Research Paper on the Similarities Between Organized Crime and Terrorism

Introduction

The organized crime involves a group of criminals organized locally or nationally that purpose towards carrying out illegal business and activities with the key intention of generating money and sometimes earn some power such that other people fear and respect them because they are dangerous. On the other hand, terrorism entails committing unlawful activities like violence to arouse fear, especially towards the civilians with the aim of drawing political attention or with the objective of achieving the political, religious or financial aim. This essay aims at pinpointing and explaining the similarities found within the two fields, terrorism, and organized crime.

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Similarities Between Organized Crime and Terrorism

Although organized crime and terrorism have entirely different objectives, they employ similar tactics to head towards their goals. The two groups help one another in accomplishing their set missions. For instance, they can recruit members from either group to perform a certain task in perfect agreement. They apply similar recruitment methods for their new crew members. They keep some close "brotherhood" to help each other in times of need. They understand that survival needs some friends and therefore for their criminal activities to prevail, they need each other in all circumstances (Teirila, 2014).

The world of organized crime involves torture and bribing some people for information. For instance, in the case of drug trafficking, the peddlers always strive to have a police officer on their side through either threatening their family or offering some amount of money to ensure that they get a direct pass in the police check areas. Similarly, terrorists always have ears and eyes on the areas they wish to attack and may kidnap someone as leverage until they accomplish their mission. For instance, if the family to an engineer of chemical weapon is captured, then the engineer must comply with the terrorists until they have a chemical weapon ready (Smith, Rush & Burton, 2013).

Most of the strongest terror groups and organized crime members receive funding from similar sources especially when they have a similar enemy. Some of the terror groups get funding from some organized crime from the fortune they make. The two groups make agreements on finances setting specific terms in orders to attain a win-win situation for all of them. At such moments, they appear as cohorts in crime although they have different goals (Teirila, 2014).

The methods used to accomplish their missions are becoming very similar. Terrorists have moved to performing some tasks like kidnapping, robbing big financial institutions and smuggling with the aim of raising more capital for their cartel. It is not so different from what revolves around an organized crime that is always about making drug money, blood money or financial gain from making the people give up their riches following threats on their lives or families (Smith, Rush & Burton, 2013).

Any illegal organizations are adopting underground networks as a way of communication. For instance, organized criminals employ street documents and identification papers that some criminals can't get due the promising success, reliability, power, and size of the group. Organized criminals work together to develop underground communication networks to traffic contraband unnoticed all over the world. Similarly, the terrorists have come up with saving ways and areas to hide their money, fighting gadgets and other resources (Sharma, 2013). They have also realized secret institutions that they can run their underground economic activities covering their tracks to evade the government and other secret police agents. These underground networks apply for the different crime groups to smuggle many requirements like food, money, drugs, weapons and most importantly people. Terrorists and organized criminals always possess and get any legal requirement needed for their networks to make it easy to navigate among civilians in any country they wish. Going unnoticed is among the key precautions employed by anyone wishing to break the law (Burgess & Ressler, 2013).

Recently, terror groups and organized criminals have had similar goals. The two teams need large amounts of money, access, and power to prevail in the world where the national and local security is also becoming tight and alert. When it comes to their similar goals, they prefer working together to achieve their goals using the available resources presented by each group. Both criminal groups take advantage of the developing countries that have weak security systems to base their headquarters, training camps and conduct their planning (Sharma, 2013).

Many terror groups and organized criminals have joined the Transnational Organized crime that uses the weaknesses presented by emerging countries to make agreements with their leaders to perform criminal activities easily. The associations run through several countries that find their motivation in quick and profitable criminal alliances like money fraud, drug trafficking, people and slaves smuggling, weapon trafficking and planning significant attacks to enemy countries especially if it is a superpower nation. These crime groups act like different investors that work against common enemies and challenges to achieve their various goals (Gragera, & Pascual, 2014).

Many organized crimes belong and have grown form century to another under a particular ethnic background or race. It is the same for many terror groups that base under a common characteristic like their tribe, nationality or ethnic group. For instance, the Arabic community is known to hold the origin and continuity of the most significant terror groups in the world. The groups are kept alive by their next of kin or their close friends. It is always easier for recruits if they come from the community of the terrorists or the organized criminals (Teirila, 2014).

Although the organized criminals might work together with other crime associations, they always draw a line because they practice monopolization. Sometimes they even disagree with the other criminals from terror groups and end up killing or robbing each other. However, they try to keep the police and the government out of their disagreements. The terrorists also work under monopolized leaderships where they keep their name and success distinct from any other group. They also seek assistance from other criminals but will never sell their critical secrets to anyone. They believe that self-loyalty is always best for survival. Terror organizations understand that knowledge is power and anyone can become their enemy at any given time (Smith, Rush & Burton, 2013).

Many organized criminals tend to identify a line of illegal activity and specialize in it. For instance, some criminals engage in cybercrime, drug trafficking, human slavery or weapon trafficking. Taking control of some significant activity gives them power and connectivity to other crimes that require their supply. Terrorists also apply the same technique. They take mandate over a specific illegal business to ensure a continuous flow of money. For instance, the Al-Qaeda group of terrorists have wealthy people that believe in their course, and hence the group received funding from them. However, the group was also good at bank fraud and fraudulent loans (Sharma, 2013).

Countries affected by high levels of terrorism and organized crime have some characteristics in common. For instance, the US experiences situations from different organized crime groups due to the issue of racism that very pronounced. Other nations end up as terror hotspots due to their poverty levels and poor governance. Crime is always triggered by some negative aspect experienced by the country due to leadership issues that arouses enmity from within themselves. This leads to betrayal of a country to an enemy country that leads to severe attacks (Gragera, & Pascual, 2014).

Both terrorism and organized crime put innocent lives in danger. Although organized crime mostly deals with illegal businesses, it comes a time when they encounter challenging positions of getting caught and hence opt to use civilians as leverage. In the same way, many terror attacks have always created tremendous fear in citizens leaving many dead in case of a bomb or chemical attacks. Terror attackers and personnel from organized crime have no chills for human life. They receive training that reminds them that an enemy is bad, and it doesn't matter if the enemy is a kid or a woman. They consider taking the life of an enemy as a great achievement or a long lasting reminder of their power (Douglas, Burgess, Burgess & Ressler, 2013).

Conclusion

In conclusion, the similarities between terrorism and organized crime are increasing every day. Shortly, secure connections between such groups could cause tremendous damage and loss to many countries. The globe might face leadership from criminals if they continue to grow stronger. Such progression posts a great danger to the safety of civilians. The counterterrorism groups should take precaution and monitor crime closely to stop these groups before they claim more innocent lives than they already have.

References

Douglas, J., Burgess, A. W., Burgess, A. G., & Ressler, R. K. (2013). Crime classification manual: A standard system for investigating and classifying violent crime. John Wiley & Sons.

Gragera, J. P., & Pascual, D. S. R. (2014). A phenomenological analysis of terrorism and organized crime from a comparative criminological perspective. Journal of Law and Criminal Justice, 2(2), 113-131.

Sharma, D. (2013). Growing overlap between terrorism and organized crime in India: A case study. Security Journal, 26(1), 60-79.

Smith, C. F., Rush, J., & Burton, C. E. (2013). Street gangs, organized crime groups, and terrorists: Differentiating criminal organizations. Investigative Sciences Journal, 5(1).

Teirila, O. J. (2014). The challenges to cooperation posed by the nexus of terrorism and organized crime: Comparing the situations between the Andean and the Sahel regions. Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, 37(1), 18-40.