THREAT 1: International organized criminals have penetrated the energy and other strategic sectors of the economy. International organized criminals and their associates control significant positions in the global energy and strategic materials markets that are vital to U.S. national security interests. They are now expanding their holdings in the U.S. strategic materials sector. Their activities tend to corrupt the normal workings of these markets and have a destabilizing effect on U.S. geopolitical interests.
So warns the Overview of the Law Enforcement Strategy to Combat International Organised Crime, on the back of a long and thoroughly alarmist speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington by US attorney general Michael Mukasey.
The general theme is that Mukasey, his law enforcement colleagues, and the US population at large face a global conflux of terrorists, mobsters, east Europeans and LatAm revolutionaries that puts historical threats like the Mafia into the shade.
On the gangsters-running-commodity-markets theme, the US Department of Justice cites the example of one Semion Mogilevich who, with several members of his criminal organisation who were charged in 2003 in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania in a 45-count racketeering indictment for their involvement in a sophisticated securities fraud and money laundering scheme.
Published reports state that since that indictment and being placed on the FBI most-wanted list, Mogilevich has continued to expand his criminal empire, to the point where he is said to exert influence over large portions of the natural gas industry in parts of the former Soviet Union. Many commentators have noted the significant role that area of the world plays in global energy markets. Mogilevich was arrested by Russian police on tax charges in January 2008. Other members of his organization remain at large.
Mukasey’s other worries:
THREAT 2: International organized criminals provide logistical and other support to terrorists, foreign intelligence services and governments
THREAT 3: International organized criminals smuggle/traffic people and contraband goods into the United States.
THREAT 4: International organized criminals exploit the U.S. and international financial system to move illicit funds.
Threat 5: International organized criminals use cyberspace to target U.S. victims and infrastructure.
THREAT 6: International organized criminals are manipulating securities exchanges and perpetrating sophisticated frauds.
THREAT 7: International organized criminals corrupt and seek to corrupt public officials in the United States and abroad.
THREAT 8: International organized criminals use violence and the threat of violence as a basis for power.
Clearly, it’s a dangerous world out there.
Related links:
KEYS TO UNDERSTANDING AND RESPONDING TO INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME – Department of Justice