Organized economic crime and corruption in Urkraine: The problem of countermeasures

The collapse of communism in Ukraine created opportunities for organized criminal groups to expand their economic criminal activities in the “shadow economy” by penetrating all levels of public and economic administration. Ukrainian law enforcement agencies are poorly equipped to handle this increase in criminal activity, especially with respect to uncooperative foreign and domestic economic institutions. State machinery for regulation and control of industry and commerce was easily accessible to organized crime through bribing of state officials, who received no supervision during economic restructuring. Notwithstanding the active assistance of corrupt government officials, organized economic crime has benefited from chaos and lost government control as the result of recent economic reforms in Ukraine. Researchers in this study hypothesize that the social and economic disorder, as well as a common and justified mistrust of state officials, fosters a pessimism and erodes moral standards, which in turn fosters criminal activity. Of late, judicial sentencing for those convicted of economic crimes has become lighter while many economic criminal cases are never investigated or prosecuted in the first place. In order to combat large-scale corruption, there must be better supervision of government officials and better monitoring of foreign economic transactions. One of the most disastrous consequences of the collapse of the Ukrainian communist system has been the widespread increase of economic crime. This phenomenon is self-sustaining, penetrating all levels of Ukraine's economy and administrative sectors. Criminal activity helps to sustain the shadow economy in Ukraine, which has been estimated by various sources to constitute 50 to 60 percent of the economy. Law enforcement and administrative efforts have been largely futile in curbing this corruption. Nevertheless, it is possible to overcome the criminal social and economic order that has become ingrained in this “shadow economy.” This paper seeks to propose policy solutions for Ukrainian economic crime and corruption that could be implemented at the national level.     

Organized cross-atlantic crime

There is concern about penetration of organized crime in the legitimate business. This penetration can take various forms, ranging from a complete take over to a veritable symbiosis between crime-enterprises and the legitimate industry. This paper describes the interaction between crime-enterprises in the mineral oil market in the Unites States and North-western Europe. It pictures the landscape or moral decay, lack of supervision by law enforcement and the spread of systematic fraud in a branch of industry which has become ripe for infiltration by organized crime. The paper reveals that organized business crime is not just a concern for the United States of Europe alone. If the entrepreneurial landscape has similar features and there are possibilities of personal bridgeheads organized business crime obtains crossborder, transatlantic dimensions. The paper questions the selective attention of law enforcement to easily recognizable crime and the morally dubious attitude of legitimate industry taking advantage of the profitable offers by criminal entrepreneurs.     

Organized crime and ethnic reputation manipulation

Criminologists often use culture andethnicity to explain crime. In thistradition, organized crime is presentedwith an exotic flavor and the list oftransnational criminal organizations readslike an inventory of ethnic minorities andforeign groups. But the relation betweenethnicity and organized crime isproblematic to say the least. In the courseof our research on several groups active inthe Netherlands (Turkish and Kurdish heroindealers, Yugoslav and Russian-speaking mafiosi, Colombian cocaine dealers andNigerian prostitutes), we have learned toreverse the assumed causal relationship.Ethnic reputation manipulation is essentialto committing crime. This article arguesthat criminal groups and individualsexploit and construct ethnicity in variousways as they engage in criminal activities.Either concealing or emphasizing specificethnic reputations, they are able toaddress any number of audiences (insiders,outsiders, the law).     

Modernisation and clean government: Tackling crime, corruption and organised crime in modern Taiwan

Taiwan's formal title is the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan because it is the continuation of the government of mainland China that fled to Taiwan in 1949 and has survived there ever since. The rulting party in the ROC is the Kuomintang (KMT, the Nationalist Party of China). The ROC government on the mainland was plagued with problems of corruption at almost all levels, while the regime on Taiwan successfully reinvented itself and oversaw a remarkable economic transformation of that island. This article considered the ROC's corruption problems on the mainland and attempts to explain why these problem shave proved to be so intractable. Corruption played a major part in undermining the Kuomintang's rule on the Chinese mainland. Once the ROC moved its seat of government to Taiwan in 1949, it was forced to take a very different approach to crime and corruption. The next section deals with the evolution of the KMT on Taiwan while the final part of the discussion looks at the problem of organised crime on the island. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Heijin — Organized crime,business and politics in Taiwan

Trends in Organized Crime -     

Organized crime and instability in Central Africa

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Organized crime and instability in Central Africa Cannabis from the DRC to the region