing explicitly on the topic of antisocial and criminal families were probably Dugdale’s (1877) and Goddard’s (1912) classic studies. Such research mainly focused on (petty) property crime and violence, whereas intergenerational transmission also occurs within families involved in serious and organised crime, such as large-scale drug trafficking and production, as well as systematic property crime. Recently, however, several studies were conducted with a focus on the role that criminal families play in serious forms of crime (Kleemans & Van Koppen, 2014; Moors & Spapens, 2017; van Dijk et  al., 2018, 2021; Spapens & Moors, 2020). In the Netherlands, these studies attracted substantial attention, particularly from law enforcement agencies, municipalities, and the predominantly preventive oriented disciplines in (forensic) social work. In 2019, the Dutch government declared prevention of ‘recruitment’ of youngsters into organised crime as a cornerstone of its policies against organised (subversive) crime (Abraham et al., 2021).

H. Moors (*) EMMA, Experts in Media and Society, The Hague, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] T. Spapens Department of Criminal Law, Tilburg University, Tilburg, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_13

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Although the importance of families has long been acknowledged within disciplines such as sociology and psychology, ‘family criminology’ has only recently started to receive more focused academic attention (Holt, 2021). However, families have often played a more implicit part in criminological research, for instance, in the context of explaining juvenile delinquency and pathways into crime, as well as desistance (See for example Glueck & Glueck, 1950; Farrington, 1995). There has, however, been less focus on organised crime families. In this context, the term ‘family’ has, for instance, been applied to the Italian Mafia, the Japanese Yakuza and the Hong Kong Triads but in a figurative sense. Although local groups may be referred to as ‘clans’, these are not solely based on blood ties. Therefore, organised crime families differ from organised crime groups (Paoli, 2004). Families play a crucial role in Dutch-organised crime, by providing relations of trust (Spapens, 2006, 2012; Van Koppen, 2013; Kleemans, 2014). For example, the core of Dutch criminal cooperatives involved in drug crime is usually limited to three to five family members or long-term friends. Surrounding this core is a second ring of trusted individuals who execute or facilitate illegal activities and who may also be found among the wider family clan or friends who grew up in the same schoolyard, neighbourhood or subculture. Exceptions are skilled ‘upper world’ facilitators, such as accountants and lawyers, who are generally more loosely connected to crime entrepreneurs’ networks of friends and family. Finally, a third ring of ‘expendables’, often persons in vulnerable circumstances situations, for instance, because of addiction and mental health problems, are usually hired ad hoc to perform the riskiest tasks, such as smuggling narcotics or dumping waste from synthetic drug laboratories (Spapens, 2012; Hobbs, 2021; Sergi, 2021). Several studies show that intergenerational transmission of delinquent behaviour is structural within criminal families (Besemer, 2012; Besemer et  al., 2017; Eichelsheim & Van de Weijer, 2018; Van Dijk et al., 2021). In the past 5 years, we initiated two major studies on Dutch criminal families (Moors & Spapens, 2017; Boer et al., 2020).1 In the first study, the main research question was whether intergenerational transmission of involvement in serious and organised crime occurred within such families, and if so, how this should be explained. The second study focused on strategies to reduce criminal and antisocial behaviour within such families and to prevent intergenerational transmission. In both studies, the emphasis was on core families, starting with crime entrepreneurs and their partners and then zooming out to the previous generation (grandparents) and the next generations (children and – if relevant – their partners and grandchildren). In some cases, criminal involvement was not limited to the core family, but also included the crime entrepreneurs’ brothers and sisters and their respective (grand)children. Although we observed extended criminal family networks to be important for providing mutual support in illegal activities, such networks were beyond the scope of our studies.  These studies were both made possible by the independent research program Politie en Wetenschap. We express our thanks to Anne Boer and Rik Ceulen, who carried out the second project together with the present authors. 1

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This chapter is largely based on these two studies. It consists of two parts. First, we present what we know about organised crime families in the Netherlands. In the second part, we examine which new strategies and interventions aimed at normalising the behaviour of criminal families and preventing intergenerational transmission of criminal and antisocial behaviour have been developed and applied in the Netherlands (2015–2020).

Organised Crime Families In our first study, we selected seven families from the province of North-Brabant in the south of the Netherlands and collected data on at least three generations (Moors & Spapens, 2017). Primarily, the research was based on historical archives of courts, the police, the probation service and social welfare institutions. However, public access to these archives is restricted (sometimes for up to 75 years), and only records from before 1989 are transferred to the public archives. Therefore, more recent information was obtained by studying the files of seven large-scale police investigations on criminal cooperatives in which a family member had taken a leadership role. These investigations were conducted between the mid-1990s and the mid-­2000s. Additionally, we interviewed 25 (retired) practitioners who had either been involved in these cases, had worked with these families, or could provide broader context on the involvement of families in the North-Brabant criminal underworld. This research must therefore be viewed as a multiple case study, not pretending to provide a representative overview of all organised crime families operating in the south of the Netherlands or in the country as a whole. As a starting point, we took the generation in which the selected criminal leader was active. We retrieved the criminal records of the Kingpin’s brothers and sisters, as well as spouses (generation 2). Next, we studied the leader’s children and their partners (generation 3). If there were grandchildren who had reached adulthood, we also included them (generation 4). Finally, we focused on the kingpin’s parents (generation 1). The general time frame for the study was 1945–2015, although in some cases members of generation 1 had been born earlier. All selected families had been living in the Netherlands for at least four generations, to ensure that information on older generations would be available in local and regional archives.

Criminal Families and Their Criminal History Our study revealed that within the seven families, a high percentage of family members, both males and females, held criminal records. In generation 1, 71% of males and 11% of females had been convicted at least once for a criminal offence, whereas in subsequent generations, these figures amounted to 94%, 76% and 100% for males and 58%, 61% and 50% for females. We could not establish the extent to which

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convictions were related to organised crime, as they were sometimes limited to property crimes and violent crimes and did not include, for instance, drug crimes and violations of Art. 140 of the Dutch Criminal Code, which refers to participation in an organisation aimed at committing criminal offences. Other sources of information showed that the selected families, sometimes for decades, had had regular confrontations with a range of institutions such as the police and the public prosecution service, the probation service and the tax authorities, as well as with social workers, teachers, health practitioners and others who work in the social services. Although percentages of family members who held criminal records proved to be high, intergenerational transmission of criminal leadership was less prevalent. This was first explained by the fact that kingpins almost never fully retired, which resulted in children working together with their fathers instead of managing their own criminal cooperatives (see also Amir, 1989). Second, values regarding the role of females in the subcultures from which the seven families stemmed remain quite conservative and reflect the lack of gender diversity in organised crime that has also been noted in other studies (Siegel, 2013; van Dijk et al., 2018). Transfer of criminal leadership to a next generation was therefore difficult for crime entrepreneurs who only had daughters, although these regularly ended up in relationships with persons who had already developed a substantial criminal career. Third, managing a criminal cooperative requires substantial skills, both in terms of establishing and maintaining ‘criminally exploitable ties’ as well as overseeing complex criminal business processes (Von Lampe, 2003; Spapens, 2006, 2012). Children of crime entrepreneurs may simply lack these qualities, although we did observe criminal leadership taken up by others within extended criminal families and by next generation members of included families cooperating with them, for instance, to import or export illicit drugs. In only two families, crime entrepreneurs appeared in subsequent generations, and in these cases, the sons had established their own networks of co-­ offenders of their own age and appeared to operate their businesses independently. For instance, in a secretly recorded conversation between a father and a son, the latter did not at all respond to advice on criminal matters. Nevertheless, the results showed that families in which serious criminal and antisocial behaviour persists in subsequent generations indeed exist, and this raised the question how to explain this finding.

Explaining Intergenerational Transmission of Crime In our study, we focused primarily on risk factors that promote delinquency and intergenerational transmission thereof, but due to the lack of information, we largely left aside potential protective factors that may have a preventive effect. We distinguished risk factors following from characteristics of the individual, the family and the social environment, as well as criminal opportunities that have been presented to the families over time.

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Individual Level Risk Factors At the individual level, literature shows that risk factors can be related to genetic disposition, aggressive behaviour, substance abuse, low levels of education and problematic school careers (Caspi et  al., 2002; Van de Rakt et  al., 2006; Rutter, 2007; Besjes & van Gaalen, 2008; Ferguson, 2010; Traag & Siermann, 2011; Van de Weijer et  al., 2011; Besemer, 2012). We did not include genetic factors but observed aggressive and violent behaviour to be persistent across generations. This applied to both males and females. Family members functionally used aggression not only in criminal activities but also against various institutions, either to get support or to be left alone, the latter, for example, when civil servants started enquiring why a child was regularly absent from school. However, violence was often also dysfunctional, for example, in the shape of domestic and parental violence, as well as in long-running conflicts with other families. Generally, these families considered violence an acceptable strategy, and therefore, a substantial risk exists that children will copy such behaviour. Next, substance abuse is common from the second generation onwards, considering that the first generation usually lacked the financial means for drinking heavily on a daily basis, whereas the use of illicit drugs was at the time not widespread and still morally disapproved of within the subcultures the families stemmed from. Although in later generations, most family members kept the use of alcohol and drugs under control, several of them battled with addiction problems. Family members generally did not complete high levels of formal education, although the situation did improve in generations 3 and 4, albeit mostly limited to the females (see also van Dijk et al., 2018). It is, however, difficult to establish the extent to which this represents a risk factor. North-Brabant was a relatively poor part of the Netherlands until the second half of the 1960s, and many children who possessed the intellectual capabilities were unable to continue education. They were forced to work because the family needed the extra income. However, within the subcultures from which the seven families mainly stem, the emphasis is still on material success rather than on development of intellectual and cultural capital (see also Klerks, 2000; Tops, 2018). It must be noted that a lack of formal education does not predict one’s success as a crime entrepreneur.

Family Level Risk Factors Researchers of intergenerational transmission of delinquent behaviour have given much attention to the family level. First, explanations at the family level have, for instance, been sought in parents – or brothers and sisters – who implicitly or explicitly learn children to commit crimes, or who increase the risk because of a lack parenting skills (Farrington, 2002). Second, assortative mating is considered a risk factor, assuming that people generally prefer partners with comparable values and

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behaviour. In addition, individuals who hold criminal records or stem from reputed criminal families may have less options to find a partner. Third, broken families and the absence of one of the parents have been considered risk factors for delinquent behaviour (Van de Rakt et al., 2006; Van de Rakt, 2011). This risk may be aggravated if, for instance, a divorce results in financial problems. Persistent poverty in itself is an important risk factor (see also Besemer  et  al., 2017). Finally, being a member of a criminal family may on the one hand cause stigma and social exclusion but on the other hand also lower the threshold for deviance, for instance, because victims may be reluctant to report to the police. Our study did not reveal that parents actively encouraged their children’s criminal behaviour, although fathers did sometimes emphasise to their sons the importance of toughness and aggression. However, this predominantly appeared to reinforce aggressive behaviour in children who already had a disposition towards violence, while it traumatised those with more agreeable characters (see also Sergi, 2018). However, we may assume that growing up in a family in which crime is accepted as a way of life, and where illegal activities contribute functionally to wealth and independence, does have an educational influence. Overall, little is known about a possible lack of parenting skills, because institutions are usually unable to establish close enough relations with these families to offer help in this respect. The families included in our study can as such not be considered as stable entities. Problems such as divorce, adultery, fathers being absent because of serving time and traumatisation caused by external and internal violence, which may have resulted in the death of one of the parents or a child, did occur over time (see also Van Dijk et al., 2018). Particularly in generations 2 and 3, several families consisted of a tangle of children stemming from different combinations of partners. Within the seven families, assortative mating appeared to be a crucial risk factor. Both males and females chose partners from their own subculture, although in the youngest generations, females were sometimes in relationships with men of Turkish, Moroccan and eastern or south-eastern European descent. Overall, the women did not show any objections against partners who had already built a serious criminal reputation. In fact, for unknown reasons, they even seemed to favour partners with a criminal background and were prepared to support their illegal activities. As mentioned above, North-Brabant was one of the poorer areas of the Netherlands for a long time. There are no indications that members of the first generation had been structurally wealthy, and we have no information on whether their illegal income was substantial enough to be spent on other things than their households. The situation changed from the mid-1980s onwards, when drug trafficking – and from the early 1990s drug production – offered itself as an opportunity. This allowed the second generation to acquire substantial wealth, and in most families, subsequent generations grew up in favourable material circumstances. Finally, the effect of being labelled a member of a notorious criminal family could not be established. As mentioned above, such labels not only may limit criminal opportunities but also promote them  (Besemer et  al., 2013). At a local level, their family names are well known, both within their communities and with the

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authorities. However, this does not seem to result in family members being singled out more often. Particularly, in small villages, local police officers take the risk of retaliation into account and within certain limits try to maintain a modus vivendi. Municipal staff in education and social work also appear to be cautious. Witnesses or victims are usually afraid to come forward. Therefore, a label may attract more police attention, but it also helps to avoid being investigated or prosecuted.

Social Environment Risk Factors Social environment risk factors first refer to closed subcultures, detached or socially excluded from mainstream society. Deviating subcultural values and attitudes may result in specific types of crime being less disapproved of. Second, we can point at the risk that members of such subcultures choose not only their partners but also their friends within their own group. Finally, members of specific subcultures or people who live in certain neighbourhoods and villages may also be confronted with stigmatisation. Social environment risk factors to a large extent reflect the factors that have been dealt with above and will therefore be addressed very briefly. All seven families are indeed part of subcultures in which authorities are viewed as ‘enemies’, and certain illegal activities, particularly when related to cannabis cultivation and ecstasy production, are considered acceptable. Loyalty towards the group is all important, and talking to authorities, even when victimised, is out of the question. Only the extended family can be trusted in an otherwise hostile world. Indeed, almost all long-term friendships are established with insiders. Finally, labelling of communities does occur but again with both negative and positive effects. Particularly, traveller families experienced stigmatisation, even by fellow criminals. Inhabitants of poor neighbourhoods have argued that neo-liberal policies robbed them of job opportunities and thus justify, for instance, involvement in cannabis cultivation (Tops, 2018). Conversely, local authorities for a long time tended to approach these communities with a sense of guilt and were sometimes prone to leniency towards deviant behaviour and tax evasion, which was of course exploited to the full.

Opportunity Structures as Risk Factors The criminal families in our study could only expand their illegal activities because over the years they were able to benefit from criminal opportunities presented to them, particularly regarding narcotics. Until the 1980s, most families were limited to committing property crimes and were mainly a nuisance because of their members’ antisocial behaviour. Only two families were already involved in what we now consider organised crime, one producing illegal alcohol and the other committing many often violent robberies as members of a well-known gang. In the 1980s,

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narcotics, first cannabis and later cocaine, enabled several families to expand their criminal activities. In the 1990s, the production of synthetic drugs in general and ecstasy in particular presented generation 2 with the opportunity to expand their business to the international stage. At this time, buyers from all over the world came to the Netherlands to find the excellent quality Dutch ecstasy. All families included in our study bar one got involved in wholesale ecstasy trade and production. Finally, in the early 1990s, another criminal opportunity presented itself when indoor cannabis cultivation methods were introduced. This specifically allowed males in generation 3 to focus on large-scale cannabis cultivation and to become leaders of their own criminal groups. A highly relevant question is how to disrupt transmission of criminal behaviour in these families. Even for family members who want to choose a different path, it is difficult to escape from the closed deviant subcultures of which they are a part, without completely breaking all ties, at least for several years  (Madarie & Kruisbergen, 2020).

Targeting Intergenerational Transmission of Criminal Behaviour The findings of Moors and Spapens (2017) were highly recognisable for many municipalities and other government agencies dealing with criminal families, and the report was also discussed in Parliament on June 6, 2017. On the one hand, institutions acknowledged that repression and convictions had not resulted in breaking the chain of intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour. On the other hand, preventive approaches in the shape of social support and attempts to guide family members towards jobs and education had also failed to produce long-term results. Gradually, many criminal families had perfected a range of strategies to resist outsider interventions, as well as the skill to exploit institutions to their advantage. The actors’ main dilemma was how to develop effective interventions, while at the same time preventing to be played off against each other. Since then, such coordinated projects have started in several municipalities. The second study at the heart of this chapter was published in 2020 (Boer et al., 2020). This study described and analysed preventive and repressive measures and implementation practices, as well as non- or post-criminal interventions, for example, in the fields of psycho-social counselling, debt restructuring, family rehabilitation and family coaching. It also addressed promising experiences with discussion and negotiation strategies (politics of narrative) to reach difficult to access target groups and to encourage social mobilisation. This research was based on literature study, 55 (group) interviews with 80 Dutch practitioners involved in projects aimed at tackling criminal families and interviews with 14 practitioners in Sweden and England and Wales, to examine their approach towards (extended) criminal families.

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 epression, Prevention and Promoting Resilience: R A Balancing Act Approaches towards criminal families, regardless of their involvement in organised crime, require a combination of repression, prevention and promoting resilience amongst professionals working with these families and in the communities in which their members reside. Repression involves criminal law enforcement, administrative enforcement agencies and/or the tax authority, in order to investigate and punish offenders, to disrupt their illegal activities by denying them access to the legitimate infrastructure necessary to commit crimes and to make sure they pay taxes, which in the Netherlands includes income tax on the proceeds of crime (Spapens et al., 2015). Criminal families have so far not been regarded as criminal organisations. Only recently, the Public Prosecution Service systematically targeted an extended family network involved in drugs and arms trafficking. Instead, the emphasis is on tracing, prosecuting and convicting individual family members. Public institutions working in the fields of education, welfare, care and housing are usually well acquainted with such families (Kruiter et al., 2008). Their focus is on the protection of vulnerable family members and supporting those who want to desist from crime, reducing and ideally removing the risk factors that may lead to delinquent or antisocial behaviour, especially amongst the younger generations. The regional Care and Safety Houses handle the most serious cases. The Houses do not specifically aim at tackling (organised) crime, but address complex problems, including poverty and social exclusion. Our research showed that criminal families are closed entities, which prefer not to be bothered by outsiders, unless there is a benefit. They will accept help but usually remain highly reluctant towards attempts to change their lifestyle, particularly when the family’s income largely depends on criminal activities. In the context of criminal families, it is important to include interventions directed at their members’ problematic behaviour in the outside world, including prevention of recidivism, as well as interventions concerning the core families’ inner world, in order to reduce the problems they face (Troy et al., 2018). The distinction is not always clear-cut, because interventions often cover both worlds. Problems inside the family dynamics usually relate to (later) problematic behaviour in the outside world. Ultimately, the aim is chiefly to prevent that those problems arise in the outside world. Moreover, in recent years, the insight has taken hold that increasing the resilience of the professional environment of these families, as well as of the neighbourhoods in which they live, must also be included in an effective approach. It is impossible to counter criminal families when professionals are intimidated and reluctant to act, and when the public, out of fear and for other reasons, provide and maintain an environment in which the families’ illegal activities can thrive. Therefore, increasing professional resilience is crucially important. Criminal families are firmly embedded in their social, physical and subcultural environment (Glowacz & Born, 2015). Several studies have shown that their members often play

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a dominant role in their immediate living environment, through a combination of intimidation and philanthropy (Moors & Spapens, 2017; Witte & Moors, 2017; Bruinsma et al., 2018). The awareness has grown that criminal families may also impact negatively on programs intended to improve socioeconomically weak neighbourhoods (Tops & Van der Torre, 2014). Social mobilisation is therefore crucially important: stimulating people in neighbourhoods to come clean and to end their ingrained secrecy and protective attitudes towards crime, in order to break the negative influence criminal families have on their neighbourhoods. It should be noted that, although residents usually have little confidence in authorities and outsiders, the majority are not involved in criminal activity and at best tolerate the behaviour of the families. This presents opportunities for change. The above shows it is of crucial importance that agencies such as municipalities, healthcare providers, social work, the police and the public prosecution service present as a united front at the local levels where criminal families are rooted, even if their illegal activities are highly international. With a coordinated approach, these institutions can disrupt family-based criminal networks, by implementing innovative combinations of interventions, based on criminal, administrative, fiscal and sometimes civil law. Normalising the relations between criminal families and society and preventing intergenerational transmission of serious criminal and antisocial behaviour is by no means an easy task. It requires long-term coordinated efforts.

 imited Academic Knowledge on System-Oriented L Interventions in Criminal Families In the Netherlands, no specific studies have been conducted on family-oriented multi-agency approaches and system-oriented interventions targeted at families involved in serious and organised crime. The only exception is an evaluation of a project that ran in Amsterdam (Ferwerda, 2017). However, a large body of literature addresses family-based initiatives aimed at preventing and tackling multi-problems. Although not specifically focused on criminal or antisocial behaviour, families that experience, for instance, poverty, lack of parenting skills, addiction problems and low levels of education, resemble criminal families to some extent. Although successful criminal families may not be poor, it must be kept in mind that – similar to their counterparts in the ‘upper world’ – most members of the criminal underworld are by no means consistent top earners (Van Duyne & De Miranda, 1999; Van Duyne & Soudijn, 2010). Family-based approaches should therefore not be limited to the kingpins, but also be aimed at the families of ‘personnel’ holding less important positions in criminal cooperatives.

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Several studies have addressed (multisystem-oriented) interventions in multi-­ problem families, where problems usually include criminal or antisocial behaviour of parents and/or their children (Loeber et al., 2009; Dekovic et al., 2012; Holwerda et al., 2014; Hoogeveen et al., 2017; Troy et al., 2018). Such studies show the importance of stimulating and supporting families to take matters into their own hands. Results vary when it comes to breaking the chain of intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour (Humayun et  al., 2017; Evenboer et  al., 2018; Armstrong et al., 2018). Regardless of their involvement in crime, each family is unique. It is therefore essential to tailor interventions to their specific circumstances and to bear in mind that approaches that have been evaluated positively at aggregate level may not work for individual families. By comparison, the body of knowledge on intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour within families and how to disrupt this process has been growing rapidly (Besemer et al., 2017; Van Dijk et al., 2021). Other studies have addressed the question of how to ‘open up’ closed criminogenic environments and communities (Tops & Van der Torre, 2014; Bervoets & Bruinsma, 2017; Mehlbaum et al., 2018). Most publications underline the necessity of applying multisystem-oriented interventions and methodologies. In some cases, such interventions aim at preventing escalation of problems and may include (mild forms of) repression. Regardless of the chosen methods and interventions, it is always crucial to be in frequent and close contact with family members, in order to build the levels of trust needed to promote changes in individual behaviour. Results show that when families are motivated to change, it is indeed possible to acquire rapport and positively influence individual members’ behaviour as well as family dynamics and thereby to prevent intergenerational transmission of problems (Evenboer et  al., 2018; Pijnenburg et al., 2019; Steketee & Pels, 2019). Changing family dynamics may, for instance, include creating opportunities for the parents to learn from other parents and bringing the children in situations in which they experience recognition from other children. Finally, some literature exists on social mobilisation in the context of strengthening resilience of social and physical environments against crime (Ayling, 2009; Rodgers et al., 2018; Cobb, 2013). Certain approaches and interventions may succeed in positively influencing risks and situational factors and in reducing the breeding grounds for criminal behaviour. However, little is known in the context of serious and organised crime and about how to promote resilience against criminal family networks. Practical experience shows that small-scale but visible interventions may help to create new dynamics (see also Crocker et al., 2019). It is important to show the neighbourhood that institutions are serious about making an impact. One municipality, for example, noted a substantial increase in the number of (anonymous) reports on a notorious criminal family, after the arrest of several key members.

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Practice-Based Experience Tackling criminal families is not just about designing creative interventions and having these implemented. Practitioners also need to take their institutional environment into account. They must ensure the backing of their organisations and deal with legal barriers on information exchange in particular. Municipalities took the leading role in all projects we included in our analysis. Projects may target not only a single core family but also several criminal families, or interrelated core families. Municipalities may select multiple families based on risk analysis, but in another example, the project started with a small number of families, which encouraged others to join. In most cases, the starting point of a project was the observation that criminal activities or antisocial behaviour had risen to a level the authorities could no longer tolerate. In some cases, the outside world regarded family members as ‘untouchables’, who were able to do as they pleased. They presented negative role models for others in their social and physical environment and thereby seriously undermined the authority of public institutions (Eysink Smeets & Bervoets, 2011; Bervoets, 2014; Kruisbergen et al., 2019). Sometimes serious incidents triggered actions but also long-term problems, such as family members showing intimidating and aggressive behaviour towards others in their neighbourhoods and towards civil servants (Lam et al., 2018). Authorities may also decide to intervene because of concerns about the well-being of the children (Schout & Zoon, 2016; Ferwerda & Van Ham, 2017; Nickelsen, 2013). Particularly, when problems are not limited to individual family members but appear to be systemic in a particular family, authorities may decide to initiate simultaneous or consecutive coordinated interventions, aimed at the entire core family or family networks. Preventing transmission of problem behaviour to the younger generation is often not the primary objective, but at least a secondary goal of such interventions (Ferwerda, 2017). The first and crucial stage of any approach is to determine the objectives. Significantly different approaches are required for different goals, for example, to stop criminal activities of individual family members, to strip criminal families or prominent members of their status; to prevent intergenerational transmission of problematic behaviour or to create a more hostile environment for criminal families by changing the mood in their neighbourhoods. Obviously, the goals that are set will determine the strategies and interventions, the partners to be involved and the (measurable) outcomes to be achieved. Our empirical research shows that setting realistic objectives requires a careful and structured process. A major pitfall is drawing up a plan that combines several simultaneous goals described in general terms, without sufficiently thinking through the consequences. Initiatives regularly ended up in deadlock because the parties involved wished to first collect all available information about all members of several criminal families on subjects ranging from health to crime. This seemed sensible, because the parties involved assumed it would allow them to choose the most efficient and effective approach. However, the participants found out that it took

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excessive amounts of time and invoked complicated debates between privacy officers about which information could be shared and by whom. Furthermore, institutions tend to overestimate the amount of data other partners have available. Instead, it works better to set a modest goal to start with, based on information that is readily available, and to learn more during the process of intervention. Agility rather than strict planning is therefore paramount. Second, it is crucial to organise support, from the municipal board and the managerial levels in relevant departments and partner institutions to begin with. The professionals involved must experience trust and must be allowed to make mistakes, as it needs to be accepted that results may not become visible in the short term. Any municipal manager or police commander who wants to see hard evidence of results will likely be disappointed. Instead, progress is predominantly expressed in ‘soft’ terms and narrative evaluation. Those responsible at policy and managerial levels must therefore always be kept on board to ensure a long-term perspective, and they must accept that positive developments may be temporarily reversed by new negative events. Organising support is also important to ensure that professionals on the ground are able to do their jobs. City councils must set standards and must dare to articulate differences and publicise them and to prioritise family-oriented approaches. Partner organisations must mandate their professionals to take operational decisions without the need for constantly seeking approval, so as to avoid time-consuming internal bureaucracy and conflicts with immediate supervisors as well as other partners. The latter requires that partners mutually understand their organisational and accountability dynamics, so that loss of time and energy can be prevented. The third issue municipalities must address is that interventions regarding criminal families usually require a separate project organisation, operating outside common structures. Most promising projects involve a small team of practitioners, who focus on one or more families specifically. This allows for more flexibility and better availability compared to regular municipal departments and other public institutions. These are usually burdened by high caseloads and sometimes show a 9–5 mentality. Moreover, they all have their own institutional targets and methods to account for results achieved. A disadvantage of independent project organisations is that they must continuously organise support from their partners. They may also have to prevent that partners take actions, which may disrupt positive developments within the families. For example, the probation service may decide to revoke parole for formal reasons, while the project-team is in the process of helping the individual concerned setting up a business to earn a legitimate income. In practice, all sorts of unforeseen ‘events’ require continuous alignment with other partners that hold formal legal mandates. Another disadvantage of setting up a specific project organisation is that all projects are temporary. After 3–5 years, allocated funding generally ends. Working methods and experiences then need be incorporated in regular institutions, which proves to be challenging. Fourth, it is essential to align the two very disparate perspectives of agencies focused on repression, such as the police and the public prosecution service, and partners in the social services, who want to provide care, support and assistance. It

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is also a major challenge. It proves to be of major importance to appoint a central project director with the competences to build bridges between these sides. Experience shows that successfully fulfilling this role is easier for people from a police background than for someone with a history in the social services. Their advantage lies in a better understanding of working with the public prosecution service, an agency that is less used to cooperate with other partners on equal footing. They also have solid experience in handling sensitive information, which helps to ensure trust with the police. Fifth, the quintessence of any coordinated multi-agency approach is the bundling of all information available, from all partners. All interviewees acknowledge the importance of sharing information, especially between the healthcare system, the social services and law enforcement partners. However, sharing information is complicated for both legal and practical reasons. From a legal perspective, specific covenants allow the exchange of information between the partners of the so-called Regional Information and Expertise Centres (RIEC’s – focused exclusively on targeting organised and subversive crime) and the partners that cooperate in the Care and Safety houses, respectively. It is, however, more complicated to share information between public agencies across those domains and between public and private partners. Here, strict privacy rules apply, following from the EU General Data Protection Regulation. Privacy regulations are highly complicated and may therefore provoke debate among the partners’ legal departments, thus paralysing information sharing and interventions. In addition, information sharing is all about timing. It is not necessary to share all information all the time, but instead to share crucial information at the right moment, to enable partners to take timely action. From a practical perspective, differences in orientation between law enforcement and the social services may stand in the way of effective cooperation. For example, the latter try to establish relationships of trust and care with families, which in their opinion might be threatened by repressive interventions. Conversely, partners whose focus is on repression may feel that criminal families benefit from all these sorts of support, without changing their criminal behaviour. This is indeed a serious risk: some families will appear to be cooperative if that is to their advantage, but the atmosphere may quickly deteriorate when agencies ‘come too close’ and genuinely start to threaten their criminal earning model. Balancing between repression, prevention and providing support is a major challenge for all partners who work with criminal families. One method is to work with scenarios, based on the input of different experts, that anticipate the families’ responses to specific interventions. These scenarios may include psychological profiles to predict possible responses to interventions. Professionals must be enabled to think creatively, they must not be afraid to explore legal boundaries and they must be allowed to not always follow protocol when making their decisions. This requires backing from their managers and municipal boards. Nevertheless, relationships between professionals and families may easily break because of frictions, mistrust and fear, for instance, when families feel they are judged and no longer in control of their situation. For professionals, it is necessary that parents remain cooperative, to allow them to prevent intergenerational transmission of problematic behaviour (see

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also Thornberry, 2016; Adjiembaks, 2018). All of this goes to show that working with criminal families is a matter of trial and error, and that results may be limited to small steps, not measurable in the ‘hard’ figures advocates of ‘evidence based’ methods would prefer.

Concluding Remarks Researchers of organised crime have acknowledged the importance of building and maintaining relations of trust to enable effective management of criminal organisations, rather than relying on violence and threat (von Lampe & Johansen, 2004). Trust is often based on family relations and long-term friendships, particularly within the inner cores of criminal groups who initiate, organise and coordinate criminal business processes. Furthermore, members of organised crime groups do not live in a vacuum but are firmly embedded socially in their neighbourhoods (Hobbs, 1998; Spapens, 2012; van de Bunt et al., 2014). This may extend to the fact that they often choose not to move elsewhere, even when their financial situation allows them to (Moors & Spapens, 2017). Compared to organised crime, the concept of a criminal family is concrete and something local authorities and public institutions working with these families can instantly relate to. Criminal families are about ‘real’ people who are usually well known in their local communities. Although other people who live in the families’ areas of residence may not have detailed knowledge of criminal activities, these families usually have a tainted reputation. This does not imply, however, that influencing and normalising the behaviour of such families is an easy task. Our first study showed that subcultures play an important part in explaining intergenerational transmission of criminal and antisocial behaviour. Breaking away, at least partially, from these subcultures is therefore an important prerequisite for change, while at the same time, these communities provide important support and protection against an outside world, which is often perceived as hostile. Although changing the pathways of entire criminal families as such is not impossible, focusing on individuals seems to be more feasible. The focus is usually on women and children, but this does not rule out that change may also be achieved through adult males who seek to desist from a life of crime. Experience shows that it is essential to apply a strategy of coordinated multi-­ agency interventions to criminal families. In the past decades, different agencies used to pursue their own interventions, which allowed criminal families to benefit from all sorts of support that did not challenge their sources of illegal income, whereas arrests and convictions of family members involved in organised crime largely failed to change the family system for the better and did not prevent intergenerational transmission. Furthermore, authorities have until recently largely ignored the families’ role in their immediate social environment and their efforts to ensure ‘walls of silence’, either through intimidation or philanthropy (Bruinsma et al., 2018). For authorities, it is important to also promote resilience and social

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mobilisation, efforts that require building trust within such neighbourhood communities. Multi-agency cooperation is necessary but also complex: public institutions each have their specific orientation, legal mandates and goals. Successful cooperation requires creativity, flexibility and the courage to deviate from standard working practices when necessary. There is still much to be gained in these respects. Practical experiences rendered increasing knowledge on factors that either inhibit or promote intergenerational transmission of criminal and other problem behaviour and provide growing insight in specific effects of gender, age and other background factors in this process. We now know how specific situations and circumstances influence family members’ choices and considerations. In addition, well-founded multi-­ system therapies have become increasingly available. The main challenge remains how to bundle knowledge, experience and information available in the domains of law enforcement, social security, parenting support, education, (mental) healthcare, neighbourhood development and crime prevention. All of this requires long-term efforts: quick fixes, unfortunately, do not exist.

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Chapter 14

Are Dark Number Estimates of Crime Feasible and Useful? Joras Ferwerda

Introduction Criminals try to minimize the detection of their crimes. This makes crime hard to study, especially when attempting an overview, such as estimating the volume. For certain types of crime, few offenses are observed because the effects are not directly visible and detection rates are low—like for money laundering, terrorist financing, tax evasion, and certain types of fraud—or because both parties might prefer the transaction like for drug sales and illegal prostitution. But how much are we missing when focusing only on the known cases? While policymakers seek dark number estimates of the total volume, there is skepticism among academics about whether such estimates are valid, reliable, feasible, or even useful. This chapter explores whether such dark number estimates specifically for money laundering, which is rarely detected, are feasible or useful. To make the discussion more concrete, this chapter starts with outlining the critique on existing estimates of money laundering as an example. A normative discussion sets out the relevant evaluation principles. This chapter concludes dark number estimates should be attempted.

I thank Peter Reuter and Brigitte Unger for helpful comments. J. Ferwerda (*) Utrecht University School of Economics, Utrecht, The Netherlands e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6_14

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Critique on Dark Number Estimates of Crime In the early 2000s, Naylor (2004) voiced his concern about politicians, press, and police telling the public about an “epidemic of crime sweeping through the increasingly globalized economy” and how such messages “help to justify a string of remarkable legislative and political initiatives” (Naylor, 2004, p. 1). It can indeed be troubling how dark number estimates of crime are sometimes used. However, this issue is broader than dark number estimates of crime; general crime narratives and examples of crime events and the occurrence of criminal gangs can be used in the same worrying manner. This chapter will focus on dark number crime estimates and the academic discussion and leave out how such estimates are or can be used in policy debates. Taking the discussion around estimates of money laundering as an example, the most influential and in-depth critique on dark number estimates comes from Reuter (2013, p. 224). He states “[m]y view is that knowing how much money is laundered serves no important policy purpose.” Continuing with: “It is simply one of those adornments for conversations about the phenomenon. That is very fortunate, since we have no methodology that plausibly would produce credible numbers. [..] [T]here is no prospect, either in surveys of experts or in studies of crimes themselves as reflected in criminal justice statistics, for developing persuasive estimates.” A strong take on the matter from one of the most influential scholars in the field of money laundering. Reuter (2013) explains why the amount of money laundering serves no important policy purpose. The eventual goal of anti-money laundering controls is not reduction in the volume of money laundering; it is about reducing predicate crimes and “global bads” such as terrorism and kleptocracy. Money laundering volume reduction should not be the primary measure of performance for agencies. Such a performance measure does not align with the eventual goal (reducing predicate crimes and global bads) and leads to unproductive strategic behavior, like picking low-hanging fruit. But besides questioning the “why-question,” both Reuter (2013) and Kruisbergen (2021) question the methods now in use for estimating money laundering. The existing estimates need some heroic assumptions and have such a range, that it is hard to use them for any policy or performance measure. When focusing on the leading model used for estimating money laundering, the Walker Model or the Walker-Unger Model, some assumptions and data sources are not well documented. Ferwerda et al. (2020) made the estimation procedure more transparent. Previous publications about the estimation model relied on talking the reader through the estimation procedure. While such a narrative needs to be precise, it also needs to remain readable. This can lead to small, seemingly uninteresting details being left out to keep the main text readable or to such details ending up in footnotes or appendices, which all makes it harder to replicate the whole estimation procedure for an outsider. Ferwerda et al. (2020) publishing in a journal of Nature were required to provide a detailed description of the estimation methodology. So, this estimation

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script is now downloadable with related data on the website of the publication.1 Although this makes the estimation procedure more transparent and replication easier, Ferwerda et al. (2020) still relied on some criticized data sources, specifically expert judgment, from these former models.

Expert Judgment Estimates of money laundering volume have relied heavily on expert judgment, since reliable data are missing. Reuter (2013) specifically criticizes expert judgment of fraud experts with only a 10% response rate, as used in the Walker model. Van Duyne and Soudijn (2010) doubt whether experts know much about relevant estimates for money laundering components. Such critique is in line with Kilmer et al. (2010) criticism of intelligence agency efforts to estimate US drug markets. Indeed, the current models have issues with using expert judgment. Comparing the expert elicitation used for estimating money laundering with the standards and best practices of Morgan (the leading scholar on this, see e.g. Morgan, 2014; Morgan et al., 1990; Morgan & Keith, 1995) shows how much improvements are still needed. The dependence on expert elicitation reflects a lack of good data, even in official statistics, that are needed for a money laundering estimation. We can be optimistic and just claim that we have to wait for better data from national or international institutions, but we have to be realistic that such data needs focused academic research, since money laundering is by definition hidden from the eyes of official authorities. The last issue worth discussing is research capacity. Kruisbergen (2021) argues that when research capacity is limited and when funded with public means, research budgets are better spent on other research questions than an estimation of money laundering that cannot be done well. Reuter (2013, p. 230) concludes in the same vein: “estimating the total volume [of money laundering] is a diversion of attention.” Before focusing on the feasibility, we first need to question whether we should want to have dark number crime estimates in the first place.

 re Dark Number Estimates of Crime Useful? Principles A to Determine Whether Dark Number Estimates Are Worth Doing For many types of crimes, we only see the tip of the iceberg: the cases that are known either because law enforcement agencies detected and investigated them or because criminologists were able to uncover them. These known cases provide the

 See: Ferwerda et al. (2020). Estimating money laundering flows with a gravity model-based simulation. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-75653-x 1

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most concrete possibility to gain relevant insights into these crimes. Such observations are a logical starting point and can answer many relevant questions, but for some of the bigger research questions, it might not be the right focus. Criminologists can criticize law enforcement agencies for picking low-hanging fruit (see, e.g., Reuter, 2013). We, as a science, should then be open to the same critique. Without claiming that research on known cases is easy, we might be trying to pick the low-­ hanging fruit here. Good research starts by identifying what we want to know. For some research questions, we need the bigger picture. Dark number estimates of crime are hard, but the size of the challenge should not determine whether they need to be done. The challenge is a separate issue discussed later in this chapter, after we determine whether dark number estimates should be done at all. We can use relevance as a guiding principle on whether research should be conducted. Relevance can be classified into two key types: scientific relevance, where a study increases our understanding, and societal relevance, where society directly benefits as a result of this increased understanding (Shaw & Elger, 2013). Not both types of relevance are needed to justify research. Fundamental research without a direct benefit to society is still relevant if it contributes to our understanding of human or social behavior. Dark number estimates of crime can be relevant for policy priority setting, policy evaluation, and further research. The first two allude to the societal relevance, while the latter indicates the scientific relevance.

Policy Priority Setting Crimes and their related harms are important issues for societies. We need to understand crime well and formulate effective policies against it. But governments face many challenges with a limited budget, so setting priorities is key. Politicians and policymakers need to decide which problems will need to be tackled first and how much of the limited budget can be spent to deal with each issue. For an informed and justified priority decision, it is crucial to know the size of each problem and what its effects (both positive and negative) are. Dark number crime estimates— when credible, reliable, and sufficiently accurate—are relevant inputs for such policy decisions. For money laundering estimates, the policy priority setting has become more explicit since 2012. The FATF, the international organization for the fight against money laundering, made it explicit that countries should understand money laundering risks for a proper risk-based fight against money laundering (FATF, 2012, 2013). Money laundering estimates can be helpful to understand (relative) money laundering risks within a country—especially when disaggregated for different sectors, products, and institutions—so that anti-money laundering policies can be truly risk-based (Ferwerda & Reuter, 2022, p. 24).

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Policy Evaluation For crime control policies, as for any other policies, the central question is whether such policies are effective. Since “water always finds its way” (Unger & den Hertog, 2012), criminals can react to new policies and try to circumvent them. Estimating the amount of crime properly is relevant to evaluating ex-post whether the policies have been effective and efficient. Did the amount of crime really decrease after the policy was introduced (effectiveness)? And was this worth the spending on the policy (efficiency)? The global anti-money laundering policy framework remains untested after 30  years, raising questions on whether the same results could be achieved more cheaply through other means (Ferwerda & Reuter, 2022). Dark number estimates of money laundering—when credible, reliable, and sufficiently accurate—are relevant inputs for such evaluations. There has been a long discussion about how well policies can be evaluated and how to determine the causal relationship of policy and the effect. Policy evaluation as a field is still very much in development (see, e.g., Gertler et al., 2016; Nagel, 2002; Rossi et al., 2018). Determining the effectiveness of anti-money laundering policies is particularly challenging since much of the focus is on preventing money laundering. How to determine whether something did not happen due to the measures taken by authorities? (Nelen, 2008, p. 20) More and more focus on evidence-­ based policymaking and evaluating the effectiveness of policies can have disadvantages. Nelen (2008) warns of the danger of an evidence maze, where the social scientist is merely asked to provide the evidence for what works, while questions like why it works, for whom, and under which circumstances are more relevant to truly expand scientific insights. Indeed, measuring the effect of crime-prevention policies is hard, especially when there are poor measures of the volume of offenses (see, e.g., Van der Schoot, 2006). However, there has been significant progress in the field called causal inference. The improvements in empirical research designs led Angrist and Pischke (2010) to even talk about a credibility revolution. This chapter cannot be the place to determine whether we should be optimistic or pessimistic about eventually being able to reliably estimate the prevention effect of policies generally. Consider the following thought experiment. If a policeman stands on a street corner for 40 years and never catches a criminal, this might seem a wasted resource. But it can also be argued that the police man prevented many crimes; criminals that therefore never had to be caught in the first place. How can we ever know the prevention effect? We could analyze what happens on days the police man did not attend the street corner (expectedly, like during weekends, and unexpectedly, due to, e.g., illness) and compare that with the other days. Theoretically at least, we could analyze many similar street corners (and account for the differences) with and without policemen and use econometrics or other data analytical tools to get an estimate of the prevention effect. We could go even further and randomize which street corners are watched by policemen, and when, to get more insights into the prevention effect (e.g., the work of Famega et  al., 2017 is an inspiring example or randomization to test policing

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effects). Such a thought experiment shows how such an evaluation study is definitely not easy, but also how it is not impossible to get some relevant insights. The answer to the what-works-question should not be the end product of scientific research. It should spur questions about why it works, how it works and in which circumstances (in line with Nelen, 2008, p. 23). Answering the what-works-­ question should eventually lead to new scientific insights.

Scientific Relevance In theory, money laundering may have all kinds of (indirect) effects on societies. Money laundering can affect the real economy by distortion of consumption, savings, investment, inflation, competition, trade, and employment. Furthermore, money laundering can affect the financial sector with an increased risk to the solvability, liquidity, reputation, and integrity of the sector. But money laundering, on the other hand, could also be good for an economy, for example, because it increases the profits for the financial sector and leads to greater availability of credit (see Unger et al., 2006 for an overview of the effects of money laundering). Many of these effects can easily be identified in theoretical models, but empirical support for these effects is often lacking (Ferwerda, 2013). The empirical research on these effects, and especially the research on how big these effects are, is still in its infancy. Empirical research on the effects of money laundering is complicated because the most important variable (the cause) is so hard to estimate: the amount of money laundering. Dark number estimates of crime are relevant (or crucial, even) inputs to eventually test the suggested effects and unintended side effects (in line with the argumentation of Ferwerda et al., 2021 on illicit financial flows). Research attempting to estimate the size forces researchers to think about underlying mechanisms and relevant determinants. This can generate related useful insights. For example, Ferwerda et al. (2020) simulated money laundering flows to estimate the amount of money laundering, but the real value might be the (limited) insight derived about which type of country money launderers prefer to send their money. A similar example is the study of Caulkins and Reuter (2022) that provides rough estimates for the volume of the heroin market in British Columbia. The main insight of that study is not the estimation itself but an understanding of the primary determinants for such an estimation and the role of anti-money laundering policy. Even critics of money laundering estimates admit that wanting to know how big the problem is an understandable and rational wish (Kruisbergen, 2021, p.64). The main issue is then whether it is possible to have credible and reliable dark number estimates of crime.

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 re Dark Number Estimates of Crime Feasible? Can We Have A Reliable and Precise Estimates? Will we ever be able to measure crime precisely? No. It is hard to imagine we would ever be able to have a measurement technique to know exactly how much crimes like money laundering are happening. Still, with credible estimates, we can get a better idea of the size, with possible flaws and uncertainty, but better. This inability to be precise is not unique to the estimation of the amount of crime. Take the coastline paradox. It seems like we can see the length of a coastline on a map, but the coastline of a landmass does not have a well-defined length. The smaller the unit of measurement (200 km > 100 km > 50 km), the higher the estimated length. Figure 14.1 visualizes the paradox. Of course, on top of that, coastlines change, daily with the tides, but also over time. It is impossible to determine the exact length of a coastline. Still, imprecise coastline estimates are useful and certain statements based on such estimates can be credible. The estimates can indicate whether the coastline of an island is shrinking due to rising sea levels or that the coastline of the Netherlands is shorter than the coastline of the United Kingdom. Acceptance of a certain level of imprecision is needed to use such estimates. Without going into the philosophical debate on whether we ever know anything (see the Gettier problem), we might want to focus on a more relevant question: can we produce sufficiently credible and reliable dark number crime estimates? Now or in the future.

Fig. 14.1  The coastline paradox visualized. (Source: Stoa, 2019, p. 359)

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At the moment, we lack the understanding and the data to have an estimate precise enough that it can be used for more than a rough idea about the amount of money laundering (see Reuter (2013) and other critics (e.g., Kruisbergen, 2021; Van Duyne, 2003; Van Duyne & Soudijn, 2010)). We might be able to answer questions about the order of magnitude (are we talking about millions or billions?), but current estimates cannot be used to test the effectiveness of anti-money laundering policies reliably. Dark number crime estimates still rely on strong assumptions and have large error margins. We might be stumbling at the gate, and that is fine. Dark number crime estimates are still in development. There are many other examples where it initially seemed very hard to get reliable and credible estimates, like when estimating happiness (see, e.g., National Research Council, 2014; Voukelatou et al., 2021) and unemployment (see, e.g., Card, 2011). In these fields, there is still discussion about the precision of the estimates and adaptations are still being suggested (mostly on disentanglement). However, standardized estimation methods have been developed over time, with trial and error, to come to useable statistics useful for policymakers and related research. For unemployment estimates, the development started already in 1880. Largely accepted measurement techniques developed in the late 1930s (Card, 2011). Even today, most unemployment rates are derived from national statistics and are therefore not directly comparable. Only since 2001 has the OECD published the so-called harmonized employment rate,2 a more internationally comparable unemployment measure. The development of feasible estimation methods takes time and trial and error. We have had insufficient of both for the development of money laundering estimates. Estimates of unemployment and happiness became useful eventually. Critique about the estimates is needed and, when constructive, can help eventually, but there is little value in suggesting to stop trying. We are still at the initial phase where attempts and a diversity of methods should be welcomed. Failures should even be expected. Trial and error are needed to eventually come to a reliable and credible estimation model. In the same vein, we still need to determine which data are needed and how to reliably get to this data. We cannot expect to already have the necessary data available. The UNODC is working on making crime statistics more internationally comparable and recently published a conceptual framework for the statistical measurement of illicit financial flows (UNODC, 2020). Such endeavors might not directly provide all the relevant data that is needed but show progress in data collection and standardization.

 https://stats.oecd.org/glossary/detail.asp?ID=3094 (accessed May 28, 2022).

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Conclusion Some crimes and their effects cannot be observed directly. There is skepticism about dark number estimates of these crimes and how these estimates can be used by politicians, the press, and police. There are legitimate concerns about dark number estimates of crime, but being unable to precisely estimate crimes with current models and data should not be a reason to stop research. Whether to conduct dark number crime estimates should be determined by their relevance. Dark number estimates of crime can be relevant for three main reasons. First, having an estimate of the size of the problem can help politicians and policymakers determine whether scarce resources should be spent to fight the problem and how much. Second, estimates of the amount of crime are crucial to eventually test the effectiveness of crime-fighting policies. Third, dark number crime estimates are scientifically relevant to eventually better understand, among others, the underlying mechanisms, the determinants, and the effects. We might currently be unsure about which data to use, uncertain about the right research method, and in doubt about the appropriate model, but these doubts and uncertainties should not terminate the search. Actually, doubt and uncertainty should be a driving force for research.

References Angrist, J. D., & Pischke, J.-S. (2010). The credibility revolution in empirical economics: How better research design is taking the con out of econometrics. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 24(2), 3–30. Card, D. (2011). Origins of the unemployment rate: The lasting legacy of measurement without theory. American Economic Review, 101(3), 552–557. Caulkins, J.  P., & Reuter, P. (2022). How much demand for money laundering services does drug selling create? Identifying the key parameters. International Journal of Drug Policy, 103, 103652. Famega, C., Hinkle, J. C., & Weisburd, D. (2017). Why getting inside the “black box” is important: Examining treatment implementation and outputs in policing experiments. Police Quarterly, 20(1), 106–132. FATF. (2012). International standards on combating money laundering and the financing of terrorism & proliferation: The FATF recommendations. FATF/OECD. http://www.nrb.org.np/fiu/ notices/Revised_FATF_Recommendations(2Feb2012)_FATF-­WGEI(2012).pdf FATF. (2013). FATF guidance national money laundering and terrorist financing risk assessment. http://www.fatf-­gafi.org/media/fatf/content/images/National_ML_TF_Risk_Assessment.pdf Ferwerda, J. (2013). 3. The effects of money laundering. In Research handbook on money laundering (p. 35). EconPapers Ferwerda, J., & Reuter, P. (2022). National assessments of money laundering risks (Equitable growth, finance & institutions insight, p. 45) [World Bank report]. World Bank. Ferwerda, J., van Saase, A., Unger, B., & Getzner, M. (2020). Estimating money laundering flows with a gravity model-based simulation. Scientific Reports, 10(1), 1–11. Ferwerda, J., Unger, B., Rossel Flores, L., & Ferwerda, J. (2021). How big are illicit financial flows? The hot phase of IFF estimations. In Combatting financial fraud and empowering regulators. Oxford University Press.

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Gertler, P. J., Martinez, S., Premand, P., Rawlings, L. B., & Vermeersch, C. M. (2016). Impact evaluation in practice. World Bank Publications. Kilmer, B., Caulkins, J. P., Bond, B. M., & Reuter, P. H. (2010). Reducing drug trafficking revenues and violence in Mexico: Would legalizing marijuana in California help? Rand. Kruisbergen, E. (2021). Het witwassen van criminele winsten. Justitiele Verkenningen, 47(4), 47. Morgan, M. G. (2014). Use (and abuse) of expert elicitation in support of decision making for public policy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(20), 7176–7184. Morgan, M. G., & Keith, D. W. (1995). Subjective judgments by climate experts. Environmental Science & Technology, 29(10), 468A–476A. Morgan, M. G., Henrion, M., & Small, M. (1990). Uncertainty: A guide to dealing with uncertainty in quantitative risk and policy analysis. Cambridge University Press. Nagel, S. S. (2002). Handbook of public policy evaluation. Sage. National Research Council. (2014). Subjective well-being: Measuring happiness, suffering, and other dimensions of experience. National Research Council. Naylor, R. T. (2004). Wages of crime: Black markets, illegal finance, and the underworld economy. Cornell University Press. Nelen, H. (2008). Evidence maze; het doolhof van het evaluatieonderzoek. Maastricht University. Reuter, P. (2013). 18. Are estimates of the volume of money laundering either feasible or useful? In Research handbook on money laundering (p. 224). EconPapers. Rossi, P.  H., Lipsey, M.  W., & Henry, G.  T. (2018). Evaluation: A systematic approach. Sage publications. Shaw, D. M., & Elger, B. S. (2013). The relevance of relevance in research. Swiss Medical Weekly, 19. https://doi.org/10.4414/smw.2013.13792 Stoa, R. B. (2019). The coastline paradox. Rutgers University Law Review, 72, 351. Unger, B., & den Hertog, J. (2012). Water always finds its way – Identifying new forms of money laundering. Crime Law and Social Change, Special Issue on Black and Grey Finance, 57, 287. Unger, B., Siegel, M., Ferwerda, J., de Kruijf, W., Busuioic, M., Wokke, K., & Rawlings, G. (2006). The amounts and effects of money laundering. Ministry of Finance. www.Minfin. Nl/Binaries/Minfin/Assets/Pdf/Actueel/Bijlage-­Nieuwsberichten/2006/02/06-­011a.Pdf; http:// www.ftm.nl/wp-­content/uploads/2014/02/witwassen-­in-­nederland-­onderzoek-­naar-­criminele-­ geldstromen.pdf UNODC. (2020). Conceptual framework for the statistical measurement of illicit financial flows (Produced by UNCTAD (Development Statistics and Information Branch in Consultation with Debt and Development Finance Branch) and UNODC (Research and Trends Analysis Branch)). https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-­a nd-­a nalysis/statistics/IFF/IFF_Conceptual_ Framework_for_publication_FINAL_16Oct_print.pdf Van der Schoot, C. R. A. (2006). Organised crime prevention in the Netherlands: Exposing the effectiveness of preventive measures. Eleven International Publishing. Van Duyne, P. C. (2003). Money laundering policy, fears and facts. In P. C. van Duyne, K. von Lampe, & J. L. Newell (Eds.), Criminal finances and organizing crime in Europe (pp. 67–104). Wolf Legal Publishers. http://www.petrusvanduyne.nl/files/Witwassen%20Fears%20and%20 Facts.pdf Van Duyne, P. C., & Soudijn, M. R. J. (2010). Crime-money in the financial system: What we fear and what we know. In Transnational criminology manual (Vol. 2). Wolf Legal Publishers. Voukelatou, V., Gabrielli, L., Miliou, I., Cresci, S., Sharma, R., Tesconi, M., & Pappalardo, L. (2021). Measuring objective and subjective well-being: Dimensions and data sources. International Journal of Data Science and Analytics, 11(4), 279–309.

Index

A Adoption, 3, 5, 6, 25–35, 37–39, 161, 191–204 Arab organized crime, 4, 104, 108, 111, 115–118 Assassinations, 4, 5, 80, 107, 138, 141–146, 149, 150 B Bedouins, 112–117 C Centre for Information and Research on Organized Crime (CIROC), 2, 5 Child laundering, 32 Child protection, 195, 197–200, 202–204 Child trafficking for adoption, 3, 25 Clan crime, 4, 69, 85–99 Contract killings, 4, 111, 137–150 Crime as work, 4, 122, 133, 134 Crime estimation, 7, 228–230, 233–235 Crime script, 45, 48, 71 Crime trends, 5, 17–19, 44, 193 Criminal clans, 97, 109, 112, 113, 118 Criminal family, 107, 109, 111, 207–210, 212–221 Criminalization, 5, 58, 156, 160–165 Criminal networks, 4, 5, 45, 47, 57, 64, 66, 67, 69–71, 79–81, 104, 105, 139, 141, 145–147, 149, 163, 166, 216 Criminogenic asymmetries, 3, 25, 29–31, 37 Cross border crime, 63, 79, 81

D Dark number estimation, 227–235 Drug crime, 3, 44, 46, 47, 52, 56–58, 65, 66, 69, 208, 210 E Embeddedness, 4, 47, 57, 122, 133 Enterprise, 3, 11–21, 31, 180, 187 Environmental crime, 5, 17, 171–188 Ethnography, 86 G Governance, 46, 177 Green criminology, 171, 172, 184 H Hague Convention, 35, 37, 38, 191–204 I Illegal markets, 2, 95, 105, 162, 177 Intergenerational transmission, 6, 85–99, 207–211, 216–218, 220–222 Intergenerational transmission of criminal behaviour, 214, 217 Intervention, 6, 20, 37, 64, 117, 118, 158, 181, 183, 209, 214–221 L Legitimate industries, 2, 12

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Nelen, D. Siegel (eds.), Organized Crime in the 21st Century, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-21576-6

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Index

M Marginalization and exclusion, 92–94 Meuse Rhine Euregion (EMR), 63, 64, 67–70, 73, 74, 77–81 Mhallami, 86, 90, 91 Migration politics, 4, 85–99 Money laundering, 3, 6, 7, 18, 19, 33, 74, 77, 95, 98, 105, 106, 111, 112, 118, 227–234 Murder, 108, 110, 118, 137, 142, 143, 145–149, 180

R Risk assessment, 3, 11, 20, 21

N Networks, 2–5, 13, 17, 18, 29, 31, 34, 64, 66–71, 73, 79, 80, 87, 94, 106, 115, 122, 124, 133, 140, 141, 145, 147, 158, 162, 163, 165, 196, 208, 210, 215, 217, 218 Non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 20, 160, 163, 172

T Trafficking, 2–4, 15–19, 25, 26, 28, 33–35, 39, 46, 49–51, 54, 56, 58, 59, 63, 66, 69, 70, 74–76, 80, 95–97, 105–107, 112, 114, 115, 118, 127, 137, 139–141, 146, 147, 150, 160–162, 165, 166, 171, 177, 178, 183, 194, 196, 198, 200–202, 204, 207, 212, 215 Transnational illegal markets, 177

O Organized crime, 1–3, 5, 6, 11–21, 26, 31, 34, 44, 46, 50, 55, 63, 70, 88, 95, 103–113, 116–118, 122, 134, 137–150, 161–166, 171–173, 177–180, 183, 185, 187, 188, 201, 207–210, 213, 215–217, 221 Orphans, 30, 32, 191–198, 201, 203, 204 P Policing wildlife, 165, 171–188 Port of Rotterdam, 3, 43–54, 56–59

S Smuggling of drugs and arms, 46, 103, 113–115 Social construction, 162, 164 Social organization, 3, 95 Socio-economic conditions, 4, 86, 98, 99 Street gang, 121, 133

V Violence, 4, 5, 18, 45, 46, 53, 57, 58, 69, 70, 77–78, 80, 85, 87, 89, 98, 110, 114, 117, 118, 127, 137–150, 162, 163, 171, 178, 179, 207, 211, 212, 221 W Wildlife, 1, 3, 5, 15, 17, 18, 34, 35, 155–166, 171–188 Wildlife laws, 173, 174, 184, 187