Project ARIEL

Organized Crime Infiltration of Legitimate Businesses in Europe

A Pilot Project in Five European Countries

This final report of project ARIEL is an exploratory study on the infiltration of organised crime groups in legal businesses, featuring a list of risk factors derived from an unprecedented cross-national comparative analysis.

Project ARIEL – Assessing the Risk of the Infiltration of Organised Crime in EU MSs Legitimate Economies: a Pilot Project in 5 EU Countries – was carried out with the financial support of the European Commission, DG Home Affairs, within the Prevention of and Fight against Crime (ISEC) Programme. It focused on five EU MS: Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, and United Kingdom.

This research is an exploratory study on the infiltration of organised crime groups (OCGs) in legal businesses. Infiltration occurs in every case in which a natural person belonging to a criminal organisation or acting on its behalf, or an already infiltrated legal person, invests financial and/or human resources to participate in the decision-making process of a legitimate business.

The main output of the research is a list of risk factors of OCG infiltration in legal businesses, i.e. factors that facilitate or promote infiltration. Risk factors are derived from an unprecedented cross-national comparative analysis of the vulnerabilities of territories and business sectors, criminal groups’ modi operandi, and the characteristics of infiltrated businesses.

Infiltration risk factors provide inputs for the development of a risk assessment model of OCG infiltration. Its development will assist Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in identifying the factors facilitating and/or promoting infiltration and enhancing the prevention and enforcement of criminal infiltration. This will help protect EU MS legitimate economies from the misuse of legal businesses for illicit purposes.


PART I. Mapping organised crime infiltration in legitimate businesses


This study analyses OCG infiltration in legitimate businesses through 2,380 references to OCG infiltration from a variety of open sources (i.e. academic studies, LEA operations and reports, newspaper articles). It examines the distribution of OCG infiltration and its correlation with socio-economic indicators to identify the main characteristics of the territories and business sectors targeted by OCGs.

Learn more about ARIEL

http://www.transcrime.it/arielproject/


Final Report of Project ARIEL - Assessing the Risk of the Infiltration of Organized Crime in EU MSs Legitimate Economies: a Pilot Project in 5 EU Countries (HOME/2012/ISEC/FP/C1/4000003801)

Edited by Ernesto U. Savona and Giulia Berlusconi.

Principal Investigators for the 5 EU MS:
Gerben Bruinsma, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement
Lars Korsell, Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention
Gorazd Meško, University of Maribor, Faculty of Criminal Justice and Security
Ernesto U. Savona, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore-Transcrime
David Wall, University of Durham (now University of Leeds)

Year of publication: 2015

Co-funded by the Prevention of and Fight against Crime Programme of the European Union

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