Standing Group on Organised Crime

Newsletter

May 2014
Volume 11, Issue 2

In ThIs Issue
In this issue

Editorial note

Getting ready for the ECPR

Conference in Glasgow
by FALKO A. ERNST and ANNASERGI (Editors)
Centre for Criminology, University of Essex

hese past months have produced ex- ticular, Romain Le Cour Grandmaison
citing results for the ECPR Standing and Tomas Ayuso both affiliated to the
Group on Organised Crime. Our section up- and coming Network for Researchers
at this years ECPR General Conference on International Affairs (NORIA, see box
in Glasgow is enjoying an historical pop- p.7) provide unique and empirically
ularity and we expect cutting-edge dis- based insights into what Latin American
organised crime looks like
cussion and debate. A
on the ground.Professor
new editorial project the
We look forward Simon Mackenzie shares
European Review of Orwith us what the University
ganised Crime has
to seeing you in
of Glasgows Trafficking
been launched and will
Glasgow in
Culture Project is all about
provide fresh perspecSeptember!
and what has been accomtives. Not least, the group
plished to date. Joe Mchas attracted funding for
nulty
takes
us
on
a set of three Summer
Schools on Organised Crime. The first uncharted depths with the niche topic of
group of students will arrive in Catania, organised crime in fisheries in the Pacific
Ocean.
Italy, at the end of June.

e are particularly proud of the present newsletter issue. Once again, it

brings together voices from across regions, disciplines and professions. In par-

ECPR General Conference

3 - 6 September 2014
University of Glasgow
#ecprconf14

e hope these contributions provide

you with as much inspiration as
they have to us and we look forward to
seeing you all in Glasgow!

Trafficking Culture.
Anatomy of a Statue Trafficking Network.
by Prof Simon Mackenzie
Page 2
The shifting landscape of Organized Crime in Honduras
by Tomas Ayuso
Page 4
Towards a 21st century Mexican para-militarism? The Michoacn crisis revisited
by Romain Le Cour Grandmaison
Page 6
Pacific Ocean fisheries and
the opportunities for transnational organised crime
by Joseph Mcnulty
Page 8
Miscellaneous
Page 10

photo:http://weegiehipstertipster.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/glasgow-uni1.jpg

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

May 2014, Volume 11, Issue 2

Trafficking Culture.
Anatomy of a Statue Trafficking Network
by Simon Mackenzie
Simon Mackenzie is Professor of
Criminology, Law & Society at the University of Glasgow, and co-ordinator of
the Trafficking Culture research project
The Trafficking Culture project researches the international market in looted and
smuggled cultural objects. This is a damaging and under-acknowledged transnational criminal market, which takes cultural
objects such as antiquities (e.g. ancient
statues from temples, or valuable ancient
goods from tombs), rips them from their
archaeological context and trafficks them
from their home, which tends to be in the
developing world, to the rich marketplaces
in the global north and west (Brodie et al.
2001; Mackenzie 2005). There, they become transformed from illicitly obtained archaeologically-relevant national cultural
heritage into commodified art, sold to museums and private collectors for sums
which are regularly hundreds of thousands
of dollars, and sometimes millions. A particular recurring issue in the literature has
been whether there is an active role played by organised crime in this form of

transnational traffic.
Our overall research project has several components, with one strand being regional case studies of trafficking networks.
In 2013, I travelled to Cambodia with my
colleague Tess Davis to research the trafficking routes along which ancient Khmer
statues move out of the country. We explored the networks from the bottom-up,
beginning at major archaeological sites
that represented a wide spectrum of Cambodias ancient history, geography and
current development. We started our search for data in communities living around
temples, seeking out the oldest person in
the village or the person who knows stories about the village. In some cases, this
was the village or commune chief, or Buddhist monks or nuns. Some were able to
point us to people who had witnessed looting, or even been involved in it. Consultation with these individuals, especially
those who had taken statues and other
parts from temples, led to information
about who had organized the looting ventures and/or where the objects had gone.

This enabled us to move up the chain of

supply.
In overview, we have established a
picture of a funnelling network that took
statues from the various temples of Cambodia and passed them into a small number of channels that moved them by
oxcart, truck, and even elephant out of the
country and into Thailand. One of these
channels is indicated on the map below. It
operated from Cambodias northwest (including the sites of Angkor, Banteay
Chhmar, Koh Ker, and Phnom Banan)
through Sisophon, a town around 20km
from Thailand. From Sisophon, statues
went through Poipet on the Cambodian
side of the border to Aranyaprathet and Sa
Kaeo on the Thai side. From there it is a
straight drive up a main road to Bangkok
a journey that now can be made by car
in three hours. In this short article, we will
outline the roles played by key traffickers
working at the main points along this channel: at Koh Ker, in Sisophon, and in Aranyaprathet.

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

May 2014, Volume 11, Issue 2

The research literature on trafficking in

a variety of illicit markets has often supported the flexible, informal, small scale trafficking model, somewhat in the face of an
entrenched policy discourse which constructs the threat of transnational organised crime in considerably more fixed,
structural, grand and opaque terms (Woodiwiss and Hobbs 2009). To what extent
are theoretical developments in analysis
of organised crime structural models applicable to the transnational illicit antiquities trade? We suggest that commonplace
claims about the eclipse of hierarchical organised crime enterprises by looser and
shifting networks may not be universally
accurate. Broadly stated, our conclusion
is that while the present case study is undoubtedly of a network, in which nodes,
contacts, and certain types of social capital are useful explanatory concepts, there
is also an observable stability, and identifiable forms of hierarchy, both along the
chain of the whole network and within
each of its nodes. We therefore conceptualise the network as a repetitive process,
having developed by way of linking nodal
actors in long-term trading relations, and
harnessing the benefits at different stages
in the chain of both localised territorial
structure-controlled organised crime (Lo
2010) and (as the trades move increasingly towards the transnational) more flexible entrepreneurial trafficker-dealers who
are less tied into frameworks involving territory or group.
The channel we identify here has four
major network nodes:
1.
A regional broker who organised the looting of statues at Koh Ker and
delivered them to Sisophon. The broker
would drive around the region in the morning, picking up willing participants for that
days looting. This node has elements of
hierarchy combined with a much more
fluid and opportunistic network-type structure at the lower end.
2.
Two organised criminals in Sisophon, who acted as the north-western hub
for Cambodian statue traffic, buying from
various regional brokers such as the one
at Koh Ker, and delivering the loot to the
border with Thailand, crossing at
Poipet/Aranyaprathet. The Sisophon dealers are remembered by locals as running
a wide range of illicit enterprises as well as
statue traffic, including drug smuggling
and prostitution, and as having a reputation for sometimes extreme violence. This
violence had been exercised against people who tried to circumvent the role of
these dealers in the supply chain.
3.
A receiver on the Thai side of the
border who would take delivery of the sta-

tues and move them to Bangkok. This occurred with military complicity and corruption.
An international-facing collector
4.
and dealer of statues in Bangkok, who
was the interface between the licit and illicit trades, filtering the objects into the global public market.
The structure of the network identified
here seems in some respects to support
Los (2010) arguments for a progression

adequately verify this pattern as being generally representative rather than just a regional historical observation.
Acknowledgement and further info
The research outlined above is in press
with the British Journal of Criminology, due
to be published mid-June 2014 under the title
Temple Looting in Cambodia: Anatomy of a
Statue Trafficking Network. The Trafficking
Culture project is funded by the European
Research Council under the European Unions Seventh Framework Programme
(FP7/2007-2013) / ERC Grant agreement n
283873 GTICO. The project website is
www.traffickingculture.org.

References

Professor Simon Mackenzie

(www.traffickingculture.org/people)

from theories of structure-control versus

social network towards a new social capital approach which he suggests can incorporate previous observations on group
and network, while also adding a layer of
explanation around political dynamics as
they support and affect the development
of social networks and organised crime.
However, there are also many elements of
the analysis which seem to continue to demand a more traditional structure-control
approach to explanation. Our research
has uncovered a trafficking channel that
was essentially fixed for several decades,
in terms of its roles, the occupants of those
roles, and their trading relationships.
Where occasionally an individual may
have tried to step outside of the norms of
this trafficking chain, they experienced
sanctions from the established hierarchy
which either quickly brought them back
into line or resulted in their being used as
examples to others not to try similar innovations. Based on this case study evidence, antiquities trafficking networks
might be thought of as more stable, hierarchical, and repetitively functioning supply chains than the highly fluid picture
which has been developed both in some
of the recent general organised crime literature, and in recent papers in the illicit antiquities sub-field. Clearly, much more
primary empiricism needs to be done to

Brodie, N., Doole, J. and Renfrew, C.

(eds) (2001) Trade in Illicit Antiquities: the
Destruction of the World's Archaeological
Heritage. Cambridge: McDonald Institute for
Archaeological Research.
Lo, T.W. (2010) 'Beyond Social Capital:
Triad Organized Crime in Hong Kong and
China', British Journal of Criminology, 50:
851-72.
Mackenzie, S. (2005) Going, Going,
Gone: Regulating the Market in Illicit Antiquities. Leicester: Institute of Art and Law
Woodiwiss, M. and Hobbs, D. (2009) 'Organized Evil and the Atlantic Alliance: Moral
Panics and the Rhetoric of Organized Crime
Policing in America and Britain', British Journal of Criminology, 49: 106-28.

THEECPR SGOC

Who is Who
Steering Committee 2012-2017
Convenor:
Felia Allum,
University of Bath
Co-convenor:
Francesca Longo,
University of Catania
Social Media Officer:
Bill Tupman, University of Exeter,
Anglia Ruskin University
Funding Officer:
Daniela Irrera
University of Catania
Events & Publication Officer:
Helena Carrapico,
University of Dundee
Strategic Communication:
Panos Kostakos,
University of Bath
Newsletter Editors:
Anna Sergi & Falko Ernst
University of Essex
European Review of Organised Crime
Felia Allum, University of Bath
Anita Lavorgna, University of Trento
Yuliya Zabyelina, University of Edinburgh
Member
Giap Parini
University of Calabria

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

May 2013, Volume 11, Issue 2

The Shifting Landscape

of Organized Crime in Honduras
by Tomas Ayuso

Tomas Ayuso is a former Research

Fellow at the Council on Hemispheric
Affairs in Washington, DC. He specializes in organised crime, corruption
and post-conflict settings in the Balkans and Central America. He holds a
Masters Degree in Conflict and Security from the New School in New York
City.
In recent years the unenviable title for
world's most violent country has been a
one-continent-race: Latin America is riddled with countries that could fit that bill.
However, one country has risen as the
deadliest on account of a witches brew of
transnationalized street gangs, homegrown drug trafficking organizations
(DTO), entrepreneurial foreign hitmen,
and police who moonlight as DTO enforcers.
Honduras has developed an
ideal environment for the menagerie of
organized crime groups. The usual indicators that hobble many Latin American
countries, including increasing inequality,
poor infrastructure, and high unemployment, have as a backdrop the slow erosion of the already feeble Honduran
institutionalism. A 2009 coup which entailed debilitating political aftershocks was
followed by an influx of drug money consequent of being in the way of the ever
fluctuating northbound Andean cocaine
routes. Historically, the country had served as a stopover for the drug trade. However, the Mexican Drug War triggered
the alteration of the Americas main trafficking routes, forcing 80% of US-bound
cocaine to pass through Honduran territory.
The trafficking routes that also
overlap Guatemala and El Salvador
brought with them weapons, money, and
operational know-how significantly undermining the state's capacity to govern. Of
the three countries, Honduras has shouldered most of the burden due to its geographic position that juts out into the
Caribbean with a long coast and its heavy
mountainous and forested areas, providing organized crime groups with ideal
operational conditions. The situation is

high-ranking source inside the Honduran

Intelligence community expressed the
worrisome degree in which police and
local governments, particularly those in
areas vital to the drug trade, have been
so thoroughly corrupted.

Tomas Ayuso

made more attractive by the easily corruptible human element of an over-extended, unprofessional, and underpaid
security apparatus that is easily bribed
with impunity. In an interview with a person active in organized crime in the Honduran coast, it was stated that maritime
interdiction operations are futile as long
as there is enough money to pay off the
naval patrols. This source also described
how towns along the coast and other vital
trafficking hubs participate in the drug
trade in exchange for payment or services. These towns, many of which never
drew much attention from public or private investment, have welcomed the influx of drug trade related opportunities,
making organized crime as only game in
town.
The growth of the drug trade in Honduras has also seen the rise of foreign
trained gunmen and advisers in service of
domestic DTOs. Foreign enforcers from
Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela have
been apprehended throughout the country. They come to Honduras as hired guns
with a target. Some stay and pass their
professionalism and ruthlessness on to
locals. Among the many disenfranchised
and unemployed men who quickly join the
sicario (hitman) career path, it is the poorly funded police departments that have
been ransacked by DTOs who enlist
these disgruntled officers; a problem
which is being addressed albeit slowly. A

The State of the Barrio

The increased drug trade created new armed criminal groups, but in the
many urban neighborhoods known as
barrios there has been a war going on
between the many sealed off fiefdoms filled with young people ready to die to preserve their de facto autonomy. These are
aligned with one of the two major transnational youth gangs: MS13 or 18th street.
Originating in the urban environs of 1970s
Los Angeles, the gangs came to Central
America in the 1990s when President Bill
Clinton initiated a massive wave of deportations which included criminally radicalized gang members who were illegally in
the US. Upon their return they remade the
Honduran urban landscape into the
image of inner city LA. Their blood-soaked rivalry was also exported manifesting
itself in gruesome displays of cruelty and
violence against each other and terror for
the non-aligned citizens.
When the maras (as they are
known) first appeared, the state was unable to manage them. Ultimately, it counted
on their disappearance. Yet, their spread
was exacerbated when in 1998 Hurricane
Mitch leveled many densely populated
lower income barrios in Tegucigalpa and
San Pedro Sula. The destroyed barrios
full of recently deported and unemployed
blue collar citizens at a time in which the
state was completely overwhelmed and
underfunded, the maras stepped in to
take over these marginalized and devastated communities. Since then, many of
these neighborhoods have stayed in the
mara yolk. These barrios grow without
any urban planning or infrastructure development, are typically impoverished,
and dwell as far as can be from the state
in terms of governance. The maras understand these barrios as theirs, riddled
with safe houses to hold their wares and
weapons.

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

May 2014 Volume 11, Issue 2

image source:www.rappler.com

They primarily fund their activities by

extracting wealth from the barrio through
extortion of local businesses; a practice
known as impuesto de guerra (war tax),
and more recently as the main vendors of
narcotics in the cities. Gangs occasionally
work with DTOs by serving as enforcers
and guarding shipments. Their pay is typically drugs.
Both gangs with ties to their regional counterparts, including those in the
US, receive their marching orders from
the overcrowded prisons that plague
Central America. In Honduras, incarcerated gang leaders order attacks to settle
scores against people who refuse to pay
their extortion fees or to eliminate threats.
Their blocks within the prison are effectively self-contained barrios themselves
virtually segregated from their rivals.
Each gang's own area is a reconstruction
of the outside barrios both in terms of aesthetics on the walls and the weapons
they hide inside. Now twenty years since
they first came on flights from LA, their
stranglehold over prisons and barrios has
yet to be countered by the state.
An Embattled State's Response
Current president, Juan Orlando
Hernndez, who prior to the 2013 election
served as Congressional President for
three years, spearheaded an initiative to
develop two different paramilitary units,
the Military Police and the counter-insurgency minded Tigres, as well as the formation of the FUSINA (Inter-institutional
National Security Force) task force to investigate and move against all organized

crime activity.
Although it is too soon to tell,
their results so far have been mixed. Successes attributed to them include the capture of Carlos Arnoldo Lobo, the pointman
for the Sinaloa Cartel in Honduras, which
has unleashed a low-intensity turf war
over Lobo's former territory. There has
also been arrests leading to the dismantling of gangs running extortion rackets
and targeted killings; namely cells of the
18th street gang in areas around San
Pedro Sula (SPS) who were alleged to
have been responsible for gruesome
massacres around the city.
The most pointed criticism is
aimed against the heightened militarization and zero tolerance approach that
has not yielded any significant improvements in terms of human security. While
it is true that since 2011, the most violent
year on record at 92 homicides per
100,000 inhabitants, the rate has slowed
to about 80 per 100,00 population in the
first quarter of 2014, the relentless fear of
extortion, intimidation and violence is still
a reality particularly in the urban centers
of Tegucigalpa and SPS. With the capture
of Chapo Guzman, head of the Sinaloa
cartel in Mexico and the extradition of
Lobo drug related homicides are expected to rise as a result of the turf wars and
the unseen consequences their absences
will have. Too little emphasis, however, is
being placed on preventative measures
within affected communities or towards
cleaning up infiltrated government structures.

A Self-Perpetuating Cycle
Honduras is a country in which
large swaths of territory both rural and
urban are completely out of state control,
with little efforts being made to bring
these areas back into the governance
fold. The introduction of two new armed
groups by the current government remain
to be proven as a deterrent in the face of
17.6 violent deaths per day. The shifting
drug routes were the cause for the increase in violence in 2009. Nonetheless,
this would not have been possible had it
not been for the unchecked corruption in
the security apparatus and elsewhere that
allowed DTO related violence to spiral out
of control. The youth gangs were emboldened by this shift and upped the brutality
of their rivalries, bringing more suffering
to the people effectively held captive in
their barrios.
With the inevitable fight over
turf coming as a consequence to the waning of the Mexican Drug War and the
capture of Lobo, the situation on the
ground is not likely to change in the short
term. The traditional sources of violence
like corruption, unemployment, poverty,
food insecurity, and others, which organized crime, both drug or gang related exploit, are simply not being worked on
enough to curb the violence. The current
government's focus on putting out fires
instead of taking aim at these root causes
of violence can only perpetuate the cycle
from which Honduras is unable to find any
reprieve from.

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

January 2014, Volume 11, Issue1

Towards a 21st century Mexican para-militarism?

The Michoacn crisis revisited
by Romain Le Cour Grandmaison
Romain Le Cour Grandmaison is a
PhD Candidate at Sorbonne University
(Paris-1) and Co-President and Founder of Noria Research.

Ever since self-defense groups emerged as a response to state-organized

crime-collusion in February 2013, the western Mexican state of Michoacn has undergone
a
profound
political
reconfiguration. Armed groups have driven
this process and included diverse self-defense groups (autodefensas), cartels operating in the region, and a myriad of state
armed forces. The term reconfiguration
allows to understand the numerous dynamics at stake: 1. This process is relatively
recent and is evolving right before our
eyes; 2. What can be observed is a phase
of democratization of violence, as opposed to the near monopoly previously exerted by the Knight Templars Cartel
(Caballeros Templarios); 3. These ongoing
dynamics, even though they are very
much political in nature, are treated by the
federal government exclusively in terms of
violence, focusing solely on armed interlocutors; 4. This process of dialogue is characterized by instability, in a context where
all parties need each other, but do not trust
each other.
The Rise of the Self-Defense groups
and the Democratization of Violence
A process of political reconfiguration and democratization of violence, a
term I borrow from Paolo Pezzino, has followed the Templarios monopoly of violence. By democratization I mean that
violence, instead of being in the hands of
one entity, which ideally is public but in that
case property of a criminal group, becomes dispersed and used by various
groups against each other. In this particular instance we can identify three different
sets, assuming that they are homogenous:
the self-defense groups; the Templarios;
and (federal) state forces. This democratization provokes the confrontation of a multitude of interests, grouped under the
understanding that violence, and therefore
weapons, are the most important resource
for control of territory, social promotion,
conquest (or rather re-conquest) of political power and control of illegal trade (production and transportation of drugs, as

Romain Le Cour Grandmaison

well as illegal extraction and export of minerals). It is worth noting that these objectives are in no way mutually exclusive,
quite the opposite.
In Michoacn, the prime political
recourse is violence. This is not a recent
phenomenon but a product of decadeslong sociopolitical dynamics. One of the
governments main mistakes has been to
analyze the crisis in terms of a simple
armed conflict opposing two sides, and to
believe that it would be sufficient to pick
and support one side in order to defeat the
other. Yet, it is essential to understand the
role violence occupies within the regions
political system. When leaders of self-defense groups declare that they had not
other choice but to take up arms, they are
merely expressing what has been standard operating procedure in the region for
decades: if you do not engage in the physical or symbolic use of violence, you will
not control Michoacn. This dogma is shared just as much by the government, federal and state, by way of military campaigns
or dirty war, as well as by informal power
holders such as local caciques or drug traffickers.
For several months the public debate
about the self-defense groups has tried to
identify such a thing as their essence: who
are they? Where do they come from? Are
they like the Colombian paramilitaries?
How are we going to control them? These
questions were filling Mexican and international news columns, feeding what Carlos
Monsivais dubbed the interpretive
feast(1). In the meantime, the federal government chose not to follow the same

path by taking a more pragmatic posture.

So much so, that when traveling through
Tierra Caliente, it is not uncommon to hear
people say that the self-defense groups
were made by the Federal government.
Even though it might seem difficult to
share this point of view, my interlocutors
introduced a seldom analyzed aspect: the
instrumentalization and co-option of the
armed movement by the Federal government, as well as the rewards achieved
through the self-defense groups, who deeply know and understand their own society
and people operate. Even more important
is their extensive knowledge of Michoacns back roads, country, trenches, sierras and caves, none of which Federal
forces had been able and/or unwilling to
cover during their previous security operations in Michoacn. In such a situation, the
autodefensas became a crucial ally, albeit
one likely to disappear in case of a breakup among these actors.
The Actors' Fragmentation.
Yet, this conjectural convergence
of interests did not clarify the situation on
the ground. In addition to being extremely
divided, the self-defense groups have
never managed to transform their armed
success into a clear political process. Perhaps this never was their intention. Or perhaps since the Federal government would
not have it. In any case, their leaders did
not necessarily know or want to address
these types of dynamics and expectations
of locals. Even though the liberation of a
municipality should technically trigger the
automatic creation of an autonomous citizens council tasked with dealing with political issues, this process has become
bogged down mainly because the self-defense groups are in no way a homogenous
group.
Numerous internal and external dynamics underpin the autodefensas fragmentation. Internally, a great variety in
motivations guides these groups leaders.
It is not groundbreaking to claim that some
groups show a striking similarity, in appearance and in practice, to groups nominally
labeled criminal.
Some members trajectories prior to
their enrollment raise, carefully phrased,
doubts. Some might simply have switches
sides.

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

January 2014, Volume 11, Issue 1

Yet, the issue is easily reduced to a

normative reading, ignoring the sociological processes at stake. The question is not
whether former Templars have integrated
the ranks of self-defense groups. This is
obvious. But this is not directly related to
this new armed movement, which must be
seen as a product of deeply rooted societal dynamics. When the region was under
Templario rule, many people worked in
one way or another for them. Sometimes
they had a brother, a cousin or a father
who had dealings with them. This does not
imply that Michoacn has been criminalized per se, but rather that a criminal group
who acted like the state for several years
made it impossible for regular people to
avoid contact with them. It is clear that
being a criminal organization's soldier, a
lookout or having to rely on the Templarios
to settle a spousal dispute does not constitute the same social involvement. However, once the self-defense groups made
themselves known, these distinctions lost
their clarity. As in every process of libera-

tion there are those who collaborated with

the old regime and the question arises on
what has to be done with them. In the present case, the answer was simply to
ignore the question and carry on.
As we have already mentioned,
many who expressed regret signed up
for roles in self-defense groups. This reveals a system of social capital and promotion based on violence or, at the very least,
on carrying a weapon. By moving past the
ongoing debate over the weapons of the
self-defense groups (How did they get
their weapons? Where do they come
from? How are they being paid for? Who
is paying for them?) we find the more important question: What is happening and
what is going to happen with so many high
caliber weapons in such a small area? The
debate has thus to be taken past the cultural reductionism that postulates a specific kind of violent Michoacn state of
mind(2). The fact that a fourteen-year-old
boy mans a checkpoint, or gets to eat at a

street-cart carrying an assault rifle is deeply problematic and unveils that violence
is a social opportunity. The self-defense
groups have mobilized an entire population to obtain their coercive potential. The
true issue is, however, if the state could
have responded better to these dynamics
by offering something other than weapons
to this arising form of resistance. A longterm oriented political and social planning
would have been necessary. Under the
given conditions, however, the consequences of the renewed and state-sponsored
proliferation of weapons will undoubtedly
constitute a lasting issue for Michoacn.
Endnotes
(1) MONSIVAIS, Carlos, Fuegos de
nota roja, Nexos, Agosto 1992.
(2) Such culturalist theory is still widely
present in the Mexican society, as well as
in the literature, refering to Michoacn as
bronco (rough).

Noria is a Think Tank based on a

network of researchers and analysts,
promoting the work of a new generation of specialists in international politics.
Founded in 2011, Noria aims at
providing a pertinent and in-depth perspective on the changing nature of the
international landscape and a new approach to understanding and analysing
international issues.
Norias approach is based on three
fundamental principles:
Intellectual independence
Scientific rigour
Linguistic and field expertise

image source www.cwu.edu

As of today, Noria brings together

researchers working on Ukraine, Russia, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Palestine,
Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, India,
Pakistan, China, Libya, Egypt, Mali,
Cameroon, Ethiopia, Colombia, Venezuela, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crim

May 2014, Volume 11, Issue2

Pacific Ocean fisheries and the opportunities

for transnational organised crime
by Joseph Mcnulty
Joe Mcnulty is Inspector of the Marine Area Command of the New South
Wales Police Force and Honorary Fellow at the Australian National Centre
for Ocean Resources and Security
(ANCORS), University of Wollongong.
Introduction
The Pacific Ocean is the largest
Ocean on the planet. It covers 45% of the
Earths surface and geographically connects Russia and Asia with Australia in
the South Western Pacific, the Pacific Island Nations and connects with North and
South America. The Pacific Ocean has
experienced World Wars, trade embargoes and environmental disasters, yet nothing has prepared it for the future threat
of organised, transnational fisheries crime
and the gaps in law enforcement capability.
Organised Crime in Fisheries
Why is organised crime involved in fisheries? The main motivation for organised crime in fisheries is profit. Fisheries
are a highly globalised industry. Fish
caught in one ocean is transported and
consumed by people in another region of
the world. Fishing vessels freely transit
the worlds oceans and ports. The transnational mobility of fishing vessels creates opportunities for criminal activities and
the commodities can be transported over
long distances with little or no interference
from law enforcement agencies.1 Organised crime takes advantage of vulnerabilities and opportunities in fisheries
operations and thrives in areas with inadequate Monitoring Control and Surveillance (MCS) operations. We should not
underestimate the capabilities of transnational organised crime syndicates. They
have structures, systems, communications, hierarchy and financial controls placed around their illegal operations,
estimate risk in their operations and
hedge against movements in illicit commodities. Organised crime can be defined
as, criminal groups or a syndication of
groups acting for a period of time in unison with the aim to commit one or more
serious crimes or offences in order to obtain, directly or indirectly a financial or material benefit.2 Successful organised

in the Pacific ocean of 1.2 million tons is

taken through illegal means, a possible
US$276 million dollars worth of return
may be considered lost or stolen each
year. This is a great loss of revenue for
Pacific Island economies, which governments and islanders rely on as means
of livelihood and for food security. 4 This
demonstrates that organised crime not
only negatively affects returns from these
resources but also largely impact community benefits.

Joseph Mcnulty
crime groups operate across many sector
and crime types. They are likely to operate across national borders and including
being based offshore and connected to
offshore criminal groups.
They will have the ability to operate in
several illicit markets and between criminal activities.3 Organised crime successfully operates in economies and markets
where:

Law enforcement environments

are under resourced, over committed,
lack capacity and geographically challenged.

Operate in jurisdictions that lack

strong legal systems and capability to
prosecute fisheries offenders.

Fishing operations and interests

are not publically visible.

Government systems are susceptible to corruption.

Illegal fishing and transhipment practices are hard to estimate. There are similarities in attempting to estimate the
quantity of narcotics transported and distributed through organised crime syndicates with that of assessing the volume
and value of fish trafficked by organised
criminal groups. The return for organised
crime syndicates and business on the exchange of both these commodities is financial revenue. If 10% of skipjack catch

Organised crime is motivated by the

opportunity of large profits generated
from illegal activities. Organised crime
identifies opportunities where it can operate preferably unimpeded by law enforcement. The illegal business structure,
that does not have to conform to any business or corporate practices, or governmental regulations, designs its own
practices to infiltrate susceptible and/or
vulnerable economies. Once business
operations have commenced in this environment, the tentacles of illegal activity
spreads, and can become established within these communities and economies.
Law enforcement practices are generally
reactive; this is usually as a result of other
operational priorities and commitments.
Directing proactive Police resources at a
new, developing crime threat is often laboured in bureaucracy and therefore slow
to respond to emerging crime threats.
This is not an uncommon phenomenon to
policing organisations and is universally
experienced in different jurisdictions. The
Pacific Island National Police Forces, already geographically challenged by large
EEZs, isolated island groups, and large
archipelagos and with very limited and
often stretched resources will find fisheries crime threat difficult to respond to.
The Pacific Island States and Territories cover millions of nautical miles of
ocean and are geographically located
between Asia in the East, Australia and
New Zealand to the south and the Americas to the east.
These States and Territories have unique national identities and vary in legal
and judicial systems, population and culture, and law enforcement capacities.

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

May 2014, Volume 11, Issue 2

Due to geographical locations, political systems, infrastructure and development, the Pacific Islands are vulnerable
to the activities of organised crime and its
criminal syndicates. The Pacific Islands
are located along a maritime corridor necessary for legitimate trade that transits
between major economic markets located
along the Pacific Rim.
Populating this surface picture of the
Pacific Ocean one can examine the many
difficulties in applying regulation and enforcement strategies to the multitude of fishing vessels, flying various State flags,
owned by various foreign companies, crewed by multinational crews, and all transiting through the Pacific Island EEZs and
high seas pockets. The majority of the fishing vessels are conducting legitimate fishing operations. However a number of
vessels engage in IUU fishing activities
and unauthorised transhipment operations. The diversity of these economic activities and lack of effective enforcement
present
a rich
smorgasbord of
opportunities for
transnational
organis e d
crime to
thrive
and prosper in
such an
appetite
rich environment.
Law enforcement responses are severely
challenged in such a large ocean area. Is
organised crime in offshore fisheries too
difficult to contemplate? How do we address this problem given that Pacific Island law enforcement agencies are
already stretched with meeting their current obligations against criminal activities
on land territories? Since little is known
on the precise nature of organised crime
in fisheries, can we consider the out of
sight, hence out of mind?
In 2009, the estimated average annual IUU catch in the Western and Central Pacific Ocean (of which a vast
majority of catch is taken in and around
the waters of the FFA member countries)
was between 786,000t and 1,730,000t
(valued between USD707m and
USD1557m). 5 This represents a consi-

derable amount of lost revenue to member countries and is one of the reasons
why effective licensing system was considered essential for the financial sustainability of some Pacific Island Nations.6
Combating Illegal Transhipment Operations and Suspicious Vessel Tracks
Observations made during the MCS
operation illustrated various irregular fishing vessel movements in the area of
operation. After further analysis of these
movements, the irregular navigation patterns of fishing vessels made very little logistical or operational sense and hence
resulted in further interrogation of anomalies and vessel algorithms with the objective of identifying threat trends of
suspicious foreign fishing vessel tracks.
Operational assumptions based on
these suspicious patterns illustrated certain suspicious linkages and contact with
other vessels. By identifying irregular navigation patterns, analysts are now in a
position to share this intelligence with

strategies.
Upon inspection of another vessel,
the author investigated opportunities that
existed for the vessel to be engaged in organised and transnational crime.
The boarding and inspection of compliant foreign long line fishing vessels in
the Port of Honiara highlighted these
complexities. Onboard one vessel, the
crew were asked to identify their nationalities. The vessel crew was made up of Indonesians, Fijians, Filipinos and
Taiwanese; widening the nationality networks from the Pacific to South East and
North East Asia. If this vessel had been
engaged in transnational organised
crime, the crew connections would greatly
aid the facilitation and distribution of illegal commodities.
Most law enforcement agencies in the
Pacific Island States and Territories operate in relative geographical isolation with
limited resources and obsolete legislation
and procedures specifically drafted to
combat and regulate domestic criminal
activity. This is in contrast to organised
criminal groups, which are often well resourced and have networks across the
globe.
Pacific Island nations will have to
strengthen their maritime law and fisheries enforcement programmes in order to
address this new challenge in fisheries.
Each nation will need to consider their
strategic directions to preserve their natural fisheries and ensure fishery sustainability for the present and future
generations of their communities.

other law enforcement agencies. In the

event maritime intelligence and vessel
data can be processed, fused and analysed in a timely manner, it will provide enforcement agencies with high levels of
collaborative intelligence which correctly
utilised, will provide opportunities to disrupt and potentially dismantle organised
crime syndicates using fishing vessels.
Any vessel suspected of engaging in
IUU fishing activities or other forms of
transnational organised criminal activities
should undergo a thorough port inspection and search by either Police and/or
Customs officers. These opportunities are
essential for these Enforcement Officers
to identify and develop their intelligence
capabilities and to build awareness of the
threats and examine procedures to investigate and implement early intervention

ENDNOTES
1 UNODC, Transnational Organized Crime
in the Fishing
Industry, United Nations, Vienna 2011, p.
139.
2 United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime, United Nations Convention Against
Transnational Organized Crime and the Protocols Thereto, United Nations New York, 2004,
<www.unodc.org/documents/treaties/UNTOC/
Publications/TO C%20Convention/TOCebooke.pdf>.
3 Australian Crime Commission, Organised Crime in Australia, 2009, pp. 5-13.
<www.crimecommission.gov.au>.
4 Forum Fisheries Agency, FFA members
meet to discuss tools for illegal fishing, 29
March 2010. <www.ffa.int/node/320>.
5 D J Agnew, J Pearce, G Pramod, T Peatman, R Watson, J R
Beddington and T Pitcher, Estimating the
Worldwide Extentof Illegal Fishing. PLoS ONE
4
(2)
2009:
e4570.
doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0004570
6 Pacific Islands Forum Fishing Agency,
<www.ffa.int>.

1010

ECPRECPR
Standing
Group
on Organised
Crime
Standing
Group
on Organised
Crime
Volume
11, Issue
2 3
May 2014,
2013,
Volume
10, Issue
September

MISCELLANEOUS
The European Review of Organised Crime
The SGOC is delighted to announce
the release of the inaugural issue of its
own online open-access peer-reviewed
journal The European Review of Organised Crime (EROC) forthcoming in midJune. EROC has been on the SGOCs
agenda since its inception in 2001, but it
was only after more than a decade of yearly meetings that the SGOC was able to
consolidate its forces to launch its own
journal.
EROCs main aim is to offer a forum
for the study of organised crime in its different manifestations and to promote a
dialogue between the academic community and practitioners. The journals unique feature is that it will be free for
authors to publish and free for readers to
access. We are also dedicated to publishing articles rapidly upon submission
and actively seeking manuscripts from
early career professionals and non-native
speakers of English. Furthermore, we
have adopted a rolling deadline structure
for submissions in order to maximise the

we have started collecting papers for

EROCs second issue to be released in
fall 2014. We invite theoretical and empirical contributions on organised crime
broadly conceived from a variety of disciplines, such as criminology, criminal justice, political science, law, security
studies, sociology, gender studies, economics, media studies, anthropology, and
history. Contributions from practitioners
who can share knowledge about organised crime by drawing upon their on-theground experience are also welcome.

For further information, please visit

our website at
http://www.sgocnet.org/index.php/the-european-review-of-organised-crime
potential of our digital platform and hope
to publish accepted manuscripts with a
six-month period from the date of receipt.

or contact the editorial team at european.review.oc(at)gmail.com.

Having completed EROCs first issue,

Intensive Summer School on Serious and Organized Crime

23 June - 5 July 2014

Department of Political and Social Studies - University of Catania

Hosted and directed by:
University of Catania
Supported by:
EU Commission Lifelong Learning
Program; ECPR; Standing Group on Organised Crime
Partner Universities:
University of Bath, UK; Masaryk University, Czech Republic; Nicolaus Copernicus University, Poland.
ISSOC PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
Daniela Irrera and Francesca Longo
(ISSOC Directors, University of Catania);
Felia Allum (University of Bath, UK); Janusz Bojarski (Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun); Pavel Peseja and Petr
Kupka (Masaryk University, Brno, Czech
Republic).
Target Audience
The Intensive Summer School on Serious and Organised Crime (ISSOC) is an
advanced and high quality training pro-

gramme offered to Masters students (enrolled in partner universities course)

eager to promote the study and discussion on the topic of serious and organised
crime and to the shifting challenges regarding its prevention. This project will be
particularly focused on the relevance of
the European financial and economic crises on the criminal activities and on the
ways the EU tackles it.
ISSOC is addressed to a specific target group made up of excellent students
enrolled in masters programmes on topics related to European and International
studies, though it focuses on themes not
covered by home Masters programmes
Objectives
The Summer School has selected
among a list of specific thematic focuses,
namely:

Methodological issues: how to

research serious and organised crime in
Social and Juridical Science?

The governance of serious and

organised crime at EU level in the crisis

time: a common policy in the making?

Serious and organised crime as

a security threat: the impact and implications of the crime-terror nexus.

Organised and Economic crime:

Focus on financial crime and related offences money laundering, financial crimes and white-collar crime, links between
legal and illegal business
Main activities:
1.
theoretical-academic lectures by
an international team of scholars;
2.
presentations by civil society representatives;
3.
working groups and students
presentations;
4.
face-to-face simulation.

More information can be found on the

ISSOC website:
http://issocct.wordpress.com/2014/02/
21/issoc/

gh

11

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

May 2014, Volume 11, Issue 2

MISCELLANEOUS
The Standing Group on Organised Crime
presents

UNDERSTANDING AND TACKLING THE ROOTS OF INSECURITY:

TERRORISM, TRANSNATIONAL ORGANISED CRIME
AND CORRUPTION
Following the success of the
Standing Group on Organised Crime
(SGOC)s Section Transnational Organised Crime in a Globalised World
at the 7th ECPR General Conference
in Bordeaux in 2013, SGOC members have reaffirmed their commitment to creating an intellectual
platform for the study of terrorism, organised crime, and corruption by putting
together a section Understanding and
Tackling the Roots of Insecurity: Terrorism, Transnational Organised Crime and
Corruption at the ECPR General Conference taking place at the University of
Glasgow from the 3rd to the 6th of September 2014. The section will be chaired
by Dr. Yuliya Zabyelina (University of
Edinburgh) and co-chaired by Dr. Helena
Carrapico (University of Dundee).
The Section offers to review traditional understandings of security and insecurity and suggests raising questions
about the impact of globalization on these
concepts. It also proposes to examine a
series of phenomena that are currently
understood as transnational security threats, including, but not limited to, terrorism
and terrorism financing, transnational organised crime in its various manifestations, environmental crime, illegal
migration, cyber-crime, and illicit economics of failed states and (post)-conflict
areas. The Section also calls for assessments on the relevance of these problems for the security of the international
and European communities, both states
and individuals.
We have always demonstrated mea-

Glasgow 2014
ECPR General
Conference
3-6 September 2014
ningful presence at ECPR conferences,
but this year we have collected more than
60 abstracts and expect to have a total of
11 panels. Indicative of the high calibre of
SGOCs contribution is the inspiring array
of topics incorporated into the following
panels:

- Contemporary border security challenges

- Global and National Responses to Organised Crime and Terrorism

- Non-State Responses to Insecurity and Corruption

- Non-State Responses to Terrorism and Organised Crime

- Old threats, new challenges:

terrorism and transnational organised
crime

- Making the Elusive Visible

and Tangible: Corruption in Politics
and in the Private Sector

- Political interactions in contexts of presence and influence of criminal organizations

- Understanding and Mitigating Radicalization and Terrorism

- Emerging Trends in Crime:

Crime in the Internet

- The EU Fight against Terrorism, Organized Crime and Corruption

- Italian Organised Crime:

Past, Present and Future

By addressing these key issues,

we expect to engage in a continuing
debate on conventional and alternative theoretical approaches towards
defining, studying and responding to
terrorism, organised crime, and corruption in various parts of the world
and by various actors. Considering
the disciplinary diversity we have demonstrated, this debate could be instrumental
in building bridges across academic and
methodological traditions.
With regards to SGOCs intellectual
input, the meeting at the ECPR General
Conference in Glasgow will not only provide its participants with an opportunity to
exchange ideas and experience but will
also offer an exciting publishing opportunity. A selection of best papers presented
at SGOCs panels in Glasgow will be considered for potential publication in The
European Review of Organised Crime
(EROC), SGOCs own online open-access peer-reviewed journal the group
launched in 2013. Other publications will
also be developed, in particular special issues in peer-reviewed journals. We would
also like to draw your attention timportance of this conference in terms of serving as a platform for developing future
research projects.
Should you be interested in attending
SGOCs panels in Glasgow, join the
SGOC, or receive updates about the
Groups activities, please contact us at
ecpr.sgoc@googlemail.com or visit
SGOCs website
http://www.sgocnet.org/

12

ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime

May 2014, Volume 11, Issue 2

CONTRIBUTIONS!
For the newsletter we are looking for short
original articles (1000-1500 words) on different
organised crime-related themes. These contributions can stem from yur on- going research
or from summaries of published material, which
you might wish to circulate among the organised crime research community.
You may also contribute to the content of the
newsletter by sending us any announcement of
conferences/ workshops/ literature references
you feel could be of interest to this field.

You are also invited to

propose things that could
improve the quality of the
newsletter.
Please send your suggestions and articles to:
Anna Sergi
asergi@essex.ac.uk
Falko Ernst
faerns@essex.ac.uk

The Next Issue of the ECPR

Standing Group on Organised
Crime Newsletter will be
published
at the end of September 2014.
The deadline for articles and
contributions
is 20th of September 2014.

SUGGESTIONS!

ECPR General Conference

3 - 6 September 2014
University of Glasgow
#ecprconf14

DONOTMISS...all the content from this and previous newesletters, and info on the
authors, will be uploaded on the new website www.sgocnet.org

Visit the SGOC Website at: www.sgocnet.org

And Stay Tuned,
A new website is coming!
Visit the SGOC blog at: http://sgoc.blogspot.co.uk
Join Our Facebook Group Page..our Like us on Facebook!
And we are also on LinkedIn and Twitter @ecpr_sgoc!