Fighting Organized Crime by Targeting Their Revenues
In analysis for Political Violence At A Glance, an IGCC-supported blog dedicated to political violence and its alternatives, Gianmarco Daniele, Assistant Professor at the University of Milan, and Gemma Dipoppa, Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University, analyze the involvement of organized crime in the legal economy, especially in Europe.
A few weeks ago, a massive data leak from a major Swiss bank revealed that it catered to—among others—dozens of criminals and drug lords with outsized wealth. This included a broker for the notorious Italian-based criminal organization, ‘Ndrangheta, who managed a major real estate venture in southern Italy and had hidden away a small fortune at Credit Suisse. It is the most recent case highlighting the involvement of criminal organizations in white-collar crimes, including fraud and money laundering.
How common is the involvement of organized crime in the legal economy? And how can governments fight back?
In a new paper, we study one of the ways criminal groups enmesh themselves in the legal economy: by setting up shell companies or infiltrating businesses, criminals apply to and obtain European subsidies created to spur economic growth among firms, especially in economically disadvantaged areas.
Read the full blog post at Political Violence At A Glance.
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Global Policy At A Glance is IGCC’s blog, which brings research from our network of scholars to engaged audiences outside of academia.
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