Survive or perish: Organised crime in the port of Montreal and the port of New York/New Jersey

Self Cite

This paper, which is the introduction to this special issue on ‘Spaces of Organised Crime’, aims to analyse the nexus between organised crime groups and territories. Such groups are able to exploit resources that circulate within territorial contexts in which they are embedded. They also operate concretely as entities that can take part to the transformation of spaces into places. Accordingly, we will lay out an analytical model about the processes through which organised crime groups contribute to create and shape territories. We show how these processes link with the main types of organised crime groups on a differentiated basis. In the last section of this introduction, we present the papers included in the special issue and the logic connecting them to one another.

Section: Types Of Ocgs and Types Of Territorial Connectionsupporting

confidence: 91%

Section: Types Of Ocgs and Types Of Territorial Connectionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Shaping space. A conceptual framework on the connections between organised crime groups and territories

Sergi

Storti

2021

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“…Hence, the harbour is a border place with an ambivalent essence, where organized crime can find opportunities to expand illegal and illegal business (UNODC 2013). In fact, ports are described in literature as «centres of moral corruption and decadence» (van Hooydonk 2007, p. 28) characterized by the use of informal agreements among actors, that exchange resources and information with peculiar praxis (Sergi and Storti 2020). This is possible because, as Bottalico sustains, «port labour is a traditional form of waterfront work, related with militancy, casualism, close-knit communities» (Bottalico 2019, p. 198), a «workforce with its written and unwritten rules, circumscribed within a perimeter that precisely defines social relationships and contractual constraints» (Bottalico 2019, p. 204).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Other authors have analysed how OCGs relate with port workers (Monzini 1999), with trade and labour unions (Jacobs 2006;Lupo 2008), and with private companies (Block 1982). On the contrary, very few scholar have investigated how organized crime is able to operate both in legal and illegal business in ports (Sciarrone 2009;Sergi and Storti 2020) or how it affected port life during history (Leloup 2019). These studies show that OCGs tend to exploit port to improve different businesses with different strategies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An exploration of organized crime in Italian ports from an institutional perspective. Presence and activities

Antonelli

2020

The article will present the results of a qualitative research into organized crime in the Italian port system. It is a pioneering attempt to assess an extensive and diachronic perspective on the presence and activities of organized crime groups into the Italian seaports in order to provide a systematic analytical map through the analysis of institutional law enforcement reports. The article attempts to shed light on an overlooked topic, analytically relevant insofar as it examines OCGs’s activities in a specific and particular space representing an opportunity to obtain profits and social connections. Moreover, it analyses OCGs tendency to be involved in legal and illegal businesses, their ability to persist in space and time, and their skills in moving abroad.The results show that organized crime activities are permanent and largely widespread in the main harbours all over the country, particularly in Ancona, Cagliari, Genova and Gioia Tauro; organized crime groups operate mostly in illegal business and in particular in illicit trafficking of drugs, cigarettes and counterfeit goods; the Italian mafia ‘ndrangheta seems to be able to persist in space and time within several seaports. The study shows that simultaneous processes of specialization in illegal markets and diversification in seaports are ongoing.

Cocaine trafficking from non-traditional ports: examining the cases of Argentina, Chile and Uruguay

Sampó

Troncoso²

2022

This article presents the results of an exploratory study aimed to analyze the contexts in which the use of Non-Traditional ports of cocaine departure and counter-intuitive routes is prioritized, based on the experience of Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay. Moreover, we show that criminal organizations prioritize the Ports of Buenos Aires, San Antonio and Montevideo, and the counter-intuitive routes that lead to them, because they are spaces that generate incentives linked to the porosity of borders, the lack of control at the ports, and the possibility of exploiting the country’s lack of reputation for drug exportation to re-export cocaine undetected. This study constitutes a precedent for future research on the role of South American Southern Cone ports in cocaine trafficking. We can identify at least four emerging lines of research: 1. Cocaine trafficking from landlocked countries; 2. The role of the waterway Paraná-Paraguay; 3. The link between Non-Traditional ports of cocaine departure and new markets; and 4. Other Non-Traditional Ports of cocaine departure, which are not containerized.