International Journal on Criminology
actors of the illicit trade is decisive and if it is flouted , the whole network learns about it without delay , the cheater being marginalized — or even eliminated .
Such traditions and practices also prevail in the mafia world : from southern Italy to the Albanian- and Turkish-speaking worlds , there is no doubt that they greatly facilitate exchanges between transmigrants and criminals , when and where they need to dialogue and make deals .
All the more so because at the top of these two systems , the “ grey ” of illicit trade and the “ black ” of purely criminal markets , there are superstructures of control and contact with state powers : “ dome ” for Cosa Nostra and “ informal notaries ” for transmigrants — in the Marseilles district of Belsunce for example —“ notaries ” linked to the municipal administrations of Marseilles or to the Algerian state power ; authorities that one must know how to appease and cajole — sometimes corrupt , even intimidate — in order to be able to “ work ” peacefully and without hindrance .
“ Notaries ” or “ domes ” of the superstructures , which , it should be noted , all together finance the “ grey ” or “ black ” illicit trade . From what transpires from official reports or from the rare confidences of the illicit actors in the field , these financiers are used by Italian or Turkish mafia or by the heads of Russian or Georgian mega-gangs .
Criminal — or at least informal —“ investment companies ” finance 40 to 50 percent of the sales campaigns along the routes of illicit trade , with the double benefit of substantial interest and sums of changing originally black criminal money to pale grey — from criminal to informal , or even laundered .
In some major ports of the Gulf countries , for example , low-end electronics from Southeast Asia ( coming from Japan via Taiwan , or from China via Hong Kong ) or high-end objects at the end of the line ( sold for 50 to 60 percent less , when new models appear ) are bought with money being laundered ( from heroin trafficking , most often ).
Declared as a “ terminal destination ,” these objects nevertheless leave , neither seen nor known , to ports near the Balkan route .
A “ criminal capital ” is advanced by mafia groups , as seen above . Re-exported duty-free from the free ports of various Emirates , these objects leave for the Black Sea ports , then travel along the Balkan route , or even to ports , all more or less out of control , on the Libyan coast , and then take the upward path of the trabendo route to Western Europe .
Data from Dubai in 2014 estimated that the trade of such “ duty-free goods ” in the Emirate ’ s free ports represented a turnover of $ 6 billion per year .
New entities of international illicit circulation , active agents of “ globalization from below ,” pass through and act in close proximity to criminal or mafia
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