European crime markets at cross-roads

While during the last decades the European licit markets expanded unstoppably, so did Europe's crime-markets. These crime-markets used to be projected against the so-called 'organised crime' framework, which seemingly provided some clarity. However, part of this hoped-for clarity was the outcome of an opaque interaction between media, law-enforcement and the crime-entrepreneurs themselves. Integrated into the main crime-market, the agencies of law enforcement and the media formed side-markets of their own. Of course, the radius of the licit market players was fanned by the 'real' markets they are fighting: drugs or sexual exploitation and the ubiqui-tous laundering of ill-gotten profits. But was their growth commensurate to the real threat? Indeed, law enforcement side-markets tend to have a capacity to outgrow the underlying crime-markets. This eighth volume of the Cross-border Crime Colloquium, to which 25 leading experts from nine Member States of the European Union and Serbia contributed, covers various sectors of the European crime-market: human trafficking, cigarette smuggling, money-laundering, the organisation of economiccrime, corruption in the Balkans and whether there are reasons to fear the Yugo- mafia. In addition, it deals with aspects of the organisations and legislation to fight these phenomena. It also elaborates a creative approach of thinking ahead of criminal market developments: drafting scenarios of criminal developments, which help to design strategic options instead of the usual reactive responses. Indeed, this eighth Colloquium volume describes aspects of the criminal present while being future oriented. www.petrusvanduyne.nl