Detecting criminal organizations in mobile phone networks

Ferrara, Emilio; Meo, Pasquale De; Catanese, Salvatore; Fiumara, Giacomo

doi:10.1016/j.eswa.2014.03.024

Cited by 136 publications

(94 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…In our previous work we focused on the joint application of Social Network Analysis tools and advanced Data Visualization techniques [5,16]. We described a software system which was able to extract criminal organizations from a network recording mobile phone calls and we combined statistical network analysis primitives, community detection algorithms, and visual exploration tools, to unveil the structure of criminal networks hidden in communication data.…”

Section: Social Network Analysis and Mafia Syndicatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Network structure and resilience of Mafia syndicates

Agreste

Catanese

Meo

et al. 2016

Information Sciences

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In this paper we present the results of the study of Sicilian Mafia organization by using Social Network Analysis. The study investigates the network structure of a Mafia organization, describing its evolution and highlighting its plasticity to interventions targeting membership and its resilience to disruption caused by police operations. We analyze two different datasets about Mafia gangs built by examining different digital trails and judicial documents spanning a period of ten years: the former dataset includes the phone contacts among suspected individuals, the latter is constituted by the relationships among individuals actively involved in various criminal offenses. Our report illustrates the limits of traditional investigation methods like tapping: criminals high up in the organization hierarchy do not occupy the most central positions in the criminal network, and oftentimes do not appear in the reconstructed criminal network at all. However, we also suggest possible strategies of intervention, as we show that although criminal networks (i.e., the network encoding mobsters and crime relationships) are extremely resilient to different kind of attacks, contact networks (i.e., the network reporting suspects and reciprocated phone calls) are much more vulnerable and their analysis can yield extremely valuable insights.

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Section: Social Network Analysis and Mafia Syndicatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the latest years, various researchers [2,5,6] illustrated the benefits of using Social Network Analysis [7] to study the structure criminal organizations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Network structure and resilience of Mafia syndicates

Agreste

Catanese

Meo

et al. 2016

Information Sciences

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Therefore, mobile device forensics is critical in every type of investigation today. In recent years, researchers and practitioners alike understood the importance of mobile devices as a fundamental source of digital evidence, which can be essential in capturing critical information to prosecute a suspect [51,52].…”

Section: Experimental Context: Mobile Forensicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to Deliver Open Sustainable Innovation: An Integrated Approach for a Sustainable Marketable Product

et al. 2016

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Abstract:The adoption of open innovation and peer production, powered by 3D printing technology, is transforming traditional manufacturing methods towards a "third industrial revolution". The purpose of this research is to provide empirical evidence for an integrated approach, based on collaborative product development and peer production, combined with 3D printing, to deliver more sustainable, yet competitive, marketable products. In particular, this experimental study is conducted in the context of mobile forensics, an emerging market where limited expensive products exist and alternative solutions are needed. The technical viability and economic feasibility of the prototype developed in this research validate the proposed integrated approach, which could be a game-changer in the field of mobile forensics, as well as in other sectors. The sustainability improvements with this approach are a reduction of the total cost, thereby making it affordable for lower income users, and a decrease in energy consumption and pollutant emissions. The validated integrated approach offers start-up opportunities to develop and deliver more sustainable, marketable products, towards the paradigm of Open Sustainable Innovation. While the device developed and tested in this research has similar features to existing products, the methodology, implementation, and motivation are original.

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“…The system can also help in analyzing temporal information from phone call networks [11]. In 2014, LogAnalysis was improved and enhanced to identify the influential criminals in a criminal organization by determining the degree of relationships between the vertices representing criminals [14]. The enhanced version of LogAnalysis uses the Girvan and Newman [18] and Newman [34] algorithms.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

SIIMCO: A Forensic Investigation Tool for Identifying the Influential Members of a Criminal Organization

Taha

Yoo

2016

IEEE Trans.Inform.Forensic Secur.

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Abstract-Members of a criminal organization, who hold central positions in the organization, are usually targeted by criminal investigators for removal or surveillance. This is because they play key and influential roles by acting as commanders who issue instructions or serve as gatekeepers. Removing these central members (i.e., influential members) is most likely to disrupt the organization and put it out of business. Most often, criminal investigators are even more interested in knowing the portion of these influential members, who are the immediate leaders of lower-level criminals. These lower-level criminals are the ones who usually carry out the criminal works; therefore, they are easier to identify. The ultimate goal of investigators is to identify the immediate leaders of these lower-level criminals in order to disrupt future crimes. We propose in this paper a forensic analysis system called SIIMCO that can identify the influential members of a criminal organization. Given a list of lower-level criminals in a criminal organization, SIIMCO can also identify the immediate leaders of these criminals. SIIMCO first constructs a network representing a criminal organization from either Mobile Communication Data that belongs to the organization or from crime incident reports. It adopts the concept space approach to automatically construct a network from crime incident reports. In such a network, a vertex represents an individual criminal and a link represents the relationship between two criminals. SIIMCO employs formulas that quantify the degree of influence/importance of each vertex in the network relative to all other vertices. We present these formulas through a series of refinements. All the formulas incorporate novel-weighting schemes for the edges of networks. We evaluated the quality of SIIMCO by comparing it experimentally with two other systems. Results showed marked improvement.

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Detecting criminal organizations in mobile phone networks

Cited by 136 publications

References 45 publications

Network structure and resilience of Mafia syndicates

Network structure and resilience of Mafia syndicates

How to Deliver Open Sustainable Innovation: An Integrated Approach for a Sustainable Marketable Product

SIIMCO: A Forensic Investigation Tool for Identifying the Influential Members of a Criminal Organization

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