The underworld of gemstones

In recent decades prices of high-end “colored gemstones” (trade jargon for precious stones other than diamonds), like almost all “collectibles,” have risen dramatically. Demand has been spreading to economic classes formerly excluded at the same time the supply of high-quality material from natural sources falls, leading to constant searches for as yet undiscovered sites, which may take on the character of gold-rushes. While no doubt criminogenic factors have always existed within the gemstone business, periods of rapid price rise mean stronger temptation for illegal activities. The potential list of economic offenses, civil, regulatory and criminal, associated with the gemstones business includes: illegal mining, environmental offenses, bribery, gun-running, smuggling, “terrorist” (i.e. insurgent) financing, commercial fraud, mining-share swindles, money laundering and, not least, simple theft along with recycling stolen goods. This paper represents an attempt to understand the criminogenic factors in light of the history and current structures of the business. It fits the gemstone trade into a commercial, geo-strategic and sociological matrix, the three often interacting in mutually reinforcing ways. It asks whether, given the incentives and opportunities for illicit activity, relying primarily on industry self-regulation makes sense. But it questions whether the international regulatory regime now in place for diamonds can be applied to the far more diffuse supply-side of the colored gemstone market. The paper is divided into three parts. The first, “Under the Rainbow,” examined the shady side of gemstone mining in a geo-political context. The second “In the Eye of the Beholder” looked at fraud in cutting and polishing of rough gemstones into finished gems. The third, the current one, entitled “Hot Rocks, Cold Cash,” focuses on illicit activity in the retail jewelry trade.     

The underworld of gemstones

In recent decades prices of high-end “colored gemstones” (trade jargon for precious stones other than diamonds), like almost all “collectibles,” have risen dramatically. Demand has been spreading to economic classes formerly excluded at the same time the supply of high-quality material from natural sources falls, leading to constant searches for as yet undiscovered sites, which may take on the character of gold-rushes. While no doubt criminogenic factors have always existed within the gemstone business, periods of rapid price rise mean stronger temptation for illegal activities. The potential list of economic offenses, civil, regulatory and criminal, associated with the gemstones business includes: illegal mining, environmental offenses, bribery, gun-running, smuggling, “terrorist”(i.e. insurgent) financing, commercial fraud, mining-share swindles, money laundering and, not least, simple theft along with recycling stolen goods. This paper represents an attempt to understand the criminogenic factors in light of the history and current structures of the business. It fits the gemstone trade into a commercial, geo-strategic and sociological matrix, the three often interacting in mutually reinforcing ways. It asks whether, given the incentives and opportunities for illicit activity, relying primarily on industry self-regulation makes sense. But it questions whether the international regulatory regime now in place for diamonds can be applied to the far more diffuse supply-side of the colored gemstone market. The paper is divided into three parts. The first, “Under the Rainbow,” examined the shady side of gemstone mining in a geo-political context. The current one, the second in the series, entitled “In the Eye of the Beholder,” looks at fraud in cutting and polishing of rough gemstones into finished gems. The third “Hot Rocks, Cold Cash” will focus on illicit activity in the retail jewelry trade.     

The underworld of ivory

This paper examines the emergence and operation of the illegal market for ivory, paying particular attention to the institutional structure and criminogenic characteristics of the industry. It notes that many of the problems associated with modern regulation have deep historical roots. While much anti-animal trade rhetoric emphasizes the alleged participation of “organized crime” in the clandestine traffic, the reality is that, not just with ivory, but with all wildlife trade, the illegal market is run (and always has been run) by the same actors who operate the legal one, and with the same infrastructure. On the other hand, while much free-market rhetoric insists that regulations, along with taxes and prohibitions, simply lead to underground activity which frustrates the objectives of the policy, in reality the causes of the growth of the illegal market are much more complex. Certainly some illegal trade in ivory dates back to the very start of conservation regulations, but it was not sufficient to pose a threat to the survival of the affected species. Rapid growth of the illegal market really dates from the 1970s. It emerged in response, not to regulatory changes, but to inflated demand due to exogenous financial changes on one side and the interaction between increased human pressure on habitat and a shifting international geo-strategic context on the other. The ivory trade was associated with civil strife long before “blood diamonds” or “conflict timber” came into vogue. Pressure on the herds, which had reached apparently crisis proportions by the late 1980s, led to a shift from a regulatory to a prohibitory regime. Although that shift was presented as essential to save the species, the experience with supply-side controls in general calls such optimism into question. Legal initiatives originally evolved to affect market behavior in advanced industrial countries may be of dubious merit when applied to the radically different problem of policing “crimes against nature,” particularly in places where competition for resources is acute, administrative structures are weak, and governments may lack in legitimacy in the eyes of significant portions of their populations.     

The underworld of art

Although crime in the market for fine arts has a long historical pedigree, the explosive growth of the market, and the conversion of art (along with collectible goods of all sorts) into speculative assets, that began or at least accelerated in the mid 1970s, focused increasing attention on the phenomenon. At the same time the issue of protecting cultural patrimony became a subject of greater contention between source and market countries, while common law and civil code jurisdictions struggled over how to reconcile approaches to regulation and enforcement. This paper highlights these issues with specific reference to the market for high-end paintings although its lessons are germane to all subdivisions of the collectibles market. It attempts to elucidate the main criminogenic factors—speculative shifts in demand, fraudulent supply, and illegal activity by various intermediary institutions ranging from dealers to appraisers to auction houses, while highlighting the role of collectors, museums, and financial institutions both as victims and active participants. Despite enduring myths about “organized crime,” illegal operations in the art market are the work overwhelmingly of insiders who alone have the technical knowledge and circle of intimates necessary to link an illicit supply with a demand that can range from the strictly legitimate, the legal but dubious, and the explicitly criminal. The critical lesson is that stolen, forged or smuggled material makes its way through much the same circles of intermediaries and ends up for the most part in the same locations and the same hands as artwork of legal origin.     

The underworld of gold

This paper dissects the global business of gold, from the ground, through the refining and marketing process and on into the hands of the final consumer, while examining the main forms of criminal activity associated with each stage. In one fundamental respect the black market for gold is quite different from that for other contraband goods. With opiates, for example, although there are occasional interrelations, it is reasonable to differentiate between legal and illegal sectors. The legal one uses raw material from designated producing areas, transforming it into a pharmaceutical product to supply a controlled medical demand. The illegal one uses illicitly obtained raw materials to make recreational drugs in order to service a demand that in most countries is defined as criminal by its very nature. By contrast, with gold, legally and illegally produced raw materials flow through the same channels to the same set of legitimate firms for refining and casting; and the product of these respectable refineries then is redivided into separate streams serving the overt and the covert portions of the market. Even then the cross-links do not stop. Legally sold gold can be diverted into illicit uses, while illegally obtained gold can end up in the hands of otherwise legitimate manufacturers or consumers. *** DIRECT SUPPORT *** AW502007 00002     

The criminal underworld of Medieval England

Abstract

In contrast to views put forward by Marjorie Blatcher, it is argued here that the impact of Bills of Custody on business in the court of King's Bench in the late fifteenth century can only be judged if all custodial bills are counted and only if special attention is given to those bills dealing with matters which would otherwise have been outside the court's normal jurisdiction. It is shown that the increase in the numbers of such cases is too modest to support Blatcher's claims of a massive increase in business since the 1450s, that the extension of the notion ‘in custody’ to people on bail did not happen in 1452, as she stated, but 20 years earlier, that it was extended to people on mainprise as well, at least for some time, and finally that fictitious Bills of Middlesex and writs latitat were not as important in connection with custodial bills as Blatcher thought.     

From underworld to underground

In the West economically motivated crime is usually perceived as a matter for the police while the performance of the economy is a matter for the political authorities. This paper argues that the growth and evolution of the modern underground economy has made such a distinction obsolete. Not only have the frontiers between the legitimate and the criminal sectors of the economy blurred, but the distinction between the explicitly criminal and the merely informal aspects of the modern underground economy has become largely meaningless. Given the tremendous growth of underground activity, this means that the issue must now be addressed not just on the enterprise level, as a police matter, but on the level of the economy as a whole, by economic policy makers. This in fact is something that many developing countries long ago realized. The paper therefore asks whether developing countries have been any more successful in using monetary, fiscal and balance of payments policy to mitigate the adverse social and economic impact of widespread underground economic activity than have Western countries who have relied mainly on the sanction of criminal law. It concludes that both approaches are deficient in so far as they neglect the degree to which modern underground activity can no longer be seen as a manifestation of deviant economic behavior so much as a virtual economic insurgency against the status quo distribution of income and wealth and the codes of economic behavior which accompany it. However dramatic are the financial manifestations of the spread of enterprise crime, ultimately the challenge it poses must be addressed as the political and ideological level.     

试论组织、领导、参加黑社会性质组织罪的几个问题

文章就组织、领导参加黑社会性质组织罪客观方面特征进行了探讨 ,并就司法实践中经常出现的几个问题提出了自己的意见和看法。     

民事主体价值论

民事主体在不同的发展阶段表现出其个性化的价值特点,对这些个性化的价值进行分析可以找出民事主体整体的价值定位。民事主体除了对社会和个人的价值之外,还应注意到它作为一种制度在整个民法体例构建中所起的作用,即民事主体的体系价值。     

对附随义务的界定

附随义务的本质不在于是否由法律规定或合同约定,而在于它是诚实信用原则的派生和发展。     

《红字》的复调性

运用叙事学理论和复调小说理论,对霍桑<红字>的矛盾性进行分析,可以发现这部作品存在多种声音的叙述:第一,叙述者的声音;第二,隐含作者的"声音";第三,小说中海丝特·白兰、丁梅斯代尔、齐灵窝斯三位主人公声音的在场.由于多种声音的出现,读者在解读作品时能真切体会到作者的思想及<红字>中存在的矛盾性.     

宋代咏物词的发展脉络

宋代咏物词的发展可分为承袭期、反正期、高涨期和汇合期四个阶段。承袭期注重描绘物象的外在形态，风格冶艳；反正期开始赋予事物以生命和情感，朝着敦煌、盛中叟原创期咏物词的录城大道反正、回归；高涨期更多借物抒情，托物言志，并在时代因素的作用下，形成家国身世之恨的新主题；在汇合期，家国之恨已成为咏物词创作的社会心理基础，而且不同词派都注重谋篇布局、造语运典、仍律合韵之法，表明南宋后期雅化、诗化已成为词体创作的共同蕲向。     

试析中小城市仲裁发展工作的思路和措施

中小城市仲裁工作是一个很容易被人们忽略的角落。笔者以自己的经验和思考,总结出了在中小城市发展仲裁事业的全局思路和具体应该采取的措施,为我国中小城市的仲裁事业发展提供了有益的借鉴。     

婚姻关系模型理论与离婚法律制度之间的关联性研究

婚姻关系理论从来都是婚姻制度的实质性基础。如果说离婚制度研究是一种“具体而微”的学术进路,那么婚姻关系理论则反映着整体的、宏观的、基础的婚姻定位、婚姻意识和婚姻观念,它融合了学者对婚姻文化的观察和思考,从“认识婚姻和塑造婚姻”的角度彰显着和实践着婚姻法的根本使命。对婚姻关系有着怎样的认识和定位,从根本上决定着离婚制度的指导思想和离婚案件的处理方式,这是另一种意义上的“塑造婚姻”。婚姻关系理论对个人自由与社会正义的考量,鲜明而深刻地体现在离婚制度中。一、不同婚姻关系模型的理论争锋关于婚姻关系理论,丰富多…