Organized Crime Book

[In 2007, with GDP at around US$50 trillion… the world's financial assets were now three times that figure. Even more dizzying and frightening is the figure of US$300 trillion that is accounted for by "derivative" securities. [392]

Most people understandably associate organised crime with drugs, prostitution, people-trafficking and similar activities. But the biggest bosses of Russia and Ukraine understood that if you really wished to strike the really big money, you should invest in two "legitimate" businesses'energy and arms. [109]The nexus of money laundering takes place at the borderlands of the licit and illicit markets. Glenny notes that illicit goods and money move back and forth across these borders with ease and speed that makes it increasingly difficult to disentangle and distinguish legitimate from illegitimate trade and finance.

Hard drugs provide funds for weapons that provide barter goods for the rare earth metal Coltan. Funds from human trafficking are used to buy and resell property at astronomical prices the proceeds of which are then banked into off-shore accounts and recycled into arms sales that then fund energy transport companies that seem to do very little. Banks and audit firms remain seemingly unperturbed by the vast sums entering the ledgers and then leaving, and indeed, it is hardly in their interest to pose too pointed questions.

The globalisation of production, distribution, and consumption has benefitted organised crime as well, which is able to organise business on the basis of comparative advantage. Production of illegal goods is split into production of raw materials, shipped to manufacturers of the finished product, and then sold to middle-men who then transport the goods to the retail customer. And, of course, the internet and cybercrime have opened up a whole new frontier for illegal gains.
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