International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 1, Winter 2019/2020 | Page 88

Criminal Networks: The Forgotten Actors of International Politics
Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was notoriously financed through various trafficking
controlled by Albanese clans, notably organs smuggling through the Yellow
Houses network (Scheper-Hughes 2011). At the end of the war, former Kosovar’
paramilitaries engaged full-time in the transit of cigarettes, heroin, migrants, and
women to western Europe, developing a new platform for the Albanian Mafia between
Turkey and Italy (Glenny 2009).
IV. Mafias: The Next Leading Actors in the International Scene?
Acknowledging that Mafias play a significant role in international politics,
this section details the core elements illustrating and explaining their
thriving power quests and why Mafias are allegedly becoming major
geopolitical actors. In fact, Mafias’ political strategies, this flexible “tool box,” are
nourished and sustained all over the world by its incredible wealth and ever-increasing
sources of revenues. The first section indeed analyzes Mafias’ economic
and financial successes as the most tangible proofs of its expanding power both in
the least and most developed regions of the world. Secondly, this section discusses
which elements in the economic system are conducive to the rise of Mafias in the
international arena.
4.1. Mafias’ Rising Economic and Financial Powers
The economic power of the Mafias is a major threat to Nation-States, as their annual
profits are equivalent to the world’s richest countries. Hence, Mafias have
built phenomenal empires in the legal economy and are among the wealthiest actors
in the international scene thanks to the benefits they accrue from highly profitable
illicit activities. Their growing influence in the financial sector reveals that
Mafias have developed a new deadly influencing tool targeting the least and most
developed countries.
4.1.1. Mafias’ Strategic Investments: An Increasing Presence in Legal Economy
Multiple elements illustrate Mafias’ growing links with legal economic channels. In
December 2000, 13 U.S. federal administrations redacted an International Crime
Threat Assessment warning the U.S. government that reduction in economic and
political barriers, notably in Customs Unions, had allowed the least scrupulous
capitalistic actors, Mafias, to launder massive revenues in the legal economy (CIA
2000). In fact, in recent decades, Mafias have successfully increased and diversified
their presence in the legal economy, creating their own businesses or taking
over already existing companies (De Grauwe and Costa Storti 2012). While hardly
quantifiable, increasing dependency on Mafias’ money following successive economic
shocks in Russia, Japan, the United States, and Europe may have further
opened companies to Mafias’ liquidities and expanded Mafias pernicious influence
in our economies (Potter and Lyman 2007).
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