Transnational Organized Crime in the Former Yugoslav and Post-Soviet Republics: A Desk Review

Abstract

By means of discourse-analytical desk review of qualitative sources, this article discusses the factors that have facilitated the prevalence of transnational organised crime in post-Soviet and former Yugoslav states together with the impacts and the factors that are affecting the effective prevention and control of transnational organized crime (TNOC) in post-Soviet and Yugoslav states. It examines the factors affecting the effective prevention and control of transnational organized crime (TNOC) in post-Soviet and Yugoslav states, and impacts, especially those connected to the globalization of the world economy; the increased mobility of people and services across transnational borders leading to the ethnicization of criminal activities and internationalization of organized crimes due to borderless illicit traffic. The paper argues that as a result of the combination of multiple factors, the prevailing rhetoric of TNOC in the former Yugoslav and Post-Soviet States is explained in terms of the profitability of TNOC economy for political elites, border police, smugglers and people living around the borders and the ability of organized criminal groups to supplant state institutions and its replacement it with private interests which has led to the institutionalization of criminality and the privatization of criminalization occasioned by breakdown of law and order and the corruption of the political elites. Finally, the paper concludes by nothing that the current manifestation of transnational organized criminal activities in former Soviet territories is a synthesis of political corruption and criminal syndication.