Social networking offers a ‘relatively secure environment to easily and anonymously communicate’; and almost all organised crime will come to be digital and virtual, whether trade in illicit goods (and e-waste is emerging as an illicit commodity) or the exchange of money. This is according to the European police body Europol.
For example: “Virtual currencies will allow organised criminals to anonymously exchange and use financial resources without the need for complex and cost-intensive money laundering schemes.”
The elderly will emerge as a main target for organised crime, offering new and tailored ‘services’ to them. Legitimate businesses can expect to be targets too, ‘on an unprecedented scale’, ‘as victims of crime and as targets of infiltration to be used as vehicles for other criminal activities’. Big Data will allow such crime groups to do identity frauds, as data becomes a commodity. The anonymous internet also carries the risk of organised crime and terrorism coming together, as criminal entrepreneurs move out of such ‘traditional’ crime as drug smuggling and into cybercrime, or what Europol term ‘crime as a service’. The policing body warns that the radicalised or those returning from extremist-jihad ‘will often inhabit the same broader criminal underworld that sustains organised criminal networks’.
On corporate crime, Europol admits it wasn’t pursued as actively as other sorts of crime. The economic crisis from 2008 revealed ‘serious and in some cases criminal misconduct’ by banks and businesses, with ‘millions of victims’. According to the body, neglect of due diligence and ignoring of financial regulations in some cases amounted to crime.
Europol also points to changes in transport and logistics; criminals it suggests will try to infiltrate or control flight or rail transport computer systems, to divert vehicles on route, to steal cargos. And what Europol calls economic disparity across Europe is making organised crime more socially acceptable to some.
A decline of traditional hierarchical criminal groups and networks will be accompanied by the expansion of a virtual criminal underground made up of individual criminal entrepreneurs, who come together on a project basis. These people will lend their knowledge, experience and expertise as part of a ‘crime-as-a-service’ business model. Such dynamics can already be seen in the realm of cybercrime, but in the future these will extend to the domain of ‘traditional’ organised crime, governing crime areas such as drugs trafficking, illegal immigration facilitation and counterfeiting of goods.
These are the main trends detailed in Europol’s newly-released report ‘Exploring tomorrow’s organised crime’. It covers the future landscape of serious and organised crime in Europe. The report also looks at how law enforcement authorities might counter and contain organised crime activities.
Rob Wainwright, Director of Europol, wrote a foreword. He said: “Organised crime is dynamic and adaptable and law enforcement authorities across the EU are challenged to keep pace with the changing nature of this substantial and significant threat. This report – the first of its kind for Europol – will enable us to look ahead and better allocate resources, plan operational activities and engage with policy- and law-makers to prevent certain types of crimes from emerging.”
To download a free copy of the 64-page report visit the Europol website.
For more details visit – https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/default/files/edi/EuropolReportDigitalCove.html
