Globalization Boosts Europe's Gangsters

As borders come down within and beyond Europe, it is not only legitimate businesses that are benefiting, but also those that produce illegal drugs, traffic in humans, manufacture fake luxury goods, and counterfeit euros – businesses better known as organised crime – are profiting too, according to a new report from the EU's criminal intelligence agency.

Liberalisation, low-cost airlines, and China's low-wage economy are all helping Europe's gangsters to thrive while the rest of the economy remains in crisis, says Europol's 2009 organised crime threat assessment. The report breaks up Europe's gangs into five 'hubs', the most important of which are those from the northwest, centred on the Netherlands and to a lesser extent Belgium.