The World Wide Web has irreversibly changed the way how organised crime works. Law enforcement agencies need to keep up with the fast pace of its development in order to stay efficient.

Over the last decades organised crime has changed its modi operandi. Globalisation enabled wide-spread networks and easier deployment of criminal actions, while the advancements of new technology and especially the internet made organised crime more flexible.

Pinning down organised crime to a certain definition is difficult, due to its diverse nature. In the past, many saw organised criminal groups primarily emerging in the absence of a centralised state power, which enabled them to act as service-providing organisations themselves.

“Among the goods provided, trust and protection are singled out as paramount. These, which should be supplied by the state, may under certain circumstances become the preserve of private entrepreneurs, namely organized crime.”

This definition would fit to more traditional groups such as the mafia. However, due to our global interconnection and especially the World Wide Web, new forms of organised crime keep emerging, which are able to execute large operations on an international level and despite the presence of a functioning state.

The Role of Internet in organized crime

Planning and executing criminal activities is made possible on a large scale primarily due to the Internet. In this perspective, organised crime can be distinguished from professional crime: Professional crime, on the one hand, is characterised by a horizontal structure, where schemes are planned together and executed in a shared manner, and the proceeds a shared equally. Organizational crime, on the other hand, implies that those actions are planned at the top level and executed separately from each other. The relationship between agent and patron remains vague and – to a certain degree – invisible. In this case, the division of labour is more of a social nature, whereas it is rather technical in professional crime. The internet makes it possible: The organisation from distance. The project TAKEDOWN consequently puts forward:

“Cybercriminals operate in a global, borderless, extremely flexible quasi-neoliberal criminal market on a Crime-as-a-Service (CaaS) basis opening organised crime to new ‘distributed’ models of organization.”

Various forms of criminality are organised and facilitated online including:

• The transnational marketing of sex workers
• Financial frauds or online payment scams
• Smuggling and distribution of illegal goods like counterfeit products, drugs, or weapons
• Money laundering via cryptocurrencies
• Network attacks and the distribution of malware

Even tough many of the named crimes do not necessarily need the World Wide Web, they have risen proportionally due to the enhanced connectivity. In a similar manner, terrorism was affected by the use of internet as well.

Terror and propaganda

Terrorism and organized crime in this respect may be similar, because both deploy an organizational layout. They relate symbiotically, or engage in similar activities such as the exchange of drugs for weapons. Moreover, the two have developed networked organizational forms and technological skills that enhance their capacity and resilience.

One important aspect of this new form of terrorism is the relatively easy recruitment and radicalisation of new adherents over the internet. The World Wide Web currently supplies terrorists with platforms of greater outreach than ever before.

“The true threat thus lies in the persistence of those violent narratives, ideologies and groups susceptible to inspire lone actors or lure new followers, especially because the internet supplies them a propitious platform for safely spreading their propaganda and indoctrination, fundraising, sharing attack methods or training and accessing to arms and explosive devices or material.”

Social media such as Youtube, blogs and other platforms serve as modern dais from which groups such as ISIS can disseminate and spread their ideologies. They not only act as echo-chambers, reinforcing and legitimising the views of already-radicalised individuals, but also allow for messages to be quickly and easily received by a large group of vulnerable individuals. The ease at which a non-state actor can match a coalition of states in this regard demonstrates the true potential of the internet in enabling the recruitment and propaganda function of a terrorist organisation to thrive.

Terrorist networks themselves have evolved, reacting to the international institutional awareness and counter strategies: No longer arranged in strictly-local organisations, they are more frequently using the possibilities of the World Wide Web. Already after 9/11, big organisations split up and worked increasingly online. Distance now prevailed between adherents and militant leaders, while still individually tasked with specific operations to be carried out separately. This structure of authoritarian centralism was later slowly transformed into the creation of cellular units that coordinated themselves. Attacks by scattered cells started to follow a ‘logic’ rather than an established ‘programme’, with copycat action being carried out in contexts which were diverse and isolated from one another.

This cell-network seems to be a major trend, which challenges modern societies. Terrorist actions may be dictated from distance or just replicated by ‘lone wolves’, who feel legitimized to kill after adopting the deadly philosophy of the organization. A single organised group is therefore no longer needed for terrorism. The strength of groups like ISIS thus lies no longer in its military strength, but its abilities to mobilize a large number of independent actors.

Note: This article is based on the public report D2.1 from the EU-project TAKEDOWN. The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme under Grant Agreement No 700688. Project-Website: www.takedownproject.eu

References

Ruggiero, V./Leyva, R. (2016): Deliverable D2.1 – Literature exploration and open access bibliography, access: http://takedownproject.eu/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/TAKEDOWN_700688_D2.1-Literature-exploration-and-open-access-bibliography….pdf