In the rapidly evolving world, all aspects of our lives and societies inevitably change. Organized crime and criminal traditions are no exceptions either. Oppositely, usually, the criminal world is the first to react to changes, which necessitates having up to date information and understanding new tendencies and progressions.
On September 26-27, 2020, the round table was held by the “International society of expert criminologists” that brought together different experts from Canada, USA, Brazil, South Africa, Great Britain and Ukraine.
The “International Society of Expert Criminologists” unites leading experts in criminology, criminalistics, organized crime, money laundering, wildlife crime, criminal traditions, investigators around the globe to objectively look into ongoing global issues and prognose their further developments.
“Criminology is the religion of the modern world”, said one of the academicians in a private conversation, which makes criminology an indispensable and highly important field. The goal of the “International Society of Expert Criminologists” is to provide up to date assessments of criminalization tendencies every three-four months and search for effective countermeasure tactics on national and transnational levels.
The main organizers of this roundtable are the European Academy of Sciences of Ukraine and the Criminological Research Center. The following questions were discussed on two round tables:
1) What are the current tendencies in criminalization on the national and transnational levels?
2) Will the post-pandemic era require new methods of countermeasures?
3) Have the prognoses stated in the previous meeting came true, and if yes in what ways?
Leading experts in the field of criminology, criminalistics and organized crime from around the world took part in the discussion of these issues: Prof. Antonio Nicaso (Canada), Ph.D. Oleg Maltsev (Ukraine), Ph.D. Don Pinnock (South Africa), Dr. James Finckenauer (Florida, USA), Jeffrey A. Danik (USA), Prof. Jerome Krase (USA), Eduardo Almeida (Brazil), Salvatore M. Amato (USA), Dr. Ko-lin Chin (China, USA) and Dr. Emilio Viano (Italy) and Prof. Alexander Sainchin. Experts shared their research work, current tendencies, changes that took place since May 2020 and presented the models of further developments and discussed methods of possible countermeasures.
The idea to conduct roundtables several times a year came up in May, 2020 at the Post-Apocalyptic Life Era Conference “PALE-2020”. The conference resolution can be read here.
Prof. Antonio Nicaso (Canada)
A bestselling author, internationally recognized expert on organized crime. Author of more than 30 books on criminal organization. He is a regular consultant to governments and law-enforcement agencies around the world. He teaches at the Queen’s University, Italian School of Middlebury College, USA and St. Jerome’s University, Ontario.
PhD Oleg Maltsev (Ukraine)
An author, criminologist, psychologist, photographer, investigative journalist. Academician of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Founder of Criminalistics Institute and Expeditionary Corps. He is an author of numerous books in the areas such as applied history, sociology, depth psychology, philosophy, criminalistics, criminology.
PhD Don Pinnock (South Africa)
South African writer, investigative journalist, and photographer. Author of 17 books about history, politics, the environment, gangs and science. Don Pinnock is a Research Fellow at the Centre of Criminology, University of Cape Town.
Dr. James Finckenauer (USA)
Organized crime expert, author, distinguished Professor Emeritus at Rutgers University, former Director of the National Institute of Justice, Washington DC. Dr Finckenauer is an expert in human trafficking, juvenile and international criminal justice. Author of numerous books on Russian organized crime in the US.
Eduardo Almeida (Brazil)
CEO at INDRA and Minsait Brazil. He manages more than 8,500 specialists and has more than 25 years of professional experience in companies such as Alcatel, Cisco Systems and Unisys. Previously, he served as Vice President and general Manager for Unisys Corporation in Latin America. One of his main professional interests is cyber crime.
Prof. Dr. Jerome Krase (USA)
An Emeritus Professor, sociologist, Murray Koppelman Professor, School of Humanities and Social Sciences. Expert in sociology, gentrification in Brooklyn, Brooklyn ethnic groups, Italian-American politics, culture, race, class, urban life and Ethnicity in New York. He is a public activist-scholar and serves as a consultant to public and private agencies regarding urban community issues.
Prof. Aleksandr Sainchin (Ukraine)
Doctor of Law, Academician of Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. Chairman of the Humanitarian Scientific Society. He is a lawyer, the author of many monographs and scientific works in the field of criminalistics.
Salvatore M. Amato (USA)
A recognized expert with 30 years in the field of wildlife law enforcement, including more than a decade as a senior manager with the US Fish and Wildlife Service. He served as a senior advisor to the INTERPOL Environmental Security Program and INTERPOL liaison to the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC).
Dr. Ko-lin Chin (China, USA)
Chinese American criminologist who was born and raised in Burma, conducted five hundred face-to-face interviews with poppy growers, drug dealers, drug users, armed group leaders, law-enforcement authorities, and other key informants in Burma, Thailand, and China. The Golden Triangle provides a lively portrait of a region in constant transition, a place where political development is intimately linked to the vagaries of the global market in illicit drugs.
Dr. Emilio Viano (USA)
President of the International Society for Criminology. President at Bellagio Forum for World Security & Social Development. He is on the Harvard University list of National Security Professors. Editor in Chief of the International Annals of Criminology (Cambridge University Press). A member of the Board of Directors of the International Association of Penal Law (AIDP) and of the International Society for Social Defense.
Jeffrey A. Danik (USA)
Consultant, Investigator. Former FBI leader with diverse 28-year career and significant experience across all FBI Program lines. Danik has extensive experience with the FBI undercover program. His assignments included as a Supervisor and Acting Watch Commander in the FBI’s Counter-Terrorism Division. He holds the unique distinction of serving as an Acting Assistant Agent-in-Charge of both a violent crime and a white-collar crime branch of a major FBI field office.
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Round table 26th of September, 2020
1) What are the current tendencies in criminalization on the national and transnational levels?
2) Will the post-pandemic era require new methods of countermeasures?
PhD Oleg Maltsev paid attention to the fact that the quality of life decreased in many European countries, which was attempted to be compensated by the governments giving out certain sums of money to people, but certainly that cannot go on forever. “When the quality of life decreases it always brings more ways of criminalization. Overall psychological pressure is the “perfect ground” for new opportunities for criminality. Extreme situation in economics pushes businesses to come up with non-traditional solutions, and that criminalizes economies of countries”.
Dr. Jerome Krase explained that “when the goal and the means to attaining wealth are blocked or made difficult, people as well as groups, figure out ways of getting around the problems – getting around the law to attain those goals. And that hasn’t changed at all, and means of attaining these goals have been greatly affected by technology”.
Dr. Emilio Viano said that “certain facets of society’s responses to the pandemic have actually increased many people’s vulnerability to victimization. This has led to a large increase in various white-collar crimes such as fraud, frauds related to masks and protective equipment, phishing, malicious web pages, online loan sharking increases as COVID-related unemployment and global economic downturn leads many in impoverishment”.
Jeffrey Danik: “In the time of COVID-centric situation in the United States what hasn’t slowed down is the onslaught in the cyber world. It manifests itself in two very specific areas. First of all, ransomware, we are into a new variant of ransomware and it has evolved into something very devastating, which has to do with the extortion and the leak of the data. The bad guys have evolved and the cyber attackers sophisticated their game”.
Eduardo Almeida noticed that “it is unlikely that shoplifting type of crime is increasing but other types of crimes are progressing due to their capability to adapt. Currently, there are more and more technology-related crimes. We are seeing a huge increase in digital threats and digital crimes happening, there is more sophistication around the typical digital threats”.
Salvatore Amato focused on wildlife crime, wildlife trafficking and trends that are seen due to the pandemic. “I think it’s widely recognized that the COVID-19 originated from wild animals. There is a clear link between the consumption of wildlife and the current pandemic. As a matter of fact, quite a lot of attention was given to wildlife crime because of this link between this incredible impact that we are feeling globally and this clear link to consumption of wild animals and wildlife products.”
The video of the round table here live broadcasted by Granite of Science.
Round table 27th September, 2020
1) What are the current tendencies in criminalization on the national and transnational levels?
2) Have the prognoses stated in the previous meeting came true, and if yes in what ways?
Prof. Antonio Nicaso presented information about the current state of affairs when it comes to major Italian organized criminal organizations such as Mafia, ‘Ndrangheta, and Camorra. Unfortunately, they are doing well despite the pandemic. “‘Ndrangheta is probably one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world. They control drug trafficking especially of cocaine in Europe, they have ramification all over the world in Australia, Canada, United States, Latin America, and Africa. They changed narcotic routes, instead of shipping cocaine from Italy, they use ports in Spain, Netherlands and Belgium. We saw an increase of cocaine trafficking by Italian organized crime in Spain rather than Italy. They are able to supply the demand and completely change the delivery system. In some cities they use drones, cabs, in others they use social network to reach their clients.”
PhD Oleg Maltsev paid attention to the fact that currently organized crime possesses characteristics that are not regularly seen in other components of our societies. Since organized crime is used to living in a constant pressure (because of the illegality of activity), the crisis is not something extraordinary for them. Sadly, ongoing situation demonstrates that organized crime has more capacity and power than law enforcement agencies in certain aspects, which is one of the main factors that might force the latter to raise the level of training and possibilities.
Dr. James Finckenauer: “When in Minneapolis (Minnesota) a black man was killed by the police that event and subsequent events of that kind (killings of black men by police in different cities) has turned upside down the perspectives about justice and law in the United States. Since then for the last 4-5 months this has been a priority focus in the country”.
PhD Don Pinnock spoke about the impact of the illegal wildlife trade on the destabilization of Africa and on the environment itself. “It’s hard to estimate the value of crime but it has been estimated that up to 23 billion US dollars has been passed from hands to hands worldwide in the wildlife crime markets. And this is often run by very sophisticated international well-organized criminal organizations.”
Dr. Ko-Lin Chin spoke about current tendencies in Chinese organized crime. According to his research over the past 30 years, he tends to differentiate the various Chinese organized crime groups into two major groups: “Jiang hu” and “Non Jiang hu”. He explained the differences inside of every category and current trends in East Asia.
Prof. Alexander Sainchin presented some statistics from Europol related to the state of criminality in Europe, particularly in Ukraine. He is concerned that Ukraine, again, is one of the top countries involved in cyber crime, counterfeiting of medical supplies and illegal trade.
The video of the round table here live broadcasted by Granite of Science.
Organizing committee of roundtable discussion “International society of expert criminologists”.
Source: Western Morning News
