Deck 8: Transnational Organized Crime

Question 1

The United Nations identified 18 types of transnational crime. What do they include?

Answer 1

-Theft of art and cultural objects
-Theft of intellectual property
-Illicit arms trafficking
-Sea piracy
-Trade in human body parts
-Illicit drug trafficking
-Money Laundering
-Trafficking in persons
-Computer crime
-Environmental crime
-Insurance fraud
-Bankruptcy fraud
-Computer crime
-Infiltration of legal business
-Corruption and bribery of public officials

Question 2

What is significant about the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime?

Answer 2

Countries that are party to the Convention must adopt laws that prohibit participation in organized criminal groups, money laundering, corruption, and obstruction of justice The Convention directs participating countries to engage in mutual legal assistance, training, extradition agreements, joint investigations, and witness protection

Question 3

Why is it more useful to describe organized crime in terms of the illicit activities in question, rather than in terms of the groups that commit it?

Answer 3

Organized crime should be seen as the result of exploitation of criminal opportunities, rather than as a problem of a particular ethnic groups

Question 4

What is the "ethnicity trap"?

Question 5

Why is the 1987 President's Commission description of "organized crime today" xenophobic?

Question 6

Why do many organized crime groups more closely resemble loose networks than formal organizations?

Question 7

How can you describe organized crime in the 27 countries of the European Union?

Question 8

A United Nations survey reported information about 40 different types of transnational organized crime groups around the world. They were of five types:

Question 9

How did the bootleggers of illegal alcohol become intertwined with providers of illegal gaming during the 1920s and 1930s?

Question 10

Characterize organized crime links with prostitution in the United States.

Question 11

Increasingly, prostitutes around the world are being supplied from where?

Question 12

Why does the illegal market in body organs exist?

Question 13

Why did the Medellin and Cali drug cartels in Colombia enjoy a great deal of success?

Question 14

Describe the origin of Jamaican gangs.

Question 15

What is "narco-terrorism"?

Question 16

What is the difference between Triads and Tongs?

Question 17

What is the relationship between American and Sicilian Cosa Nostra groups?

Question 18

Why are drugs destined for the United States and western Europe sometimes brought through non-source, intermediary countries in central and eastern Europe?

Question 19

How do U.S. courts permit charging individuals with organized crimes not committed in the United States?

Question 20

How did Russian and Cosa Nostra groups conspire in a fuel tax fraud?

Question 21

Describe the connection between outlaw motorcycle clubs and organized crime activity.

Question 22

Describe racketeering in the carting industry.

Question 23

What are examples of theft of intellectual property?

Question 24

How common is pirated software?

Question 25

How is the reputation of being a racketeer more important than being an actual member of an organized crime group in the carting industry?

Question 26

Provide examples of racketeering by different kinds of organized crime groups.

Question 27

To what do the terms "violent entrepreneurs" and "buccaneer capitalism" refer?

Question 28

Why have Chinese-owned and -operated businesses in New York City succumbed to demands for extortion payments by Chinese gangs?

Question 29

Why has illegal immigration become a market for organized crime?

Question 30

Why did the kidnapping of business executives and tourists from wealthy nations grow to the highest level ever during the 1990s?

Question 31

What is an example of an organized crime group "subcontracting" for illicit services?

Question 32

What is Yakuza?

Question 33

Compare Yakuza with Cosa Nostra organized crime groups.

Question 34

What is corruption?

Question 35

How is corruption related to transnational crime?

Question 36

What is the link between transnational organized crime and terrorism?