Organized Crime in the New EU States of East Central Europe

Abstract

The new EU member states in Central Europe have a crucial geographical position in Europe, for as transit countries from East to West and vice versa, they have a strategic role in combating crossborder crime. Since the ‘iron curtain’ fell in 1989, many criminals have begun using their territories for illegal activities such as illicit trading in drugs, stolen vehicles, alcohol, cigarettes, weapons, explosives and nuclear materials, and aliens, as well as counterfeiting, professional theft, extortion, racketeering, financial frauds and money laundering. The local underworlds in Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic meet with criminal groupings from the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, Italy and Western Europe, Asia, Latin America, Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa to create a new and much more developed crime industry. Organized crime also has a tendency to ‘buy’ members of parliament and bribe government officials, thus securing immunity from investigation and prosecution and creating a parallel economy of crime. Although regional differences exist, the basic mechanisms of organized crime activities and the building up of new security systems in the new EU states of Central Europe have in many aspects been identical. Consequently, this chapter will focus on these common trends.