{"id":28573,"date":"2021-10-11T11:55:48","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T09:55:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/a-change-of-approach-is-necessary-for-a-more-effective-fight-against-organized-crime\/"},"modified":"2021-10-11T12:20:13","modified_gmt":"2021-10-11T10:20:13","slug":"a-change-of-approach-is-necessary-for-a-more-effective-fight-against-organized-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/a-change-of-approach-is-necessary-for-a-more-effective-fight-against-organized-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"A change of approach is necessary for a more effective fight against organized crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cO<\/strong>ver the last 20 years criminals from the Western Balkans have moved up the value chain in organised crime <\/strong>in Latin America, Western Europe and South Africa, and as a result they have managed to\u00a0muscle their way into this lucrative market of drugs and almost\u00a0control\u00a0the whole supply chain from the source to the destination,\u2019\u2019 said Walter Kemp, Director of the South Eastern Europe Observatory, Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. <\/strong><\/p>\n

In terms of factors that enable organized crime, Walter Kemp pointed out that one of the big ones is weak criminal justice systems in the countries where the criminal groups are operating\u00a0(for example in Latin America), but\u00a0also\u00a0in\u00a0the countries where they are from. He added that organized crime has an impact on the Western Balkans firstly on the reputation of the region and also on the security of the region, as well as security of countries where organized crime groups operate.<\/p>\n

Bojan Elek, Senior BCSP researcher pointed out that there has always been a prominent link between the state and political elite, with organized crime which is very unique for the region. He also named some of the shared characteristics of the Western Balkans: \u201cthese are weak, failed and unfinished states, post-conflict societies, that have issues with cooperation of law enforcement\u00a0which has been improved recently with the EU becoming a key player in the region, but not enough\u201d.<\/p>\n

Talking about organized crime in Serbia, Bojan Elek mentioned that Serbia was put on the black list by the Financial Action Task Force, an international organization which is monitoring how well the countries deal with money laundry. Since Serbia has serious deficiencies in this regard, Financial Action Task Force recommended legislation to deal with the prevention of financing terrorism and money laundering. However, the government in Serbia used it against the civil society organizations, NGOs and started investigating them instead of actually dealing with money launders.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the Western Balkans we have endemic corruption, poverty, and the main issue is the state capture.\u00a0The key question is: how to effectively fight against organized crime in a country where you have criminal and political elites\u00a0intertwined\u201d, concluded Bojan Elek. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Vanja \u0106alovi\u0107, Executive Director MANS, agreed that the connections between official institutions and criminals exist in the Western Balkans. She added that those connections became strong during the war and that it became more or less accepted by the public.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople working in official institutions, in particular in the intelligence,\u00a0in the police \u2013\u00a0the people who should stop the crime from happening actually built a partnership with people from organised crime groups\u201d, said Vanja \u0106alovi\u0107.<\/strong><\/p>\n

She also stated that the criminal connections within the region are very important and strong. During the transition period Montenegro came in the international focus for cigarettes smuggling and money laundering, so criminals from Montenegro used the connections they developed to simply move\u00a0to other country in the region where there was less international attention.<\/p>\n

Vanja \u0106alovi\u0107 claims that the main problem in Montenegro is the prosecution which has\u00a0never conducted any serious financial investigation of any\u00a0high-level\u00a0organised crimes. Even if the prosecution filed\u00a0indictment\u00a0against individuals\u00a0for smuggling, they failed in every case. Because, as Vanja said, the prosecution makes so many intentional mistakes and no one has ever been held account.<\/p>\n

Prof. Dr Anna-Maria Geto\u0161 Kalac from Balkan Criminology Network, Zagreb Faculty of Law talked about the concept of organized crime and how it is problematic. She believes that there is a huge lack in basic conceptualization so that we can be clear when we talk about organised crime in general but also in the Balkans.<\/p>\n

When defining organized crime there are two main criteria: at least three\u00a0persons have to\u00a0be\u00a0engaged in any kind of criminal activities, and\u00a0the other criteria\u00a0is\u00a0that there has to be a certain level of continuity\u00a0in this criminal activity and\/or a certain level of organisation behind it.\u00a0The problem with this definition is that it covers huge area of criminal activity,\u00a0persons,\u00a0groups and markets. The question of how to detect,\u00a0observe and count organised crime is also a challenge.<\/p>\n

At the end, Anna-Maria Geto\u0161 Kalac represented the Balkan organized crime types by apparent legality or illegality. \u201cFirstly there are small (semi-specialised) criminal groups and networks which are professional criminals, so obviously illegal. The second type is corporate-type\u00a0(mafia).\u00a0They are very well known for trying to reach a higher level of legality in their appearance. The following type is private security sector (usually these are war\/intelligence veterans). Then there are legitimate businesses with close political ties which\u00a0operate\u00a0clearly within the criminal domain. And the last group that I call HI-interest groups or the untouchables\u2019\u2019. The legality rises as we go down\u00a0the\u00a0list, but so does the security threat.<\/p>\n

\u201cOrganised crime is not only crime, but it is a threat to the rule of law and it is a threat to the sovereign state\u201d, concluded <\/strong>Anna-Maria Geto\u0161 Kalac. <\/strong><\/p>\n

In the further discussion panelists gave many examples of connections between the political elites and criminal groups in the Western Balkans. They agreed that the weakest link is in the prosecution and judiciary, and that there is a lack of political will to resolve these issues. More consistency and transparency are needed. Panelists have also agreed on the fact that the Western Balkans need more support and external pressure, primarily from the European Union, since fight against organized crime is at the top of EU\u2019s priorities in the Western Balkans. But they also pointed out the importance of experts gathering around with the aim to improve the situation concerning organized crime.<\/p>\n

Report from the event was prepared by BCSP intern Ivana Rankovi\u0107. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By strengthening civil society, investigative journalism, NGOs and anti-corruption services we can show that the problem of organized criminal can be resolved. There is a lack of political will, so if we can\u2019t tackle this problem necessarily from the top-down, we have to change the approach and tackle it from the bottom-up. This was concluded during the online discussion \u201cTransnational Organized Crime in the Western Balkans: Effects in the Region and Beyond\u201d, organized on October 7, by LSE IDEAS and Ratiu Forum, in cooperation with the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy (BCSP).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":28571,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8606,8609],"tags":[10990,9440,10767,9416],"vest_saopstenje":[9454],"coauthors":[164],"class_list":["post-28573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-challenges-risks-and-threats","category-organised-crime","tag-fight-against-organized-crime","tag-organized-crime","tag-state-capture","tag-western-balkans","vest_saopstenje-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28573"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28575,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28573\/revisions\/28575"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28573"},{"taxonomy":"vest_saopstenje","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vest_saopstenje?post=28573"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bezbednost.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=28573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}