IcARUS Policy Brief: Building Resilient Communities – The Local Roots and Impacts of Organised Crime

According to the Council of Europe’s 2015 White Paper on transnational organised crime, some 3,600 international organised criminal groups are active in Europe. The Council stresses that organised crime is one of the most serious threats faced by Europe because of its adaptability, sophisticated tools, violence, diversity of crime type and ability to forge alliances and operate across borders in all parts of Europe.

The transnational nature of organised crime calls for Europe-wide and global responses and indeed, countering it is one of the top priorities of the Council of Europe and multilateral organisations such as the United Nations Convention Against Organised Crime (UNTOC). However, in the end, it is always at a local level that organised crime is most directly felt, whether because a neighbourhood is rife with drug trafficking, or money laundered through local businesses or real estate projects, or gangs exchanging gunfire in the streets.