Economic Crime and Casinos: China’s Wager on Macau

Notwithstanding the results of some empirical studies, casinos and gambling are widely considered to be breeding grounds for a range of deviant behavior and criminal offenses. As one writer expressed it, “the world of gambling offers a portfolio of anonymous expenditure” which allows for money laundering and other illegal activities associated with the legal operation of casinos. This paper examines economic and white-collar criminal activities and case histories of offenses related to Macau’s growing casino industry, now the highest revenue generating in the world. A Portuguese colony from 1557 until 1999 when it was returned to China, Macau is a Special Administrative Region (SAR) with its own governing officials operating under the PRC maxim of “one country, two systems.” The dramatic recent growth of the casino industry in Macau offers a unique opportunity to examine issues of economic crime and law enforcement within the context of the People’s Republic of China’s recently acquired political and economic stewardship in this SAR. The paper documents white-collar and organized crimes that present new challenges and risks to China now that Macau has become an international marquee.     

Failing witnesses in serious and organised crimes: policy perspectives for witness protective measures in Malawi

Witness protection (procedural and non-procedural) concept has become firmly entrenched in modern criminal justice systems for purposes of securing the much needed testimony and amelioration of vulnerable witnesses’ circumstances. Witness protective measures have been used mostly in serious and organized crime prosecutions. Notwithstanding this, Malawi’s criminal justice system including its reforms has completely ignored this leaving witnesses vulnerable to tampering and intimidation. This article explores Malawi’s circumstances by focusing on serious and organised crime such as corruption and money laundering. It further offers some recommendations and policy perspectives as to what can possibly be done to ameliorate the witness situation.     

Fueling global crime: the mechanics of money laundering

Money laundering has been practiced in one form or another for thousands of years, dating back well before the birth of Christ, when highly motivated merchants moved their wealth beyond the confiscatory grasp of local rulers. Only in the recent past was the name ‘money laundering’ given to this financial hocus‐pocus. Popularly believed to have derived from Mafia ownership of Laundromats through which an endless stream of cash generated by extortion, prostitution and gambling flowed, ‘money laundering’ did not attract serious interest until the 1980s, and even then it fell primarily within a drug trafficking context. The phenomenon has pushed its way into the public consciousness as a mechanism used not only by traditional ‘underworld’ organizations, but some corporate and financial sector entities as well as individuals. Perhaps the events of 11 September 2001 did more to change the perception of money laundering as public discourse is now focused on methods used by terrorists to secure financing for their nefarious deeds. In point of fact, transnational criminality generally is exploding on a global level and money laundering is the lynchpin of their success. This article presents an overview summary of basic money laundering methods and is meant to help lay the foundation for further exploration.     

关于犯罪对象的几个问题

将犯罪对象定义为犯罪行为直接作用的人或者物的问题是:一些罪的对象不具有被犯罪作用的直接性;将人的活动置于犯罪对象之外,不符合我国的立法实际。用现象与本质这对范畴来说明犯罪对象与客体的关系,在总体上弊大于利。作为犯罪对象的具体人、物或活动,是法益的构成要素,他们与法益是内部要素与整体的关系,应归该属犯罪客体一章。假币、贿赂、赌资等是行为对象,后者不包括具体的人。     

控制跨境洗钱难点问题研究

当前，跨境洗钱已成为各国犯罪集团和犯罪分子青睐的一种洗钱方式。由于往往涉及多个国家的不同司法体系，存在司法管辖上的“涉外因素”。因此，控制跨境洗钱犯罪行为尤显困难。急需针对刑事立法、金融控制、刑事执法方面存在的相应难点问题进行研究并提出对策，为控制跨境洗钱犯罪提供理论支撑。     

论赌博罪的完善——法经济学的视角

我国刑法已明确地将赌博作为一种犯罪进行处罚.但由于我国法律没有很好地考虑刑罚的效率性和经济性,在赌博犯罪立法上还存在着一定的缺陷和漏洞.通过法经济学方法,对赌博犯罪立法的正当性和效率性进行分析,提出完善我国赌博犯罪立法的建议.     

Beyond griefing: Virtual crime

Because there is so much money involved in virtual worlds these days, there has been an increase in criminal activity in these worlds as well. The gaming community calls people who promote conflict “griefers”. Griefers are people who like nothing better than to kill team-mates or obstruct the game’s objectives. Griefers scam, cheat and abuse. Recently, they have begun to set up Ponzi schemes. In games that attempt to encourage complex and enduring interactions among thousands of players, “griefing” has evolved from being an isolated nuisance to a social disease. Much in the same way crime has become the real world’s social disease. Grief is turning into crime.     

Human security,transnational crime and human trafficking – Asian and western perspectives,edited by Shiro Okubo and Louise Shelley

Chile began its re-democratisation process in 1990 with a profound lack of counter- money laundering standards. Over time, the nascent political order was compelled to build institutions and generate norms in light of the security principles promoted by foreign actors. However, Chile’s reluctance, for instance, to not create a financial intelligence unit (FIU) until 2003, put the country in a particular stance for assessing criminal proceedings. This article reviews the construction of Chile’s governance of money laundering and focuses specifically on the role played by the Unidad de Análisis Financiero (UAF, Chile’s FIU) in maximising inter-institutional governing relations. The paper reviews three periods of time: the institutionalisation era (1990–2002), the UAF’s formative years (2003–2008) and the policy-building phase (2009–2014). The research concludes by exploring how Chile’s case adds to our qualitative knowledge on democratic network governance.     

试论刑法中的被害者过错制度

被害者过错问题是被害学理论中的一个关键问题。被害者过错问题的研究有着重要的刑法学意义,而这一问题虽已在不同程度上被各国刑法学界意识到,并在立法中有着片段性的反映,但问题没有被系统化地认识和规制。根据其对刑事事件发生的影响力大小及性质的不同,具体被害者过错可以被分为迫发行为、引发行为、激发行为和触发行为等几个层级,并和加害者刑事责任的大小呈反比对应关系。抽象被害者过错有着与此一致的道理。在刑法及一些相关法律中确立完整、系统的被害者过错制度,意义显著。     

论网络赌博罪的认定及其立法建构

网络赌博罪是一种新型犯罪形式,凭借其犯罪成本低、风险小、利润丰厚等优势,而在全球迅速蔓延.相对于传统赌博罪来说,网络赌博犯罪隐蔽性更强、监控难度更大、犯罪来势更猛、危害后果更重.网络赌博罪的构成要件有其自身的独特性,不易认定,再加之现行刑法对此规范不明确,其已成为一种危害严重但又打击不力的犯罪.对此,我国必须尽快完善赌博罪的构成要件和法定刑,积极寻求刑事法律冲突的国际协调和合作,以合理组织对此类犯罪的反应.     

Power-seeking crime? The professional thief versus the professional launderer

Relating the concept of power to motives and objectives for criminal activities results in different images of criminals and their motivations. In this article, we aim to reflect on two different forms of crime (burglary versus money laundering) starting from a power perspective. We describe how the pursuit of power may or may not be related to crime, perpetrators and the policies that have been developed to prevent or repress these types of crime. By examining the motives behind both burglary and money laundering, we try to make clear how the concept of power and power pursuit leads to different rationales in criminal conduct. We try to determine to what extent ‘rational choice’ plays a role in this respect. As a conclusion, we argue that ‘power’ as such influences patterns of crime, victimisation and societal reactions (by means of criminal policy). The extent to which power accumulation is an outcome of crime, will in part determine the social reaction to crime and as a result, the perceived threat of crime.     

Schizophrenia: Causes,crime, and implications for criminology and criminal justice

This paper is aimed at criminologists and criminal justicians seeking to understand their role in educating law enforcement and correctional personnel who must deal with the mentally ill. It is motivated by William Johnson's (2011) recent call for rethinking the interface between mental illness, criminal justice, and academia, and his call for advocacy. We concur with his concerns, and insist that this rethinking must necessarily include grounding in the etiology of mental illness (specifically, with schizophrenia) as it is currently understood by researchers in the area. Advocacy must go hand in hand with a thorough knowledge of the condition of the people for whom we are advocating. We first examine major etiological models of schizophrenia, emphasizing the neurodevelopmental model that incorporates genetics, neurological functioning, and immunological factors guided by the assumption that the typical criminologist/criminal justician has minimal acquaintance with such material. We then address the link between schizophrenia and criminal behavior, and conclude with a discussion of the implications for criminology and criminal justice.     

盗窃罪中的被害人同意

盗窃罪的客观构成要件是违反占有人意愿而转移财物的占有;相反,得到占有人同意而取走财物,就可以排除盗窃罪的客观构成要件。将被害人同意的一般原理与盗窃罪构成要件的具体特征相结合,能够强化刑法总论与各论之间的整合与协调,促进刑法教义学的纵深发展。运用"预设的同意"理论,可以有效回应ATM机等自助型机器类案件中的疑难问题:使用"伪币"从机器处取得财物的,构成盗窃罪;使用真币从机器处取得财物后又抽出真币的,构成针对真币的盗窃罪;非法使用他人的信用卡在ATM机上取款的,不构成盗窃罪;使用信用卡利用ATM机故障恶意取款的,构成盗窃罪。在盗窃陷阱的场合,应根据是否存在同意而区分既遂和未遂。按照"客观权限+审核义务"的标准来区分盗窃罪间接正犯与三角诈骗,体现了对被害人意愿的尊重。     

Diamonds,gold and crime displacement: Hatton Garden,and the evolution of organised crime in the UK

The 2015 Hatton Garden Heist was described as the ‘largest burglary in English legal history’. However, the global attention that this spectacular crime attracted to ‘The Garden’ tended to concentrate upon the value of the stolen goods and the vintage of the burglars. What has been ignored is how the burglary shone a spotlight into Hatton Garden itself, as an area with a unique ‘upperworld’ commercial profile and skills cluster that we identify as an incubator and facilitator for organised crime. The Garden is the UK’s foremost jewellery production and retail centre and this paper seeks to explore how Hatton Garden’s businesses integrated with a fluid criminal population to transition, through hosting lucrative (and bureaucratically complex) VAT gold frauds from 1980 to the early 1990s, to become a major base for sophisticated acquisitive criminal activities. Based on extensive interviews over a thirty year period, evidence from a personal research archive and public records, this paper details a cultural community with a unique criminal profile due to the particularities of its geographical location, ethnic composition, trading culture, skills base and international connections. The processes and structures that facilitate criminal markets are largely under-researched (Antonopoulos et al. 2015: 11), and this paper considers how elements of Hatton Garden’s ‘upperworld’ businesses integrated with project criminals, displaced by policing strategies, to effect this transition.     

Managing money acquired from human trafficking: case study of sex trafficking from Bulgaria to Western Europe

Often the criminal activities, especially organized criminal groups are aimed at generating large amounts of money in a short period of time. However, the criminal organizations differ in their approach to revenue management. This article focuses on the management of proceeds acquired from human trafficking and presents the results of an empirical study on the topic. This study is based on 152 semi-structured interviews conducted with sex workers, traffickers, law-enforcement representatives, and prosecutors. The article explores the movement of money within the criminal organizations, the methods of bookkeeping and accounting, and the basic techniques for laundering the proceeds acquired from sex trafficking from Bulgaria to Western Europe. By describing how the criminals engaged in human trafficking for sexual exploitation manage the money generated from this type of criminal activity, a better understanding of the criminal phenomenon itself can be attained.     

Illegal gambling businesses & organized crime: an analysis of federal convictions

Illegal gambling operations have been alleged to support organized crime and victimize participants, rather than benefit them. This is said to occur through cheating in the games provided, defrauding the government of tax revenue, and funding other illicit and criminal activities. What has been missing is a systematic analysis of actual cases involving illegal gambling businesses to determine precisely who is involved, how these businesses operate, the nature of the threat posed, and the law enforcement response to it. The analysis reported here examines all federal convictions involving operation of illegal gambling businesses during a single year. There were more than 80 persons charged and convicted of participation in illegal gambling businesses, centered around 40 distinct enterprises. The results indicate that illegal gambling businesses in the United States are long-term operations consisting of four general types, and that enforcement of existing laws, particularly related to illegal online sports betting, are not working effectively.     

Criminal Mediation in Mainland China: A Leap from Judicial Endeavor to Legal Norm

The use of mediation in the public prosecution of criminal matters has had a nation-wide impact since being introduced by China’s Judiciary. After almost 10 years, mediation in criminal prosecution cases has, in 2012, now been adopted by the newly revised Criminal Procedure Law 2012 (NPC 2012). This paper examines the characteristics of Chinese criminal mediation, and its introduction and development, by analyzing the empirical data collected from the practice. The ineffectiveness of collateral civil proceedings to criminal procedure to compensate victims, the resulting complaints and petitions argued by them, and the need to resolve the disputes in a way that promotes social harmony, were seen as important reasons to bring criminal mediation practices to China. Varying from ‘western’ restorative justice practices, China’s criminal mediation is closely associated with China’s powerful state criminal justice apparatus, which itself is restricted by the rigidity of the law.     

Was Ellen Wronged?

Imagine a citizen (call her Ellen) engages in conduct the state says is a crime, for example, money laundering. Imagine too that the state of which Ellen is a citizen has decided to make money laundering a crime. Does the state wrong Ellen when it punishes her for money laundering? It depends on what you think about the authority of the criminal law. Most criminal law scholars would probably say that the criminal law as such has no authority. Whatever authority is has depends on how well it adheres to the demands of morality inasmuch as morality is the only authority we have. Thus if morality says that money laundering should not be a crime then the state wrongs Ellen when it punishes her. But if the criminal law as such does have authority, and if in the exercise of its authority the state has decided to make money laundering a crime, then the state does Ellen no wrong when it punishes her.