International Journal on Criminology Volume 2, Number 2, Fall 2014 | Page 6

International Journal on Criminology
ed a wide array of trades and professions, including
public works, transport, mass retail,
adult entertainment, 8 alternative energy and
even private security.
3.What Can We Do? And How Can We Do It
Effectively?
Based on this new framework, what
can we do to better identify and combat
illicit trade more swiftly? Efforts
in 2012 and 2013 have included identifying
the broad scope of illicit trade activities, addressing
the need for data and information
sharing, identifying vulnerabilities, conducting
evidence-based research, combating illicit
trade and transnational networks, quantifying
the market value of illicit trade activities
on a sectoral and global basis, deepening an
understanding of the risks presented by transnational
illicit networks and the interaction
among illicit and legitimate flows of goods,
people, capital and information, and the security
of the legitimate supply chain.
So what has been the strategy so far?
“Address the lack of good data and information
on the impact of organised crime
and illicit trade... Fill the knowledge gaps...
[Create a] methodology to measure the true
economic cost of illicit trade to businesses,
markets, economies and governments...
[Gather] quantitative data on the market value
of illicit trade activities on a sectoral and
global basis... [Analyse] the extent to which
the legal and the illegal economy intersect in
illicit trade... Increase private sector access
to open-source data... Data and information
sharing... Deepen current understanding of
the conditions that facilitate transnational illicit
markets... Mapping of the volume, flows
and trends of illicit traded goods... quantitative
metrics... pragmatic mapping tools, etc.”
In short, the TF-CIT must draw up a
simple, clear methodology designed to measure
illicit trade, sector by sector, providing
new tools able to combat the problem. This
is clearly an important goal but there is no
shortage of obstacles.
As we saw earlier, the criminal world
is in many ways an unknown entity. Far from
the safe, clearly defined, unchanging practices
of lawful pursuits, it is constantly shifting and
hiding its tracks: it has no long-term view. At
any given time, it comprises an unstable mass
of opportunist predators, growing through
waves of repression and internal struggles;
chaotic by nature, it cannot be—and undoubtedly
never will be—definitively measurable or
quantifiable, even at a fixed point in time.
Given these myriad, sudden changes,
it is impossible to extract any variables that
could then be compiled into a matrix, modelled
using algorithms or reproduced as sophisticated
graphs. While regularity and fixity
are vital to the licit economy, with its accounts,
financial statements and supply chains, these
same virtues are, by definition, a deadly threat
to any party operating outside the law, on a
small or a large scale. Any criminal who becomes
definite and stable—and therefore predictable—will
soon find himself behind bars
(prosecuted) or dead (at the hands of rivals).
In short, it would be a mistake to picture
global trade as a two-sided coin, with
“heads” illicit and “tails” licit. We must avoid
lapsing into a dual contradiction that would
stymie any progress:
• if we based the real need of the TF-
CIT to detect and anticipate solely
on the retrospective collection of past
data,
• if future TF-CIT diagnoses ignored
the (Darwinian) nature of organised
crime that leaves little scope for detection
and is hard to predict, without
the right expertise.
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