Crime-Terror Continuum: Tracing the Interplay Between Transnational Organised Crime and Terrorism (From: Global Crime Today: The Changing Face of Organized Crime, P 129-145, 2005, Mark Galeotti, ed., -- See NCJ-212828)

• NCJ Number: 212830
• Author(s): Tamara Makarenko
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 17 pages
• Sale Source: Routledge
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Issue Overview
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter outlines a crime-terror continuum in which the activities of transnational organized crime groups and terrorist groups converge to resemble one another.

Abstract

The future dynamics of terrorist groups and transnational organized crime groups are discussed as the author illustrates the importance of cutting off funds acquired through criminal activities in order to curtail terrorist activities. The author contends that there is a crime-terror continuum and that terrorist groups and transnational organized crime groups can slide up and down the scale depending on the environment in which they operate. Four main relationships between terrorist groups and transnational organized crime groups are situated along this continuum: (1) alliances; (2) operational motivations; (3) convergence; and (4) the black hole. Alliances exist at both ends of the continuum and represent the criminal relationships between terrorist groups and transnational organized crime groups that are entered into for the benefit of both groups. Economic opportunity and expertise are shared between the two groups to further their respective causes. The second level of relationship, operational motivations, exist when terrorist groups and transnational organized crime groups attempt to develop in-house capabilities in order to gain independence and cut ties with the previously established alliances. The third level of relationship, convergence, comes about when terrorist groups and transnational organized crime groups converge into a single entity with each displaying characteristics of the other. Next, the author presents the notion of the “black hole syndrome,” in which the convergence between terrorist groups and transnational organized crime groups has created conditions ripe for civil or regional war with the goal of gaining economic and political power. The black hole syndrome is thus described as the natural progression of these two criminal groups gaining economic and political control over a territory or an entire state. Notes, references