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GANGSTERS MANIPULATING OIL PRICE!

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

This entry was posted by Paul Murphy on Friday, April 25th, 2008 at 10:15 and is filed under Capital markets. Tagged with . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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Comments

  1. Apr 28   3:13 Posted by tom a taxpayer [report]

    These gangsters are just flies on the elephant. The real criminals manipulate anything, anytime. The real criminals have government sanction and government protection. The real criminals are the big international commercial banks, Wall Street investment banks and brokerages, and rating agencies,… the entire gang that raped and pillaged the mortgage industry, ruined the housing market, destroyed the credit system, endangered municipal financing, pension funds, and the banking system, and sent the economy into a downward spiral. The real criminals blackmailed the world to pay them billions in ransom or face the destruction of the world financial system and economy.

    What is needed is a RICO prosecution of this gang for committing the greatest financial crimes in U.S. history. The only thing that has any hope of stopping this continual rape and pillage of the investors, pensioners, city and state funds, and taxpayers is to see the entire Wall Street crime family arrested and perp walked in handcuffs to federal and state jails. Now. Not 2 years from now.

  2. Apr 26   9:21 Posted by www.negociame.com [report]

    gansters manipulando el precio del petróleo…

    Artículo del Financial Times sobre la manipulación del precio del oro….

  3. Apr 26   7:02 Posted by NJS [report]

    The single biggest threat to the World Economy is the combination of hubris and incompetence found in most board rooms.

  4. Apr 25   14:06 Posted by meneame.net [report]

    Gangsters manipulando el precio del petróleo <ING>…

    Según publica hoy el ‘Financial Times’, citando un informe de un organismo estadounidense, las organizaciones criminales han penetrado en el sector de la energía, el petróleo y otros sectores estratégicos de la economía estadounidense, como las …

  5. Apr 25   13:13 Posted by C Blackwell [report]

    They are trying to take attention away from the shocking economic mayhem that Wall Street
    is giving us -
    They are going to have difficulty to get an army together to wage war - how very very pathetic
    its embarrassing to be an American these days -
    Constance Blackwell

  6. Apr 25   12:27 Posted by senchi [report]

    no home-bred criminals then? somebody, please, put that god-awful country out of its pathetic misery

  7. Apr 25   12:27 Posted by TheWord [report]

    I’ve heard that Interpol wish to question the Wiggles about unusual behaviour in the market for skivvies.

    Apparently a dog named Waggs is also under investigation.

  8. Apr 25   12:22 Posted by Monkey [report]

    Reds reds - under the beds! Got to love threat 7 seeking to corrupt politicians!! Does really count as a threat if it has been the reality for the last 1000 years or so. Should read Reality 7: Organised criminals continue to corrupt US politicians and politicians around the world. Easily.

  9. Apr 25   10:47 Posted by Santa [report]

    Can they start hitting power stations in South Africa, would be great having a spike on gold and I’ll donate half my profits to anti terrorist organisations.

  10. Apr 25   10:27 Posted by RBS Investor [report]

    Yeh, but is the threat greater than that of Sir Fred et al..

This post is closed to further comments.