Read the following text. Following the title of the text brainstorm words you expect to find in it. Write the vocabulary list of possible words that you could find in that text.

Make sure you understand the meaning of the following words and word-combinations:

unintended consequences

globalization

to perpetrate confidence schemes

stock market manipulations

illegal gambling operations

peddle child pornography across the globe

deficiency

licit

illicit

a new phenomenon

 staggering

ill-gotten gains

massive economic upheavals

 Causes of the Organized Crime

One of the most serious unintended consequences of the globalization that we have been experiencing for the last few years has been the rapid rise of transnational organized crime groups.

There are several reasons for this, including the following.

First, globalization which means the increasing ease of international communications brings the world to each individual more directly and potentially more dangerously than ever before. The internet allows the individual to access information, do business with and communicate instantly with persons in every nation, but at the same time it allows criminals to perpetrate confidence schemes and stock market manipulations, run illegal gambling operations and peddle child pornography across the globe.

A term with nearly as many meanings as users, “globalization” generally refers to the growing interconnectedness of the nations of the world the process of globalization has outpaced the growth of mechanisms for global governance, and this deficiency has produced just the sort of regulation vacuum in which transnational organized crime can thrive. People and goods can move more cheaply than ever before, and criminals and contraband can only be interdicted by national governments. Human and commercial flows are too intense to easily distinguish the licit from the illicit. Silos of sovereignty provide sanctuary to those who, however harmful their activities, are of use to the authorities in one country or another. The open seas, which constitute three quarters of the earth’s surface, remain essentially ungoverned. And the rapid pace of change itself provides opportunities for organized crime.

An example of a traditional crime that has been revolutionized by global communications is child pornography. Far from being a new phenomenon, the internet has enabled cheap and instant global distribution to millions of customers from concealed origins, usually situated in countries where prosecution is unlikely. In the past, the images would have had to be processed, printed and the hard copies distributed via mail or retail outlets.

Second, the growth of international commerce and the staggering number of international banking transactions performed every day by major banks provide vital benefits to the world’s economies, but they also present ample opportunity for fraud and theft and allow international money launderers to easily hide their ill-gotten gains.

Third, the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe has brought freedom and democracy to millions, but has also resulted in massive economic upheavals in those countries and an often-violent free-for-all among businessmen for the rich natural resources of those regions. These changes have not only spawned new criminal enterprises within the area of former Soviet domination, but have led directly to money laundering and other crimes in the rest of the world as well.

Questions to discuss:

1. Is the rapid rise of transnational organized crime groups caused by globalization?
2. What are the reasons for this?
3. Does globalization mean the increasing ease of international communications?
4.  Does “globalization” generally refer to the growing interconnectedness of the nations of the world?
5. Can people and goods move more cheaply than ever before?
6. Do the growth of international commerce and the staggering number of international banking transactions present ample opportunity for fraud and theft?
7. Has the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe resulted in massive economic upheavals in those countries?
8. Have these changes spawned new criminal enterprises?