Eurasian syndicates target car dealers, credit cards in Las Vegas

FBI agents knew from the moment they began investigating Dimitar Dimitrov that he was not a typical criminal. In secretly recorded conversations, they overheard the Bulgarian-born Dimitrov threaten to cut off the ears of a former associate and use them as cigarette holders. He also suggested tying a witness to a tree, pouring gasoline over him and then standing nearby with cigarettes and a lighter.

Agents believe Dimitrov, a 58-year-old felon, is one of the leaders of a Bulgarian crime ring that defrauded local car dealers out of $1.6 million through an elaborate credit scheme and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars more from ATMs with the help of stolen PINs. This is the new organized crime in Las Vegas, where running numbers and hustling high-interest loans on the street take a back seat to the art of the high-tech scam.

The new organized crime is close-knit and mobile with international connections, especially to mobsters in Eastern Europe and countries that made up the former Soviet Union. Like the traditional Mafia that once ruled the streets of Las Vegas, these groups are capable of violence. But they would rather spend their time reaping the rewards of swiping stolen credit cards on the Strip or using their knowledge of technology to stay ahead of authorities on the computer-assisted crime circuit.

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Al-Qaeda's New Business Model: Cocaine And Human Trafficking

Osama Bin Laden's terrorist organization has become increasingly reliant on organized crime, including cocaine smuggling, human trafficking and kidnapping, according to a criminal complaint unsealed Friday in Manhattan's federal court. The charges filed against three alleged al-Qaeda associates by the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan is the latest chilling evidence of a convergence between terrorism and organized crime.

Oumar Issa, Harouna Touré and Idriss Abelrahman were snatched in Ghana on Wednesday by a Drug Enforcement Administration sting and shipped to New York, where they arrived on Friday to face charges of conspiracy to commit acts of narco-terrorism and providing material support to al-Qaeda, a terrorist organization. The arrests mark the first time that al-Qaeda associates have been charged with narco-terrorism offenses.

The complaint accuses the three men of agreeing to transport large amounts of South American cocaine through West and North Africa and ultimately to Spain for $2,000 a kilogram, a fee slated to be partly turned over to al-Qaeda and its affiliated group, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Magreb, in return for protection along the route.

"It's pretty compelling evidence, but not the only evidence that has been growing that al-Qaeda and its affiliates are becoming more and more involved in the global drug trade to help fund their operations," says Michael Braun, former chief of operations at the DEA and a founder of Spectre Group International. "They have to pay for their operations somehow."

• "US arrests three Africans in al-Qaeda cocaine sting", BBC News, 12/19/09.
• "US Prosecution links drugs to terrorism", Los Angeles Times, 12/19/09.
• "Feds: Arrests in Africa line al-Qaida and drugs", New York Times, 12/18/09.
  

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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.

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Will New Laws Help Russia Take Down the Mafia?

Russia's laws have long been weak and unspecific when it comes to combating organized crime, part of the reason that the underworld has thrived in the country in the post-communism years. But the government may finally be getting serious about cracking down on the mafia. In the wake of the embarrassing release of mobsters in September, President Dmitri Medvedev proposed harsh new legislation targeting organized-crime figures, making a rare admission that "the legal code does not have a response to the increasing social dangers of these crimes." Within weeks, the parliament approved the measures by an almost unanimous vote.

Perhaps most significantly, one of the new laws is aimed directly at the powerful heads of Russia's various mafia clans, who rarely get their own hands dirty. Under the statute, leading an underground criminal group is now punishable by life in prison. "As a rule, [the dons] don't directly participate in criminal acts, and so they go unpunished," Oleg Morozov, deputy speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, wrote last month on his party's website. "The president's legislation gives more precise definitions of what can be called a criminal conspiracy and a criminal organization."

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Taliban Use Pakistani City as Hub for Lucrative Organized Crime

Taliban fighters have long used Karachi, a city of 17 million, as a place to regroup, smuggle weapons and even work seasonal jobs. But recently they have discovered another way to make fast money: organized crime.

The police here say the Taliban, working with criminal groups, are using Mafia-style networks to kidnap, rob banks and extort, generating millions of dollars for the militant insurgency in northwestern Pakistan. “There is overwhelming evidence that it’s an organized policy,” said Dost Ali Baloch, assistant inspector general of the Karachi police.

Jihadi-linked crime has surfaced in other Pakistani cities, like Lahore. But Karachi, the central nervous system of Pakistan’s economy, and home to its richest businessmen, is the hub. It has been free of the bombings that have tormented Pakistan’s other major cities this year, and some officials believe that is the result of a calculated strategy.

“This is where they come to hide, where they raise their finances,” said a counterterrorism official in Karachi. “They don’t want to disturb that.” The danger is not of a Taliban takeover — Karachi is run by a powerful secular party that despises the Taliban — but of an urban sanctuary for financing and equipping the insurgency from this southern port.

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Annual Report on Organized Crime in Canada

The Criminal Intelligence Service Canada 2009 Annual Report on Organized Crime in Canada is published to inform and educate the public. The activities and workings of criminal organizations are often complex and can be hidden from the everyday world. With this report, CISC seeks to make the effects of organized crime visible and of concern to every community and region in Canada. Organized crime is a threat to public safety and to all Canadians. With this report CISC solicits help from the public. Law enforcement needs people to recognize the effects of organized crime on their communities and, together with law enforcement, take a stand.

The information has been verified through intelligence and investigation reports from Canadian and international enforcement agencies received by CISC throughout the year. In particular, CISC relies on CISC member agencies across Canada to provide valuable information on organized trends and activities in Canada.

The report covers information from the previous year up to June of the current year. One of the keys to success in the fight against organized crime is partnerships - between enforcement agencies as well as with policy makers and the public. This report is offered as a guide to help our partners with their strategic planning and to encourage them to cooperate to the fullest extent to fight this threat.

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Drug Use Rises In Russia

Burgeoning narcotics trade has both domestic and global implications. According to Viktor Ivanov, head of the Federal Narcotics Control Service (FSNK), there are 2.5 million addicts and more than 5.1 million drug users in Russia, almost double the figures from 2002. Heroin and other opiates predominate; the proportion of Russians using opiates is the highest in the world for countries with populations larger than 100 million, and five to eight times greater than the E.U.'s average.

The FSNK estimates that 10,000 Russians die each year from overdoses and that another 70,000 deaths are drug-related; however, Ivanov recently suggested that the actual overdose toll may be as high as 30,000. Furthermore, nearly 65% of newly detected HIV cases are linked to drug needles. These deaths are disproportionately among young men (the average age is 28) and consequently worsen the demographic crisis.

Russian organized crime has evolved in recent years, with increasing differentiation between the so-called "authorities," who moved away from violent street crime and toward white-collar and more "business-like" operations, and the unreconstructed "bandits." The financial crisis has had a serious impact on gangs that depend on protection racketeering as well as "authorities" whose activities had started to emerge from the shadow economy. In many cases, these groups are shifting back into more traditional criminal activities, especially drug trafficking, to make up the shortfall.

See “Drug Use Rises in Russia,” Forbes, 7/13/09.

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