Serving as an introduction to one of the "hottest" topics in financial crime, the Value Added Tax (VAT) fraud, this new and original book aims to analyze and decrypt the fraud and explore multi-disciplinary avenues, thereby exposing nuances and shades that remain concealed by traditional taxation oriented researches. Quantifying the impact of the fraud on the real economy underlines the structural damages propagated by this crime in the European Union. The 'fruadsters' benefit when policy changes are inflicted in an economic space without a fully fledged legal framework. Geopolitical events like the creation of the Eurasian Union and 'Brexit' are analyzed from the perspective of the VAT fraud, thereby underlining the foreseeable risks of such historical turnarounds. In addition, this book also provides a unique collection of case studies that depict the main characteristics of VAT fraud. Introduction to VAT Fraud will be of interest to students at an advanced level, academics and reflective practitioners. It addresses the topics with regards to banking and finance law, international law, criminal law, taxation, accounting, and financial crime. It will be of value to researchers, academics, professionals, and students in the fields of law, financial crime, technology, accounting and taxation.

VIRGINIA VALLEJO: Top Colombian television journalist, cover model and socialite PABLO ESCOBAR: Head of the Medellin cartel, the founder of the global cocaine industry and one of the most ambitious - and brutal - criminals in history Over the course of their tempestuous love affair, Vallejo witnessed first-hand the bloodshed, fear and corruption that accompanied the rise of Escobar's crime empire. In this explosive tale of drugs, sex, wealth and violence, Vallejo describes the man she knew and loved. But, increasingly plagued by threats of kidnap and death for her knowledge on Escobar's ties to the political establishment, Vallejo sought extradition to the United States. Her testimony would reopen one of the most important criminal cases in Colombian history.

This is the dramatic story of the Capital City Service, the Hibs casuals who became the most notorious gang in Scotland. 'These Colours Don't Run' is one of the most readable books in the genre: at times dark and violent, but often humorous and moving.

This is the untold story of the American federal agent who captured the world's most-wanted drug-lord. Every generation has its larger-than-life criminal legend living beyond the reach of the law: Billy the Kid, Al Capone, Ronnie Biggs, Pablo Escobar. But for every one of these criminals, there's a Wyatt Earp, Pat Garrett or Slipper of the Yard. For Joaquin Archivaldo Guzman-Loera a.k.a. 'El Chapo' - the 21st century's most notorious criminal - that man is D.E.A. Special Agent Andrew Hogan. This is the incredible story of Hogan's seven-year-long chase to capture El Chapo, a multibillionaire drug-lord and escape-artist posing as a Mexican Robin Hood, who in reality was a brutal sociopath responsible for the murders of thousands. His greedy campaign to take over his rivals' territories resulted in an unprecedented war with a body count of over 100,000. We follow Hogan on his quest to achieve the seemingly impossible: to cross the border into Mexico and arrest El Chapo, the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, a billionaire and Public Enemy No. 1, who had been evading capture for more than a decade and had earned a reputation for being utterly untouchable. This intimate thriller tells how Hogan single-mindedly and methodically climbed the ladder within the hierarchy of the Sinaloa Cartel - the world's wealthiest and most powerful drug-trafficking organization - by creating one of the most sophisticated undercover operations in the history of the D.E.A. From infiltrating Chapo's inner circle to leading a white-knuckle manhunt with an elite brigade of Mexican Marines, Hogan left no stone unturned in his hunt for the world's most powerful drug kingpin.

PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE THE THIRD LEADING CAUSE OF DEATH AFTER HEART DISEASE AND CANCER. In his latest ground-breaking book, Peter C Gotzsche exposes the pharmaceutical industries and their charade of fraudulent behaviour, both in research and marketing where the morally repugnant disregard for human lives is the norm. He convincingly draws close comparisons with the tobacco conglomerates, revealing the extraordinary truth behind efforts to confuse and distract the public and their politicians. The book addresses, in evidence-based detail, an extraordinary system failure caused by widespread crime, corruption, bribery and impotent drug regulation in need of radical reforms. "The main reason we take so many drugs is that drug companies don't sell drugs, they sell lies about drugs. This is what makes drugs so different from anything else in life...Virtually everything we know about drugs is what the companies have chosen to tell us and our doctors...the reason patients trust their medicine is that they extrapolate the trust they have in their doctors into the medicines they prescribe. The patients don't realise that, although their doctors may know a lot about diseases and human physiology and psychology, they know very, very little about drugs that hasn't been carefully concocted and dressed up by the drug industry...If you don't think the system is out of control, please email me and explain why drugs are the third leading cause of death...If such a hugely lethal epidemic had been caused by a new bacterium or a virus, or even one-hundredth of it, we would have done everything we could to get it under control." FROM THE INTRODUCTION

Through political and cultural analysis of representations of the so-called war on drugs, Oswaldo Zavala makes the case that the very terms we use to describe drug traffickers are a constructed subterfuge for the real narcos: politicians, corporations, and the military. Though Donald Trump's incendiary comments and monstrous policies on the border reveal the character of a deeply depraved leader, state violence on both sides of the border is nothing new. Immigration has endured as a prevailing news topic, but it is a fixture of modern society in the neoliberal era; the future will be one of exile brought on by state violence and the plundering of our natural resources to sate capitalist greed. Yet, the realities of violence in Mexico and along the border are obscured by the books, films, and TV series we consume. In truth, works like Sicario, The Queen of the South, and Narcos hide Mexico's political realities. Along with these examples, Zavala discusses Charles Bowden, 2666 by Roberto BolaNo, and other important Latin American writers as examples of works that do capture the realities of the drug war. Drug Cartels Do Not Exist will be useful for journalists, political scientists, philosophers, and writers of any kind who wish to break down the constructed barriers-physical and mental-created by those in power around the reality of the Mexican drug trade.

The systematic study of organized crime dates back to John Landesco s classic of ethnography, Organized Crime in Chicago (1929). Since then, the field has grown considerably and, as well as criminologists and sociologists, the topic has been embraced by researchers from a broad range of disciplines, including political science, anthropology, economics, as well as literary and film studies.

While at first attention was principally devoted to the study of traditional organized-crime groups, such as the Sicilian and the American mafias, since the 1980s, serious scholarly work has also emerged on, for example, the Russian mafia, the Japanese Yakuza, and the Triads in both Hong Kong, China, and the USA. Furthermore, researchers have recognized that the behaviour and structure of traditional organized-crime groups, and their role in both legal and illegal markets, can be fruitfully compared and contrasted to new forms of organized crime in places as varied as Africa, Columbia, Northern Ireland, and Asia. The study of organized crime has also attracted researchers interested in popular representations of the phenomenon, mainly in films and novels. Furthermore, after the events of 11 September 2001, the intersection between organized crime and terrorism, and the ability of organized-crime groups to operate transnationally and expand to new territories, has gained a new significance.

As research on organized crime continues to flourish, this new title in the Routledge s Critical Concepts in Criminology series, addresses the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of a rapidly growing and ever more complex corpus of interdisciplinary scholarly literature. Organized Crime is a four-volume collection of the foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship. It is also fully indexed and includes a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. An indispensable reference collection, it is destined to be valued by scholars and students of the subject as a vital one-stop research and pedagogic resource.

This book offers a contemporary look at violence in Mexico and argues for a recalibration in how necropolitics, as the administration of life and death, is understood. The author locates the forces of mortality directly on the body, rather than as an object of government, thereby placing death in a politics of the everyday. This necropolitics is explored through testimonies of individuals living in towns overrun by organized crime and resistance groups, namely, the autodefensa movement, that operate throughout Michoacan, one of the most violent states in Mexico. This volume studies how individuals and communities go on living not in spite of the death that surrounds life, but more disturbingly by attuning to it.

This book presents an ethnographic study of contemporary ticket touts in the UK. Despite the recent interest in the topic of black-market ticket sales, media coverage and parliamentary interventions over the last ten years have revealed a widespread lack of knowledge with regards to the phenomenon of touting and the players involved in the practice. The Rise and Rise of Illegal Ticket Touting sheds light on the world of touting and delivers an authentic picture of the individuals involved, of their methods, values, and motivations for performing ticket touting as an organised, entrepreneurial deviant activity. The touts' attitudes, perceptions, adaptations to - or outright dismissal of - the changing legal landscape are focal points of the study. Of equal importance are the touts' varied methods of buying and selling tickets, the hierarchical structures and strict ethos of their criminal organisations, and their specific modi operandi for evading detection and arrest both on the streets and online. This book illuminates why historic and renewed attempts to challenge ticket touting have been unsuccessful, focusing on inadequate legislation, a lack of enforcement, and the widespread corruption and exploitable loopholes that exist within the official, primary ticket market. An accessible and compelling read, The Rise and Rise of Illegal Ticket Touting will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, social policy, policing and all those with an interest in live music and sport and the hidden practices that lurk beneath the surface.

In recent years, in the context of the War on Terror and globalization, there has been an increased interest in terrorism and organized crime in academia, yet historical research into such phenomena is relatively scarce. This book resets the balance and emphasizes the importance of historical research to understanding terrorism and organized crime. This book explores historical accounts of organized crime and terrorism, drawing on research from around the world in such areas as the USA, UK, Ireland, France, Colombia, Somalia, Burma, Turkey and Trinidad and Tobago. Combining key case studies with fresh conceptualizations of organized crime and terrorism, this book reinvigorates scholarship by comparing and contrasting different historical accounts and considering their overlaps. Critical 'lessons learned' are drawn out from each chapter, providing valuable insights for current policy, practice and scholarship. This book is an indispensable guide for understanding the wider history of terrorism and organized crime. It maps key historical changes and trends in this area and underlines the vital importance of history in understanding critical contemporary issues. Taking an interdisciplinary approach and written by leading criminologists, historians and political scientists, this book will be of particular interest to students of terrorism/counter-terrorism, organized crime, drug policy, criminology, security studies, politics, international relations, sociology and history.

Comprehensively laying out the concept of crimilegality, this book presents a novel perspective on the relationship between what is conventionally termed organised crime and political order in the contemporary developing world. In hybrid crimilegal orders the moral, normative and social boundaries between legality and illegality-criminality are blurred, and through the violation of the official law, the illegal-criminal sphere of social life becomes legitimate and morally acceptable, while the legal turns illegitimate and immoral. Several examples of crimilegality and crimilegal governance in Colombia and Nigeria, including in relation to armed conflict termination, are used to illustrate these complex processes.

To underworld kingpins Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Cuba was the greatest hope for the future of American organized crime in the post-Prohibition years. In the 1950s, the Mob--with the corrupt, repressive government of brutal Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista in its pocket--owned Havana's biggest luxury hotels and casinos, launching an unprecedented tourism boom complete with the most lavish entertainment, top-drawer celebrities, gorgeous women, and gambling galore. But Mob dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and others who would lead an uprising of the country's disenfranchised against Batista's hated government and its foreign partners--an epic cultural battle that bestselling author T. J. English captures here in all its sexy, decadent, ugly glory.

This book uniquely applies theoretical approaches from criminology and sociology to the problem of corruption. Theoretical thoughts have future consequences on how we treat, punish and deter and corruption policy illustrates that theoretical approaches affect what laws and techniques are implemented. Theoretical approaches, however, are not developed in a social and political vacuum; they are a part of the changing social world and understanding why corruption occurs is a preface to developing strategies to control and prevent it. Criminology of Corruption analyses corruption on an international scale and uses numerous case studies to help explain why individuals, organisations and states are corrupt. The book charts the development of the most relevant theoretical approaches and uses them to help explain acts of corruption and prevention. It will be of great interest to scholars researching these issues across criminology, sociology and other disciplines.

This groundbreaking book investigates the emergence and evolution of the organ trade across North Africa and Europe. Sean Columb illuminates the voices and perspectives of organ sellers and brokers to demonstrate how crime and immigration controls produce circumstances where the business of selling organs has become a feature of economic survival. Drawing on the experiences of African migrants, Trading Life brings together five years of fieldwork charting the development of the organ trade from an informal economic activity into a structured criminal network operating within and between Egypt, Libya, Sudan, Eritrea, and Europe. Ground-level analysis provides new insight into the operation of organ trading networks and the impact of current legal and policy measures in response to the organ trade. Columb reveals how investing financial and administrative resources into law enforcement and border securitization at the expense of social services has led to the convergence of illicit smuggling and organ trading networks and the development of organized crime. Trading Life delivers a powerful and grounded analysis of how economic pressures and the demands of survival force people into exploitative arrangements, like selling a kidney, that they would otherwise avoid. This fascinating and accessible book is a must-read for anyone interested in migration, organized crime, and exploitation.

This pioneering study looks across key trafficking crimes to develop a social theory of transnational criminal markets. These include human trafficking, drug dealing, and black markets in wildlife, diamonds, guns and antiquities, The author offers an in-depth analysis of structural similarities and differences within illicit trade networks, and explores the economic underpinnings which drive global trafficking. Revealing how traffickers think of their illegal enterprises as 'just business', he draws broader lessons for the ways forward in understanding criminality in this emerging field.

This book discusses environmental crime and individual wrongdoing. It uses the theory of convenience throughout to examine financial motives, attractive opportunities, and personal willingness to explain deviant behavior. This book focusses primarily on the case study of the Island of Tjome in Norway, an attractive resort where building permits were repeatedly granted to rich people in a protected zone along the shoreline. This book investigates how these crimes were detected and investigated by police over a few years with the help of whistleblowers. It discusses the interplay between the potentially corrupt public officials, professionals like architects and attorneys, and rich individuals, as an interesting and challenging arena for law enforcement. It covers attorneys' defense strategies, evaluates private internal policing, and provides insights for those investigating individuals involved in environmental crime. It also examines the Vest Tank toxic waste dumping case and the resulting explosion where unusually both the chairperson and the chief executive were successfully sentenced to prison because of environmental crime, unlike many other environmental crime cases where individuals avoid prison. The case studies are drawn from Norway to supplement more well-known case studies from the USA.

The book highlights the root cause of human trafficking and analyses how factors of vulnerability affect the marginalized, especially during and after a disaster. Human trafficking like other studies on disaster research, needs to be tackled from various perspectives such as empowering the vulnerable people, creating awareness, strengthening the disaster risk reduction measures and creating a common platform to fight the vicious circle by breaking its continuity and making strategies victim centric and people friendly. The book adapts a multidisciplinary approach embedding concepts from political, social, economic and anthropological perceptions. The discourse in the book revolves around the emotional and psycho-social stress factors including weak implementation of laws and policies at various levels. The content weaves around three themes -- magnitude and interlinks between disaster and human trafficking; policies and protocols on disaster risk reduction and human trafficking and community participation and institutional support. Through these themes, the volume works on identification of the vulnerable areas which are not in compliance with the Sendai Framework of Action, 2015 in the backdrop of the Disaster Management Act of India, 2005. The volume will be of immense interest to a wide range of practitioners, researchers, academicians, policy makers, political leaders, gender experts, international organizations, disaster management authorities, civil society organisations, and scholars working in the area of human rights in general and trafficking in particular. Note: This research was funded by Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). Human Trafficking is complex, layered and lies at the intersections of multiple vulnerabilities, gender being among the most significant ones. This gets exacerbated during both natural and human made disasters. Any attempt to either understand or address it will be fraught with challenges if women and girls' unique vulnerabilities, as well as their needs, voice, choice, agency and safety is not centre-staged in any effort. Mondira's book does exactly that...it succinctly and in simple words explores the compounding discriminations, including structural inequalities, that cause and result in women and girls differential gendered vulnerabilities to being trafficked during disasters. Once this is understood, the solutions can be specific, gender responsive, and sustainable. - Anju Dubey Pandey, Gender Responsive Governance and Ending Violence against Women Specialist, UN Women, New Delhi, India

Examining the deviant structures of transnational organised crime, this book considers whether traditional mechanisms and national jusrisdictions can tackle this increasing menace. Highlighting the strengths and weaknesses in the present methods of control, the book discusses the possibilities of developing more effective national and international strategies; the creation of non-legal mechanisms outside the traditional criminal justice system and the implications of 'disruption strategies'. The roles of law enforcement officers, tax investigators, financial intelligence officers, compliance officers, lawyers and accountants in enforcing both civil and criminal sanctions on organised crime are also considered.

Described by the National Crime Agency as a 'significant threat', county lines involve gangs recruiting vulnerable youth to sell drugs in provincial areas. This phenomenon has impacted local drug markets, increasing criminal activity and violence. Exploring how county lines evolve, Harding reveals extensive criminal exploitation and control in the daily 'grind' to sell drugs. Drawing upon extensive interviews and case studies, this timely book gives voice to users and dealers, providing an in-depth analysis of techniques, relationships and 'trapping'. With county lines now a critical issue for policing and government, this is an invaluable contribution to literature on gangs, youth violence and drugs.

This edited book addresses the issues of gun trafficking and gun violence across different regions of the world, including the Americas, Africa, Asia, Europe and Oceania. It seeks to identify global key trends on gun trafficking and related violence and discuss different enforcement measures. Each chapter is written by teams of distinguished academics and/or experienced practitioners to include practitioner insights and policy proposals on issues related to gun violence and gun trafficking. Chapters offer an overview of violence and recent gun control debates in the regions, enumerate challenges, provide lessons learnt, and recommend policy solutions. An overview of the global small arms trade is provided at the beginning alongside a comparative analysis of common challenges and significant differences across the regions. This book speaks to those in Criminology, International Relations, Public Policy, International Security, Public health and Law, and to civil society organizations, think tanks, research centers, policy analysts and policy makers involved in gun control debates.

The true story of London's toughest, deadliest street gangs: the events, the rules and the real top boys. Are the streets of London some of the deadliest in the world? What's the truth behind the headlines? And who are the real top boys? Looking beyond the hit TV series, The Real Top Boys reveals the lives of the street gangs who have taken over, and now rule, dozens of corners of the UK's capital. Bestselling true crime author Wensley Clarkson takes us on a tour of the housing estates and volatile neighbourhoods where pride, rivalry and revenge are the codes people live and die by. He talks to the criminals who have helped create this chilling modern-day underworld and recounts the vicious turf wars that changed the map, unravels the rules and rights of the streets, and charts the rise and fall of many of the game's key players over the decades that have transformed the city. Featuring interviews with real-life gangsters and told in a gripping story that lays bare the hard life in this world, The Real Top Boys is the ultimate account of gang life in London and a jaw-dropping look at who really runs the streets.

This book contributes to the literature on organized crime by providing a detailed account of the various nuances of what happens when criminal organizations misuse or penetrate legitimate businesses. It advances the existing scholarship on attacks, infiltration, and capture of legal businesses by organized crime and sheds light on the important role the private sector can play to fight back. It considers a range of industries from bars and restaurants to labour-intensive enterprises such as construction and waste management, to sectors susceptible to illicit activities including transportation, wholesale and retail trade, and businesses controlled by fragmented legislation such as gambling. Organized criminal groups capitalize on legitimate businesses beleaguered by economic downturns, government regulations, natural disasters, societal conflict, and the COVID-19 pandemic. To survive, some private companies have even become the willing partners of criminal organizations. Thus, the relationships between licit businesses and organized crime are highly varied and can range from victimization of businesses to willing collusion and even exploitation of organized crime by the private sector - albeit with arrangements that typically allow plausible deniability. In other words, these relationships are highly diverse and create a complex reality which is the focus of the articles presented here. This book will appeal to students, academics, and policy practitioners with an interest in organized crime. It will also provide important supplementary reading for undergraduate and graduate courses on topics such as transnational security issues, transnational organized crime, international criminal justice, criminal finance, non-state actors, international affairs, comparative politics, and economics and business courses.