Страница: 6/49
Tendencies of Development:
The number of drug users grows in direct proportion to the rise in crimes committed under the influence of narcotics and, in the long run, to the profits earned by the drug dealers. Hence, drug dealers seek to 1) expand the drug sales; 2) increase the output of drugs or receive more of them from medical and pharmaceutical centers; and, 3) further promote criminal activities connected to drugs. The latter seems to ensure the realization of the former. A high degree of organization paves the way for expanding drug sales, increasing the output and boosting drug trafficking.
Expanding Drug Sales:
The expansion of drug sales is achieved by persuading more people to take drugs. Drug dealers set up drug pads and stores where narcotics are available. They try to advertise them in indirect ways. They make sure that more powerful drugs are continuously being developed.
In order to increase drug output drug-bearing plants are grown on remote plantations in regions with difficult access. Illegal shops and laboratories for developing new types of narcotics are set up there. Funds for increasing drug output are raised by blackmailing or bribing public officials. Drug-dealers practice violence, make threats against officials and encourage theft of large amounts of drugs.
Boosting the Level of Organization of the Illegal Drug Trafficking Business Methods to improve the level of organization include mergers of criminal groups and associations, severe disciplinary measures within criminal organizations, greater degree of cohesion among group members, conspiratorial rules, and tougher actions against those who violate the rules in such groups. Other methods are: increasing attempts to draw government officials into criminal groups, taking control of persons engaged in drug-related crimes on their own, centralizing finances and monopolizing drug prices.
According to various studies there are quite a few syndicates and cartels in the world that have divided drug trafficking regions among themselves. Activities of these groups are guided by a clear-cut system of criminal actions, such as promoting the sowing and cultivation of drug-bearing plants, the production of narcotics, their wholesale purchase, and the transportation and sales of drugs to consumers. Drug syndicates and cartels, for whom drug trafficking is the main source of income, act under the guise of legitimate companies, trying to come across as legal as possible. They have airplanes, modern weapons and the newest technology in their possession. Leaders of the criminal drug associations do their utmost to oppose the actions of law enforcement agencies. With this purpose in mind, they not only try to check police actions but make attempts, successful at times, to infiltrate police ranks. Professional criminals deploy defense measures that may prove to be so effective in challenging the worthiness of surveillance of suspects and the bugging of their phones. United into cartels and syndicates and organizationally divided into groups and associations, drug- criminals are usually aware that they remain under constant surveillance. To ensure their personal safety they resort, as a rule, to various counter-surveillance measures, thus putting well-trained police officers in a difficult position. Experience shows that criminal groups usually keep the approaches to places where narcotics are turned over under their own close watch.
Ways to Legalize Drug Profits:
Drug dealers seek not only to build up profits from drug trafficking but to legalize them as well. To that end they engage in criminal activities where by legal and illegal operations are inextricably intertwined. The money earned from the trade in narcotics is invested into legitimate businesses or in real estate. It may also be laundered in financial transactions, such as, the purchase of shares and securities or other newly invented and constantly perfected operations. The income thus obtained allows drug dealers not only to pour more money into drug trafficking or finance more drug-related crimes but also provides for a legal coverage of drug trade, or for the participation in legal activities. Speakers at the international seminar on combating organized crime in the Russian city of Suzdal in 1992 held in accord with the resolution of the 45th session of the UN General Assembly, pointed out that "in the majority of countries, organized crime developed along two directions: participating in prohibited activities (property crimes, money laundering, illegal drug trafficking, violation of hard currency transaction rules, intimidation, prostitution, gambling, trade in weapons and antiques) and joining legal business (directly or using such parasitical means as extortion. This participation in legal economic activities is always bent for the use of illegal competition methods and may have a greater economic impact compared to the involvement in totally illegal kinds of activity). In short, criminal methods are used in both cases leading to the situation in which criminal elements form the majority of organized criminal formations.
Реферат опубликован: 14/12/2009