Organized Crime & Terrorism

Crime

Any act which hurts individual, community, society or nation and is prescribed by law.

Organized crime

organized
cooperation to accomplish common goal
specific characteristics
- rules of conduct
- specialization, DoL
- chain of command
- training
- hierarchy
definition: continued criminal conspiracy w/ organized structure driven by greed that drives its success from use of fear, corruption or even violence
acc to Treaty of mutual Assistance in Criminal matters 1973: OC = association of individuals for periods of time for profit by both legal & illegal means

Gang
- association of tough and hardened criminals who don’t hesitate to use violence
Cartels
- association of producers to control monopolized and restrict competition related to sale of price or product
Syndicate/Consortium
- union of fortunes or persons to undertake an enterprise beyond the resources of one member

acc to Maharashtra Control of Organized Crime Act (MCOCA) 1999, org crime means continuing any unlawful activity by an individual singly or jointly either as member or on behalf of organized crime syndicate, by using violence the threat of violence, intimidation, or any other unlawful means with the objective of gaining a pecuniary benefit or any undue economic advantage for self or any other person or for promoting insurgency.
acc to BNS Section 111, org crime same as MCOCA except few changes, such as specifying types of unlawful activities
punishment same except insurgency
if org crime results in death of person, punishment = death/life imprisonment + fine of 10L or more
- else, rigorous imprisonment of 5yr to life imprisonment
BNS adds another category, called petty org crime

act conducted w/ intent of striking terror in hearts & minds of common ppl
globally, 19 instruments dealing w/ terrorism, but remains a complete lack of uniformity over what acts constitute terrorism
- eg. EU = T = unlawful use of violence & intimidation
- US START = T = threatening or use of illegal force, violence to attain political, economic or religious goals through fear, coercion, intimidation
- UN = T = intended to provoke sense of terror in general public, any group of persons, or particular person for political purposes

Alliance - Transformation - Complete Convergence
Theoretically, rel. b/w OC & T is 3fold
- “crime terror continuum”
ALLIANCE
- criminal grp associate w/ TO or vice versa
- leverage each other’s comparative advantage
- sharing expert knowledge
  - bomb making, assembling firearms, ML
- rel may be one time or long lasting
TRANSFORMATION
- either of two assume each other’s tactics / roles for operational motives
- criminal groups may engage in pol activity to change operational conditions
- TO may focus on criminal activity for financial reasons
CONVERSION
- mixing of tactics, motivations to extent that it becomes practically impossible to differentiate between terrorist organization aspect or organized crime aspect of same group

Drug traffic & terrorism
- acc to World Drug Report 2021: 1 in 17 ppl across world have used a drug at least once
- 23% decadal increase
- drug trafficking = 1/3 of profits of all org crimes
- $∴$ TO taking interest in illicit drug trafficking
- eg. before 2022, 80% of world’s illicit opium cultivated in Afghanistan alone
- over 40% of terror plots in EU were partly financed from proceedings of drug trafficking
- The Aimjuma Network and Al Qaeda estd. links
- Himachal Pradesh Anti-Drug Act
Human trafficking
- sexual exploitation, forced labour
- organ trade, begging, pornography, forced marriage
- abduction, rape, sexual slavery used by TO to subjugate local populations, advance their ideologies
- eg. 2014 attack on Singer district of Iraq by ISIS and consequent abduction of 60k Yazidi women, children
- Boko Haram & Al Shabab (Somalia) -> children suicide bombing
Trade in cultural property
- src of revenue
- destruction of cultural property to undermine morale of local people (cultural cleansing)
- eg. 2001 attack on Bamiyan Statues
Intellectual property theft
- world’s largest black economy
  - even surpassing global narcotics trade (3.3%)
- cigarette commonly pirated
- 2016 -> TO in NAfrica responsible for contraband tobacco traded at $1B annually
Exploitation of natural resources
- several TO involved in illicit trade
- ISIS -> oil trafficking
- Al Shabab -> charcoal trafficking

2014 -> Naxalism a 1500Cr extortion business
- kidnapping of businessmen, contractors, public servants & seeking ransom
- protection money
Punjab -> one person in 65% families addicted to drug
- cultural, geographical proximity to Pak
drying up of funds for terror orgs in Pak since 2001
in NE, esp Manipur, Nagaland, areas controlled by local militia
- involve in human/arms/drug trafficking
in J&K -> terror ops primarily sponsored by external State actors
- involvement of OGW (over ground workers) as front of terror orgs to secure finances
- since the ban on Jamaat-e-Islami

Inadequate Legal Framework
- although UAPA 1967 exists, a dedicated chapter for preventing terror activities was added only in 2004
- until then, terrorism primarily dealt by now repealed TADA and POTA
only few states eg Maharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat have dedicated laws against OC
- yet no uniformity
weak enforcement agencies
- state police force lack arms, ammunition, training
lack of coordination among agencies
- no standard SoP
technology
- security agencies lack capacity to combat new age organized cyber crime
lack of public awareness
- glorification of OC in media, cinema attracts youth

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