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2013 37: 366 originally published online 18 October 2012Prog Hum GeogrTim Hall

Geographies of the illicit: Globalization and organized crime  

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Article

Geographies of the illicit:Globalization and organizedcrime

Tim HallUniversity of Gloucestershire, UK

AbstractThe paper notes a growing, diverse and yet somewhat partial and disparate interest among geographers in theillicit. Within this there has been little substantive interest in organized criminality despite it constituting arange of activities comparable in their significance to other aspects of the illicit that have attracted extensiveattention from geographers. This paper argues that the development of a geographical perspective onorganized crime is timely and seeks to map out connections with both the extant literatures of organizedcrime and those of human geography.

Keywordscriminal sovereignty, economic geography, geographical perspectives, globalization, illicit, organized crime

I Maps of the illicit

If the twentieth century was dominated by cold

wars . . . and the ‘war on terrorism’ has

become the prevailing preoccupation since

9/11, then the struggle against organized and

transnational crime will become a parallel

defining security theme of the twenty-first.

(Galeotti, 2005a: 1)

Geographers’ curiosity has led them to explore

many hidden aspects of the contemporary

world. We can recognize long-standing interests

in the illicit including an extensive geographies

of crime literature (Evans et al., 1992; Fyfe,

2001; McLaughlin, 2006), interest in informal

economies (Daniels, 2004; Leyshon et al.,

2003; Samers, 2005; Williams, 2004; 2006) and

contributions to cognate issues such as conflict,

geopolitical violence, terrorism, security and

intelligence (Ettlinger and Bosco, 2004; Flint,

2003; Gregory, 2004; Simons and Tucker,

2007). Beyond a shared interest in the illicit,

though, there is little to unify these literatures.

They are philosophically, epistemologically and

methodologically diverse and their primary

orientations are to their respective subdisci-

plines (broadly, social, economic and political

geography) rather than to the wider realm within

which their objects of study are located. Thus,

we are yet to see any substantive reflections

on the ‘geographies of the illicit’.

One aspect of the illicit that appears some-

what underrepresented within geographical lit-

eratures, and those of social science more

generally (Castells, 2000: 171; Dick, 2009), is

organized criminality. For example, the long-

standing geographies-of-crime literature has

Corresponding author:Tim Hall, University of Gloucestershire, Francis CloseHall, Swindon Road, Cheltenham GL50 4AZ, UK.Email: thall@glos.ac.uk

Progress in Human Geography37(3) 366–385

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been overwhelmingly concerned with crime at

the local scale (McLaughlin, 2006). It has said

little about those crimes that are more opaque

or operate at broader scales. Geographers of

crime, then, lag someway behind critical crim-

inologists in their discussions of organized

criminality as well as other ‘global’ crimes such

as state, corporate and environmental crime.

Further, within work on informal economies the

links with and distinctions from organized crim-

inality have only been briefly considered (see

Daniels, 2004; Samers, 2005). Similarly,

despite evidence of an enduring terrorism-

organized crime nexus (Glenny, 2008a; Lee,

2008; Madsen, 2009: 57–76), links between

terrorism and organized criminal groups

(OCGs) are, at best, a peripheral concern of

recent work.

Quantitatively it would seem that organized

crime is comparable to other aspects of the illicit

that have received greater attention from geo-

graphers. Estimates of the global extent of

informal economies suggest they constitute

14–16% of GDP in some advanced countries,

over 40% in transitional economies and as high

as 77% in some developing countries (Daniels,

2004: 506). This compares to recent estimates

of 15–20% of global GDP that has been attrib-

uted to organized criminality, with strong skews

towards transitional and developing countries

where its contributions to national income have

been measured at 40–50% or higher (Dijk,

2007; Dunn, 1997; Glenny, 2008a). Further, it

has been argued by academics, policing, intelli-

gence and security agencies that transnational

organized crime represents a comparable threat

to that of terrorism (Carter, 1997: 146; Council

of Europe, 2001; Galeotti, 2005a: 1–2; Glenny,

2008b), although we should remember that law

enforcement agencies may present these threats

politically to some extent to secure resources

(Abraham and Schendel, 2005: 2; Hobbs,

1998: 139; Kleemans, 2008: 6; Lee, 2008:

336; Levi, 2002: 895; Woodiwiss, 2003:

21–22; Woodiwiss and Hobbs, 2009; Wright,

2006: 23). Furthermore, there is significant

overlap between organized criminality and

other illicit realms that geographers have

examined, such as prostitution (Hubbard,

1999), volume crime, for example through the

drugs trade (Rengert, 1996), and organized

retail theft, a significant source of terrorist

financing (Madsen, 2009: 57–61), and between

organized crime and informal economies, for

example in the cities of the South (Daniels,

2004; Weinstein, 2008). Mapped in this way,

organized crime can be seen as broadly com-

parable to and overlapping with volume crime,

informal economies and conflict, geopolitical

violence, terrorism and security.

There is a danger that discussing the illicit in

this way reifies it as a discrete ontological

realm. Rather, there is a wealth of literature tra-

cing the ways in which the licit and illicit are

intertwined within regions and through social,

economic and political practices (Castells,

2000; Hignett, 2005; Hill, 2005; Lintner,

2005; Nordstrom, 2007, 2009a: 75; Wilson,

2009), something we return to later. Thus the

illicit emerges as a presence, albeit largely unac-

knowledged, in many issues routinely analysed

by geographers. For example, we can plausibly

argue that licit economic activities constitute

only some of the dimensions of contemporary

globalization (Aas, 2007; Bhattacharyya,

2005; Brooks, 2012: 82; Glenny, 2008a; Nord-

strom, 2007; Abraham and Schendel, 2005;

Wilson, 2009; Zook, 2003: 1263). By limiting

the empirical foundations of geographical

research into contemporary globalization and

not acknowledging the presence of the illicit,

there is a danger of failing to capture globaliza-

tion in all of its complexities. Even recent

geographically informed examples of the ‘glo-

balization from below’ literature (see, for exam-

ple, Henry et al., 2002), which offer more

peopled, plural and relational readings of the

global economy than earlier, more abstract,

accounts, generally have little to say about illicit

activities. It is hence worth asking what are the

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implications, empirically certainly but theoreti-

cally/conceptually perhaps, of recognizing the

illicit as a trace within some substantive areas

of geographical inquiry. Weinstein (2008), in

an illuminating if rare case, for example,

focuses on the presence of OCGs, in the devel-

opment of Mumbai. Here, after arguing that

research into urban development has largely

failed to acknowledge the role of illicit and

informal actors and modes of governance, she

traces the symbiotic relationships between the

state and OCGs and the ways in which their

involvement shaped the regulatory context of

development in Mumbai (Weinstein, 2008). Put

simply, it would not be possible fully to under-

stand development here without recognizing the

role of OCGs. It is naive to imagine that this is

the only example. Indeed, Weinstein (2008:

25) also identifies a number of comparable

examples from other cities internationally

recorded across a diverse, multidisciplinary

literature.

While geographers have not ignored orga-

nized crime, it is yet to emerge as a substantive

research area within any of its subdisciplines.

There is a range of work by geographers that

touches upon organized criminality. Both

Rengert (1996) and Allen (2005) have produced

geographical analyses of the production, distri-

bution and consumption of illegal drugs. This

is significant in that they apply geographical

models traditionally applied to licit markets to

those of the illegal drug trade. It is disappointing

that this work has not been picked up in any

wider geographical project. Rengert’s work, for

example, is primarily cited in the criminological

literature, while Allen’s remains almost uncited

to date by geographers (though see Pereira,

2010). Further, Brown and Cloke (2004, 2007)

have called for geographers to engage with

financial corruption and illegal financial flows

as vital elements of a neoliberal global econ-

omy, but ones largely omitted from geogra-

phers’ accounts. This is complemented by

Swain et al.’s (2010) work on the ‘corruption

industry’ in the rise of neoliberalism in post-

soviet space and Brooks (2012) exploration of

corruption in the used car trade between Japan

and Mozambique. The latter highlights how

neoliberal discourses obfuscate corrupt prac-

tices in what is seen as a ‘development success’.

These are rare examples of economic geography

engaging with organized criminality as a series

of industries comparable in size to many in the

licit economy. Recognizing this, Hall (2010a,

2010b, 2012) has sought to forge a space for the

discussion of organized criminality within the

context of geography generally and economic

geography specifically.

The few other examples of geography’s

engagement with organized criminality include:

Hastings’ (2009) analysis of the relationship

between the sophistication of maritime piracy

attacks and levels of state failure; and a session

on the opium poppy, organized by Allison

Brown of the University of Massachusetts, at

the 2010 meeting of the Association of Ameri-

can Geographers. In addition, there are isolated

examples of work within migration research

that have focused on forced migration and traf-

ficking linked to organized criminality (see

Manzo, 2005; Samers, 2010). Finally, Craig

Martin’s (2010) ongoing PhD research into the

visibility of shipping lanes includes discussions

of Somali piracy.

So, in sum, we have an extensive, if uneven,

interest among geographers in the illicit gener-

ally and a diverse but patchy interest in orga-

nized criminality specifically. It is nonetheless

possible to trace an enduring, uneven and often

implicit interest in the spatial dimensions of

organized crime (see Hall, 2012). However,

we have only recently seen the beginnings of

any attempt explicitly to articulate a geographi-

cal perspective on organized crime (Hall,

2010a, 2010b, 2012) and to consider its implica-

tions for the extant literatures of organized

crime and for the subdisciplinary literatures of

human geography. This review builds on these

beginnings and addresses its implications with

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specific reference to the literatures of geography

and spatialized readings of contemporary

globalization.

II Definitions and discourses oforganized crime

Organized crime often attracts powerful ima-

gery frequently at odds with a more complex yet

parochial empirical reality (Hobbs, 1998). This

is true for both cultural discourses and attempts

to produce definitions of organized crime,

which has long been acknowledged as a con-

tested concept eluding easy definition (Levi,

2002; Madsen, 2009; Maltz, 1976; Wright,

2006). Despite this acknowledgement, a num-

ber of definitions have emerged within the crim-

inological literature and from official sources

that have sought to identify ‘essential’ (Levi,

2002: 880) structural or behavioural character-

istics. For example, Albanese argues that orga-

nized crime is ‘a continuing criminal

enterprise that rationally works to profit from

illicit activities that are often in great public

demand. Its continuing existence is maintained

through the use of force, threats, monopoly con-

trol, and/or the corruption of public officials’

(Albanese, 2005: 10; see also Calderoni, 2011;

Madsen, 2009; Wright, 2006: 2–14).

However, attempts to define organized crime

in this way have provoked critical reactions

from scholars who have raised empirical, epis-

temic, ideological and ontological concerns.

Organized crime is an empirically complex,

diverse phenomenon. It has been argued that

there is greater diversity within organized crime

than between organized crime and other forms

of crime, raising the question of the validity of

the term (Levi, 2002: 887). Organized crime is

also dependent upon numerous connections to

and overlaps with licit society, for example

through the laundering of money through appar-

ently licit businesses and financial institutions.

Further, the identities of actors, and indeed

activities, connected to organized crime are

only rarely categorically criminal (Nordstrom,

2007). Thus delimiting boundaries between the

criminal and non-criminal is problematic

empirically and ontologically (Aas, 2007; Abra-

ham and Schendel, 2005; Bhattacharyya, 2005;

Glenny, 2008a; Wilson, 2009). While acknowl-

edging that the concept has been subject to a

degree of discursive ‘Americanization’, we can

also recognize international differences in defi-

nitions of organized crime (Woodiwiss, 2003;

Woodiwiss and Hobbs, 2009). Further, orga-

nized crime has been examined from a number

of different epistemic and official perspectives,

all of which emphasize different aspects. While

some conceptualize organized crime as a set of

illicit economic activities (Carter, 1997; Dick,

2009; Ruggerio, 2009; Smith, 1980), others see

it more in terms of social organization (Albini,

1971; Ianni and Ianni, 1972; Lombardo,

1997). These differences are reflected in the dif-

ferential emphasis on the ‘essential characteris-

tics’ that underpin various definitions of

organized crime.

Some scholars, in their critiques, have recog-

nized the rhetorical power of definitions within

policy and legislation. It has been argued, for

example, that prevailing definitions perpetuate

a series of ‘false discontinuities’ (Reuter and

Rubinstein, 1978; Smith, 1980, in Levi, 2002:

881) which provide discursive mappings of nor-

mality and organized criminality. These are pre-

dicated on the location of the latter as external to

‘normal’ society, either through versions of an

‘alien conspiracy thesis’ or the deployment of

cold war or gangster narratives (Hobbs, 1998,

2001; Madsen, 2009; Woodiwiss and Hobbs,

2009) which suppress suggestions of contact

and interdependencies between these two

realms. Alternatively, ‘false discontinuities’ are

maintained through definitions and official

discourses that identify sets of ‘essential charac-

teristics’ derived wholly from the activities and

characteristics of ‘illicit’ actors, while over-

looking empirically similar, and potentially

more serious, activities carried out by

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apparently ‘licit’ actors, including corporate

crime, state crime and the more opaque aspects

of business and state practice (Aas, 2007; Cribb,

2009; Nordstrom, 2007, 2009a: 80; Smith,

1980; Tilly, 1985).

We therefore have, rather than unproble-

matic definitions of organized crime, elements

of wider discursive formations that have

shaped the criminalization and policing of var-

ious actors and practices. These have drawn

sustained criticism from scholars who locate

practices typically defined as organized crime

as part of the economic mainstream rather than

seeing them only as the actions of miscreants:

transnational organized crime is not [to be]

exclusively identified with the illegal activities

of notorious large criminal syndicates. Rather

. . . transnational crime may well transcend

conventional activities and mingle with entre-

preneurial and, at times, governmental

deviance. (Ruggiero, 2009: 119)

This paper aims to address the lacuna in geo-

graphical work around organized crime. It does

this while recognizing the difficulties of neatly

defining and delimiting exactly what constitutes

organized crime. It has sympathy with those

scholars who see the distinctions between what

are conventionally defined as organized crime

and many of the opaque practices of businesses

and states as ones of degree rather than type.

However, for the sake of analytical focus, it

examines activities that are typically, and within

official discourses, included within typologies

of organized criminality (Albanese, 2005: 10).

This is because it is argued that they form an

empirically significant set of economic activi-

ties that are largely overlooked in geographical

discussions of the contemporary global econ-

omy. This can be seen as part of an emergent

effort by geographers to make visible opaque

economic activities of all kinds, including those

of businesses and states (Brown and Cloke,

2007; Cook, 2012).

III A global overview

The activities of OCGs form extensive, integral

elements of the global economy. Although there

is debate about the significance of organized

crime (Madsen, 2009: 81–82), most estimates

claim that it constitutes roughly 15–20% of glo-

bal economic activity (Galeotti, 2005a: 1; see

also Bhattacharyya, 2005; Glenny, 2008a;

Napoleoni, 2003; Nordstrom, 2009a: 75, 2010:

163). The production and distribution of illegal

drugs represents 50–70% of the income of

OCGs (Galeotti, 2005a: 1; Glenny, 2008a:

262) and is equivalent to 8% of world trade,

similar in size to the textile industry (Moynagh

and Worsley, 2008: 176). The illegal movement

of people across international borders repre-

sents the most rapidly growing source of income

for OCGs (Madsen, 2009). This includes the

smuggling of people who pay agents to trans-

port them and the forced trafficking of people

who are deceived, coerced or kidnapped,

although the distinctions are often complex,

shifting and difficult to locate precisely (West-

marland, 2010: 112–113). Illegal flows of

people move predominantly from the global

South and are underpinned by combinations of

worsening global asymmetries, social and polit-

ical unrest, cultural traditions of fostering,

migration and remittance that are exploited by

smugglers and traffickers, the hardening of

international borders and great public demand

in the North (Aas, 2007: 36; Bhattacharyya,

2005: 159, 174; Madsen, 2009: 43; Manzo,

2005; Passas, 2001; Scott-Clark and Levy,

2008). While the sexual exploitation of women

and children for profit has tended to dominate

academic discussion of smuggled and trafficked

individuals (Westmarland, 2010: 113), they

actually fulfil a wide range of labour functions

across many legal and illegal sectors. Globally,

it is estimated that four million people are

moved illegally each year across international

borders generating revenues of US$10 billion

(Galeotti, 2005a: 3; Madsen, 2009: 45; Wright,

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2006: 98), although some estimates are consid-

erably higher.

While media and cultural discourses tend to

be disproportionately drawn to a small number

of ‘rock star’ trades (Nordstrom, 2011: 12), such

as those in drugs and people, OCGs are involved

in a host of other illegal activities. These include

extensive trades in licit commodities. For exam-

ple, cigarette trafficking, to avoid duty or

exploit tax differentials, is a significant source

of income for OCGs. Between 1996 and 2003

cigarette trafficking cost the British treasury

£15 billion in lost revenue (Hornsby and Hobbs,

2007: 553; Nordstrom, 2007: 23). Further, it

played a major role in financing the Balkans

conflict, an event of global geopolitical signifi-

cance (Glenny, 2008a). The complicity of cigar-

ette manufacturers in this trade is widely

acknowledged (Glenny, 2008a; Hornsby and

Hobbs, 2007: 553; Madsen, 2009). Other

notable activities of OCGs include weapons

trafficking, trade in counterfeit goods (which

alone accounts for roughly 7% of world trade,

two-thirds of which originates in China:

Glenny, 2008a; Phillips, 2005), trafficking of a

multitude of other licit and illicit goods, as well

as the provision and control of illicit services

including prostitution and gambling, cyber-

crime, environmental crimes, maritime piracy,

robbery, extortion, art crime and corruption

(Aas, 2007; Albanese, 2005; Castells, 2000:

177–183; Glenny, 2011; Madsen, 2009; Neal,

2010; Walters, 2010).

All OCGs depend upon money laundering,

the passing of illicit finance via circuitous

routes through the licit economy, to create the

illusion of licit income. Money laundering and

other illicit financial flows are significant in

their global extent and play important roles in

the maintenance of the global financial system

generally (Brown and Cloke, 2007: 319;

Deneault, 2007; Dick, 2009; Hampton and Levi,

1999; Madsen, 2009). Estimating the global

extent of laundered finance is difficult given its

aim is to obfuscate illicit origins. While some

estimates suggest that it could represent 10%of global GDP (Naı́m, 2005, in Nordstrom,

2007: 169), more sceptical assessments suggest

figures of between 2% and 5% (Levi, 2002: 879;

Reuter and Truman, 2004). Money laundering is

not merely a ‘paper’ crime but has significant

material consequences and has been implicated

in national economic crises such as the crash of

the RSA Rand in 2001 (Nordstrom, 2007: 168).

Organized crime undoubtedly makes signifi-

cant contributions to regional development,

particularly in parts of the global South lacking

access to alternative routes (Bhattacharyya,

2005: 118; Dijk, 2007: 50; Goodhand, 2009;

Lee, 2008: 345; Nordstrom, 2007, 2010: 175,

2011: 11). However, others have argued, citing

violence, state capture and the diversion of

resources from the legitimate economy, that the

net developmental impacts of organized crime

are inevitably negative (Bhattacharyya, 2005:

96; Dijk, 2007: 51–53; Glenny, 2008a: 291).

Given this lack of consensus, there is scope for

greater assessment of the roles of organized

crime within regional development and its

complex relationships to state-making and

development outcomes (Madsen, 2009; Passas,

2001; Weinstein, 2008; Wright, 2006: 144).

Undoubtedly, contemporary globalization is

having a transformative effect on the under-

world (Galeotti, 2005a: 6), creating both

specific opportunities and more general condi-

tions favourable to OCGs, which in turn are

making the underworld a more plural, interna-

tional terrain (Aas, 2007; Abraham and Schen-

del, 2005; Bhattacharyya, 2005; Madsen,

2009; Passas, 2001; Weinstein, 2008). Principal

among these conditions are tensions between

liberalization and regulation of a globalized

economy. A lack of effective regulatory

oversight has made activities such as trafficking

and money laundering easier for OCGs (Bhatta-

charyya, 2005; Brown and Cloke, 2007; Levi,

2002; Nordstrom, 2007; Strange, 1998).

Further, many empirical outcomes of contem-

porary globalization produce conditions

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favourable to OCGs. For example, the intensifi-

cation of social and economic inequalities

reinforces terrains of difference that OCGs can

exploit through, for example, drug production

and people smuggling and trafficking (Aas,

2007: 18). For Passas (2001), these ‘crimino-

genic asymmetries’ underpin major illicit flows

that run predominantly from the global South.

Others point to the persistence of failed and

transitional states and the role of Northern inter-

vention in sustaining these (Goodhand, 2009),

increases in cross-border trade, the expansion

of internet commerce, a massive oversupply of

labour in cities of the South, providing a poten-

tial pool of labour for OCGs, an increase in

demand for illicit products and services in the

global North and the hegemony of statism

within law enforcement responses, all as sus-

taining the ongoing expansion of organized

criminal activity (Glenny, 2008a: 30; Moynagh

and Worsley, 2008: 179–181; Wright, 2006).

However, it is not all one-way traffic. The liber-

alization and globalization of the Indian econ-

omy, for example, actually led to a decline in

the demand for products and services of OCGs,

formerly illicit goods now being more readily

available. This caused many Indian OCGs to

become more embedded within processes such

as urban development (Weinstein, 2008).

IV Licit/illicit spaces

The difficulties of separating the licit and illicit,

empirically and ontologically, within a variety

of contexts are axiomatic within the critical lit-

eratures on organized crime (Aas, 2007: 125;

Bhattacharyya, 2005: 63–64; Nordstrom,

2007; Wilson, 2009; Wright, 2006: 52). Some

writers, arguing that the illicit is an inherent

quality of seemingly licit political and eco-

nomic systems, have drawn on Tilly (1985) and

Smith (1980) who have proposed, respectively,

not categorical distinctions between licit and

illicitness, but continuums of state practice and

war making, which encompass organized

criminality, and enterprises that span the licit/

illicit spectrum (Wilson, 2009: 44; Wright,

2006: 56). Others recognize the importance of

specific historical moments, arguing that, while

illicit actors clearly benefit from developments

within licit political and economic systems,

they have also played key facilitating roles

in their development (Aas, 2007: 12, 123;

Bhattacharyya, 2005: 74). Some authors have

explored the roles of organized crime within

major historical-political processes. Woodiwiss

(2001) has scrutinized the relationship between

organized crime and the formation of modern

America, highlighting both confrontation and

collaboration between government and OCGs.

Elsewhere, Bhattacharyya (2005: 119) has dis-

cussed the role of surpluses from the illegal

drugs trade in the rise of capitalism historically.

Aas (2007: 11) also highlights recent develop-

ments, including the roles of organized crimin-

ality in weakening state sovereignty and

deregulating national economies through the

privatization of state assets in transitional

economies.

The literature is also replete with examples of

licit actors benefiting from organized criminal-

ity (Schendel, 2005: 60–61; Weinstein, 2008).

These include ‘instrumental benefits from the

drug trade for many legitimate businesses and

state interests’ (Bhattacharyya, 2005: 99), links

between illicit activities such as drug dealing,

counterfeiting and money laundering and the

licit economy in cities of the South (Daniels,

2004: 506–507), benefits to financial institu-

tions from illicit financial flows (Brown and

Cloke, 2007; Madsen, 2009: 110) and benefits

of people smuggling to market economies (Aas,

2007: 40). In such circumstances, and coupled

with significant consumer demand, we may see

public and even (tacit) state toleration of

organized crime (Bhattacharyya, 2005: 98;

Hornsby and Hobbs, 2007). For example, the

financial benefits of people smuggling and traf-

ficking to Fujian province in China have led to it

receiving the tacit approval of provincial

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government (Glenny, 2008a: 366–367). Thus,

while these activities are formally illicit, under

certain circumstances they may be viewed as

socially licit (Abraham and Schendel, 2005;

Nordstrom, 2010: 173). These examples per-

haps hint at a more fundamental distinction

between law and policing, whereby some activ-

ities, although formally illegal, are routinely

overlooked by governments and law enforce-

ment agencies. This ambiguity is at the heart

of Carolyn Nordstrom’s exploration of the

centrality of the ‘extra-legal’ to economic and

state practices:

Countries may formally decry extra-legal

practices, and some may be genuine in their

denunciations. But in terms of a nation’s sheer

monetary bottom line, such activities bring in

cash that girds the viability of the state. These

activities can yield hundreds of millions of dol-

lars yearly for a single country. (Nordstrom,

2010: 173)

There is a spatial contingency to ambiguities

around the licit/illicit divide. In spaces that elude

the sovereign gaze of the state or across which it

is uncertain or contested, the formal distinctions

between licit and illicitness become problematic,

even meaningless. These include offshore finan-

cial centres (OFCs) (Deneault, 2007: 265; Hamp-

ton and Levi, 1999: 647), transborder economies

and trade routes over which the state has

struggled to extend its sovereignty (Abraham and

Schendel, 2005; Nordstrom, 2007: 21–24; Wil-

son, 2009) and parts of the global South where

the rejection of Northern models of economic

development, legal statutes and cultural norms

through acts such as drugs production and arms

manufacture is seen as a form of resistance

(Aning, 2007; Bhattacharyya, 2005: 120). How-

ever, Cameron’s (2008) work on fiscal geogra-

phies reminds us that the contingencies of the

state are more fundamental and are observable

even within its most central processes.

These ontological uncertainties are com-

pounded within instances of ‘criminal

sovereignty’, ambiguous practices of actors

from both sides of the licit/illicit designation

(Cribb, 2009: 8). Examples include OCGs tak-

ing on some of the functions and characteristics

of states. This has been observed in many

geographical contexts and historical periods,

often where the institutions of the state and the

rule of law are weak or where there is public

ambivalence towards the state (Brophy, 2008;

Costa and Schulmeister, 2007; Cribb, 2009;

Goodhand, 2009; Hastings, 2009; Hesse, 2011;

Wilson, 2009). In some cases there are long-

standing interrelationships between OCGs and

the political institutions of regions where, at

times, OCGs enjoy a semi-legitimate status, as

in the case of the Yakuza of Japan (Glenny,

2008a, 2008b; Hill, 2005; Paoli, 2005; Wein-

stein, 2008; Wilson, 2009). While these rela-

tionships are typically painted in terms of

corruption and the penetration of the state, this

overlooks the roles that OCGs can play as proxy

agents of governance, often extending informal

governance into realms that states find hard to

reach such as borderlands, prison systems and

the underworld generally (Galeotti, 2005b;

Glenny, 2008a; Goodhand, 2009; Ruggiero,

2009). This suggests a political pluralism

that has largely eluded western political theory

(Wilson, 2009: 17–19).

Finally, despite their normative influence

over definitions of criminality (Ruggiero,

2009: 122; Tombs and Whyte, 2010: 154), the

literature records many instances of states and

corporations behaving in ways that are empiri-

cally similar to OCGs or that are formally

criminal. These include state and corporate

crime (Dick, 2009; Hornsby and Hobbs, 2007;

Lee, 2008; Madsen, 2009; Perl, 2005; Ruggiero,

2009; Tombs and Whyte, 2010; Wright, 2006),

identified connections between states, corpora-

tions and organized crime or their direct invol-

vement in it (Bhattacharyya, 2005: 112; Dick,

2009: 110; Glenny, 2008a: 16, 37, 99; Nord-

strom, 2009b: 77–79, 2011: 11; Ruggiero,

2009: 119), and the widespread use of the

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opacity inherent in the global economy by cor-

porations to reach markets, to avoid duty or to

evade regulatory gazes. For example, it is

thought that one-fifth of goods transported by

licit corporations goes undeclared (Nordstrom,

2007: 172). While such criminality tends to be

‘systematically screened out’ by the criminal

justice system and underreported in the media

(Tombs and Whyte, 2010: 154), it is beginning

to be viewed increasingly as forms of organized

crime (Ruggiero, 1996, in Wright, 2006: 66).

These complex ambiguities around licit and illi-

citness illustrate the fallacy of seeing organized

crime as restricted to a discrete ontological

realm beyond ‘normal’ society (Woodiwiss,

2003). Rather, it is, in numerous ways, part of

the economic, social and political mainstream

(Brown and Cloke, 2007: 305, 318; Cribb,

2009; Lavezzi, 2008: 218; Nordstrom, 2007:

52–53, 2009a: 80; Scalia, 2010; Wilson, 2009;

Wright, 2006: 54), highlighting the importance

of geographers including it in their mappings

of the processes of contemporary globalization.

V Space, scale, networks andorganized crime

Explorations of the geographies of organized

crime, its distribution across space and concen-

tration within regions, are at best implicit and

patchy aspects of the literature (see Carter,

1997; Hignett, 2005; Siegel, 2003). A substan-

tial proportion of this literature comprises

regional case studies (see Galeotti, 2005c, and

the journal Global Crime, for example).

Typically, these draw upon the endogenous

characteristics of regions in constructing their

explanatory frameworks (see Hall, 2010b: 8)

and rarely allude to the international and

comparative in their discussions. This is some-

thing yet to emerge within the literature, but see

Hall (2010b) for a rudimentary analysis. Such

case studies tend to stress the specific and con-

tingent rather than contributing, explicitly at

least, to the construction of general explanations

for the patterns they observe. Further, such

regional analysis appears somewhat out of step

with calls for relational methodologies more

appropriate for a global age and networked phe-

nomena such as transnational organized crime

(Aas, 2007; Law and Urry, 2004).

By contrast, some authors have constructed

explanations at the transnational or global scale.

Passas (2001: 23), for example, has identified

structural inequalities at the global scale ‘in the

spheres of politics, culture, the economy and the

law’ as underpinning numerous illegal flows run-

ning from the South to the North. These ‘crim-

inogenic asymmetries’ echo the economic and

regulatory asymmetries routinely exploited by

licit corporations. Elsewhere, Castells’ (2000)

account of organized crime within Russia’s chao-

tic transition to capitalism rests predominantly on

structural factors such as institutional and regula-

tory failures and their exploitation. Interestingly,

his account of the Colombian cocaine industry is

more attuned to local factors and contingencies,

although this has also been criticized for its ten-

dency to see greater structural coherence than

actually exists empirically (Kenney, 2007).

Reactions to this work have been mixed and have

included both critique and a counter-current of

empirical work that has undercut the transna-

tional rhetoric within some literature. Much crit-

icism of structural, transnational accounts

revolves around a supposed lack of ‘nuance to

local conditions and historic contexts’ (Aas,

2007: 125). This has gone beyond issues of reso-

lution though to question the meaningfulness of

analysis constructed at the transnational scale.

As the analytical magnification is increased, the

structural certainties within these accounts seem

to dissolve. What emerges in their stead is a

series of ‘micro-practices and associations that

‘‘while often illegal in a formal sense, are not dri-

ven by a structural logic of organization and uni-

fied purpose’’ (Abraham and Schendel, 2005: 4)’

(Aas, 2007: 125).

The empirical richness and conceptual pur-

chase revealed at the local scale are most

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apparent in the work of Dick Hobbs (1998,

2004; Hobbs and Dunnighan, 1998). Hobbs pro-

vides detailed ethnographies of organized crime

as it is played out within specific locales in the

UK, charting variations in the nature, organiza-

tion and activities of OCGs and linking them to

the varying socio-economic contexts within

which they are located. He cites factors such

as the social make-up of neighbourhoods and

their tendencies for either stability or transience,

local housing policy and the organization of the

formal economy as key influences on the nature

of OCGs within specific localities. He argues:

It is at the local level that organized crime

manifests itself as a tangible process of activ-

ity. However, research indicates that there also

exist enormous variations in local crime

groups . . . we found it possible to draw close

parallels between local patterns of immigra-

tion and emigration, local employment and

subsequent work and leisure cultures with var-

iations in organized crime groups. (Hobbs,

1998: 140)

This highlights a degree of nuance absent from

much organized crime literature. Despite the

innovation of Hobbs’ work, it is disappointing

to see that this perspective has yet to take a sig-

nificant hold within the empirical literatures of

organized crime resulting in any downward

shift in their scales of analysis.

Capturing multiscalar processes such as glo-

balization through any single scale of analysis

is an enduring issue within the social sciences.

Economic geography has recently been replete

with discussion questioning the efficacy of

single-scale approaches, mirroring wider dis-

cussions across the social sciences. However,

these debates seem to have gained relatively

little purchase within the literatures of crimin-

ology generally and organized crime specifi-

cally. A set of approaches labelled network

ontologies, seeking to transcend the scalar-

bind within which much social science

research finds itself, have been at the heart of

these recent debates (Boggs and Rantisi,

2003; Dicken et al., 2001; Murdoch, 1997,

1998; Sheppard, 2002; Wai-chung Yeung,

2005). Network ontologies ask us to think of

space not as a Euclidian phenomenon but as a

networked one, recognizing that processes in

space unfold not necessarily or exclusively as

a result of local conditions but rather through

networked interactions with distant places

(Henry et al., 2002; Sheppard: 2002: 319).

Although to date there are no substantive

explorations of the potentials of network ontolo-

gies within the empirical literatures of organized

crime, there are tentative suggestions of their

applicability (Hall, 2010b). Saviano, for exam-

ple, alludes to the networked nature of the global

criminal economy in his discussion of the Neapo-

litan Camorra OCG:

The Far East, as reporters like to call it. Far.

Extremely far. Practically unimaginable. Clos-

ing my eyes, I see kimonos, Marco Polo’s

beard, Bruce Lee kicking in midair. But in fact

this East is more closely linked to the port of

Naples than to any other place. There’s

nothing far about the East here. It should be

called the extremely near East, the least East.

Everything made in China is poured out here.

(Saviano, 2008: 4)

It would appear that dialogues between the

literatures of organized crime and those of

economic geography are now timely. They

demonstrate the potential to expand the empiri-

cal terrain of the latter and the conceptual and

methodological tool kit of the former.

VI An expanded economic terrain

Economic geographers have been at the fore-

front of attempts to produce spatialized readings

of the contemporary global economy. To date,

however, these have rested almost exclusively

on empirical foundations rooted in the licit

economy. This paper has argued that the econo-

mies within which OCGs are embedded are

neither ontologically nor empirically distinct

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to the licit economy but rather that there are con-

siderable overlaps and interconnections between

them. Acceptance of the global economy as this

somewhat expanded terrain raises, as yet largely

unexplored, questions about the abilities of pre-

vailing readings to speak across this terrain. It

is certainly not the case that geographers have

been blind to the diversity of spaces and their

economies within contemporary capitalism,

including those associated with illicit and crimi-

nal activities (see Hudson, 2005: 6). However,

this only emphasizes the unequal treatment

received by these spaces within geographical

research. Further, mapping geographical

research agendas across these spaces seems to

suggest a sense of their ontological separateness.

Relatively little research, for example, has been

located at the points where these spaces overlap.

How, then, might geographers approach the

study of the global economy as an expanded,

interconnected terrain and those aspects of it that

have received relatively little attention to date?

This section begins to explore this problematic.

It does so by outlining some key aspects (spatial-

ity, regulation, organization and flow) of eco-

nomic geographies as they apply to OCGs and

their activities. It provides a broad overview of

some key spatialities of the economies of orga-

nized crime, highlighting apparent differences

but also similarities across the licit/illicit conti-

nuum, and emphasizing issues that appear some-

what underplayed within geographical accounts

of the contemporary global economy. This is

intended as a first step in the scrutiny of prevail-

ing geographical models within the context of an

expanded, interconnected economic terrain and

in enlarging the empirical foundations of geogra-

phical research to encompass illicit economic

activities, such as those of OCGs, recognizing

their broader significance.

1 Spatiality

It is apparent that prevailing understandings of

the spatialities of the global economy refer

largely, or exclusively, to licit economic pro-

cesses. There exist to date few systematic

attempts by geographers to map its more

ambiguous or illicit dimensions. There is some

evidence of significant overlap between these

various types of economic process, for example,

China’s role as a centre of both licit and counter-

feit goods production (Chow, 2003; Phillips,

2005). However, we might suppose that there

are, equally, significant differences (Zook,

2003: 1277). Unexplored hypotheses include

explorations of the degrees of overlap and

divergence between licit and illicit economic

processes, and also the extent to which those

economic processes within which there is inher-

ent ambiguity align with the spatialities of licit

and/or illicit economic processes. If we wish our

understandings of the spatialities of the contem-

porary global economy to be reflective of its

wider dimensions, it is important to acknowl-

edge the partiality of existing models. For

example, while maps of the contemporary

global economy suggest that certain areas are

seemingly little touched by processes of

economic dynamism, many of these are signifi-

cant centres of criminal entrepreneurialism.

Indeed, it is often the very conditions that con-

demn these spaces to the periphery of the licit

economy that make them ideal locations for

organized criminal activity (Castells, 1996:

162, in Zook, 2003: 1263). Nordstrom has

argued that engaging with these alternative

spatialities may significantly affect the ways

in which ‘maps’ of the world economy are

understood:

What would the world map look like if extra-

legal networks . . . were charted in addition

to the boundaries of formally recognized

states? Would the whirls and eddies marking

the centres of economic gravity in the world

– and the attendant political power – produce

a far different constellation of identities,

nations and regions than that familiar from

textbooks? Would the hierarchy of national

economies, now ranked by GDP, look

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significantly different, with some of the haves

trading places with have-nots? (Nordstrom,

2011: 13)

2 Regulation

The question of regulation, or rather the eva-

sion of regulation, seems to be a key factor

driving the spatialities of a host of liminal and

illicit economic activities (Zook, 2003). Illicit

economic activities, generally, and certainly

those of OCGs, depend upon the ability to

evade the gazes of the state and international

law enforcement agencies. This is achieved in

many ways by creating or utilizing spaces

beyond these gazes. These include coca or

poppy fields in remote regions or those where

state sovereignty is absent, uncertain or con-

tested (Aas, 2007; Bhattacharyya, 2005; Cas-

tells, 2000; Nordstrom, 2007), shipping

containers whose volume overwhelms the abil-

ity of ports to meet inspection targets (Glenny,

2008a: 389; Nordstrom, 2007: 160–161), flats,

houses, warehouses, laboratories and industrial

units used to store trafficked goods or produce

illegal drugs (Glenny, 2008a; Hornsby and

Hobbs, 2007; Saviano, 2008), OFCs (Brown

and Cloke, 2007; Deneault, 2007; Hampton

and Levi, 1999; Hudson, 2000; Roberts,

1995) and even differential spaces within the

fiscal and regulatory geographies of states

(Cameron, 2008: 1151; Unger and Rawlings,

2008). However, the exploitation of this opa-

city is not restricted to criminal entrepreneurs.

Rather, it is exploited by both licit and illicit

actors alike. OFCs, for example, are vital com-

ponents of the wider global financial architec-

ture (Brown and Cloke, 2007; Deneault, 2007;

Hampton and Levi, 1999; Roberts, 1995),

within which 18% of global GDP equivalent

is held in offshore funds (Dick, 2009: 98) and

through which 40% of world trade in goods and

65% in hard currency passes (Nordstrom,

2007: 65; 172). Further, it is wrong to think

of this opacity as only the product of the

actions of a handful of rogue island micro-

states. Rather, the creation of financial instru-

ments offering banking privacy lies at the heart

of global financial development and the pursuit

of mobile capital:

even larger industrialized OECD countries

started to create ‘islands’ of relaxed regulation

within their own jurisdictions to attract glob-

ally mobile capital, regardless of its origins.

For example, London and New York were

separated off from the mainstream British and

US economies where investors were offered

anonymous investment opportunities in the

bond and stock markets . . . These centres

shared one aspect in common: they partitioned

regulatory standards between domestic resi-

dent capital and non-resident international

capital where another set of rules applied.

(Unger and Rawlings, 2008: 348–349)

That this has made these and other similar

economies attractive destinations for laundering

illicit finance is well documented. In 2001,

for example, a French Parliamentary report

‘identified The City of London as a key centre

for money laundering and terrorist financing’

(Unger and Rawlings, 2008: 335). This suggests

an inherent opacity and regulatory complexity

within and across the global economy (Brown

and Cloke, 2007; Cook, 2012; Nordstrom,

2009a) which is exploited by both licit corpora-

tions and criminal entrepreneurs in empirically

similar ways (Madsen, 2009: 112; Wright,

2006). Thus, despite regulatory discourses stres-

sing transparency, it is equally this opacity that

appears to be characteristic of the global econ-

omy, but one that has gained little purchase

within geographical accounts of contemporary

globalization.

The issue of regulation is further complicated

by the movement and interconnection that char-

acterizes the contemporary global economy.

Social and economic goods moving along com-

modity chains typically pass through a variety

of regulatory spaces which fundamentally

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impacts on their formal legal and social status as

they do. Goods may slip in and out of legality

and licitness along their journeys from produc-

tion to market (Abraham and Schendel, 2005:

16). Further, Zook (2003: 1276) has shown how

industries such as the online adult industry can

evade regulatory censure through a form of

arbitrage by connecting different elements of

the industry across a range of spatially distribu-

ted regulatory spaces. Contents that might

contravene regulation in one jurisdiction can

be hosted in more welcoming regulatory envir-

onments in ways that do not affect their

consumption. This reflects the regulatory asym-

metries exploited by actors engaged in illicit

financial activities, most notably money laun-

dering. While regulatory environments, be they

legal or social, are territorially bound, the goods

they seek to regulate are increasingly mobile

and relational. Licit- and illicitness are not abso-

lute, fixed qualities. Rather, they are contingent

and provisional upon the interplay of regulation,

space, movement and connection.

3 Organization

The organizational forms of OCGs are, in part, a

reflection of the economic contexts of post-

Fordist globalization within which they operate.

That there is a strong correlation between condi-

tions in licit and illicit economies is now well

established (Calderoni, 2011; Hobbs, 1998;

Hobbs and Dunnighan, 1998; Lavezzi, 2008;

Scalia, 2010; Weinstein, 2008). However,

despite this correlation, there seem to be some

structural differences between the organization

of the licit and organized criminal economies.

While large multinational corporations are

recognized as key agents shaping the contempo-

rary licit global economy, they appear to have

few equivalent OCGs. OCGs tend to be small,

flexible, often unstable and horizontally net-

worked rather than hierarchical and monolithic

(Duyne, 1993; Glenny, 2008a; Hignett, 2005;

Hobbs, 1998, 2001; Hornsby and Hobbs,

2007; Kenney, 2007; Kleemans and van de

Bunt, 1999; Kupatadze, 2007; Levi, 2002:

907; Madsen, 2009). This is not to suggest a

sharp, clear divide between licit aspects of the

global economy characterized by the presence

of large multinational corporations and illicit

aspects which are driven by small, flexible

OCGs. As noted above, the divide between the

licit and illicit within contemporary globaliza-

tion is blurred, and it is clear that multinational

corporations are connected to illicit globaliza-

tions. Those large cartels that do exist tend to

be involved in extensive cross-border trafficking,

but seem to have relatively limited, often vulner-

able, spatial monopolies and rely on networking

with other OCGs internationally (Levi, 2002).

This suggests that the organizational models of

the global economy with which we are familiar

are not universal, and that there are distinctions

in the ways in which these economies are orga-

nized but that they are not entirely distinct. These

are discussions that have encroached little into

the literatures of economic geography.

The increasingly international terrain across

which OCGs operate has affected the bases

upon which they are organized. Broadly, terri-

tory and ethnicity are now less significant

foundations for the organization of criminal

activities (Galeotti, 2005a, 2005b; Hobbs,

1998, 2001, 2004; Kleemans and van de Bunt,

1999; Serious Organised Crime Agency,

2006). However, while geographical differ-

ences between gangs are declining (Nordstrom,

2007), they have not disappeared entirely. There

is evidence of enduring distinctions in the struc-

tures, organization, activities and cultures of

OCGs from different regions (Aning, 2007;

Davidson, 1997; Glenny, 2008a; Hastings,

2009; Hignett, 2005; Hobbs, 2004; Hobbs and

Dunnighan, 1998; Lintner, 2005; Lombardo,

1997; Scalia, 2010). Others have recognized

that, despite their international orientation, root-

edness within specific locales is still vital to the

identity and activities of OCGs (Castells, 2000:

183; Grascia, 2004; Hill, 2005; Kleemans and

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van de Bunt, 1999; Madsen, 2009; Scalia, 2010;

van de Bunt and Siegel, 2003: 4). However,

there has been little analysis of the significance

of these regional differences and their influence

on the nature of organized crime within regions.

While Albini et al. (1997: 154) have argued that

these differences are superficial and have little

tangible effect upon the shape of the organized

crime landscape, this stands in contrast to work

from economic geography which utilizes the

concept of regional and national business cul-

tures within its analysis of firm behaviour (see

Coe et al., 2007: 321–334). Clearly, this is an

issue to which a geographically informed anal-

ysis of organized crime could contribute.

4 Flow

A further aspect of contemporary economic pro-

cesses about which the literature has said little is

the relationships between economic flows and

the spaces through which they pass. For exam-

ple, while commodity chain analysis has spoken

of the organization of economic flows and their

‘local development outcomes in those areas

where the chain touches down’ (Bair and Ger-

effi, 2001, in Mackinnon and Cumbers, 2007:

150), it has been largely silent about those

spaces through which the chain passes. Despite

the prevalence of relational ontologies within

economic geography and calls across the social

sciences for post-statist perspectives (Aas,

2007; Law and Urry, 2004; Nordstrom, 2007;

Schendel, 2005), this is still something that has

produced little grounded analysis. However, the

flows associated with organized crime reveal

the fallacy of considering them as disembodied,

ontologically separate from their spaces. Schen-

del (2005: 58) is critical of prevailing represen-

tations of economic flows which tend to

overemphasize this sense of disembodiedness.

His work on transborder societies reveals eco-

nomic flows to be more embedded in the spaces

through which they pass than prevailing

accounts acknowledge:

Organizational studies of illegal flows rarely

provide details of how people cooperate to get

goods or persons to the borderland, across the

border and on to consumers . . . And yet, the

organization of illegal flows is known to take

on particular forms in borderlands and to adapt

to local and forever changing conditions there.

(Schendel, 2005: 51)

This points to a range of relationships beyond

the strictly rational/economic that are shaping

these flows and their emergent economic geo-

graphies. These include, as well as capitalist

relations within and between OCGs, feudal,

kinship, ethnic and clan reciprocities (Brooks,

2012: 83), which may themselves be trans-

formed in turn by these flows.

The most high-profile consequences of ille-

gal economic flows are the outbursts of violence

in regions such as northern Mexico and the

Balkans, key transit zones for the cigarette,

cocaine and heroin trades (Brophy, 2008;

Glenny, 2008a; Vulliamy, 2008). The literature

also records examples of illicit flows affecting

more subtle sociopolitical transformations

across space. For example, Bhattacharyya

(2005: 117–118) reflects on the grounded reali-

ties of the illicit globalizations of the drugs

trade. She discusses the transportation of heroin

from Afghanistan to Europe along the old ‘Silk

Road’ utilizing traditional forms of transport.

Here the transport of these commodities

becomes embedded in the lives of those in the

regions through which they (slowly) pass. She

argues:

this is the manner of a global integration that

touches a range of ordinary lives across non-

technological and barely developed localities

and provides employment for some of those

who have little access to other kinds of work

in the global economy. (Bhattacharyya, 2005:

117)

Goodhand’s (2009: 22) analysis of the Afghan

opium industry also reveals its need for quasi-

stable socio-economic infrastructure to sustain

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drug trafficking routes which has been instru-

mental in bringing forms of development and

state formation to the country’s peripheral

borderlands.

The complexities of the relationships

between flows and their spaces are revealed in

Nordstrom’s ethnographies of the global econ-

omy within which she travels the ‘pathways of

global crime’ (2007: XV, 2009a, 2009b, 2010,

2011). They reveal the trade route as a transfor-

mative force across space. She points out, for

example, that trade routes carve out areas of

‘de-facto governance’ (Nordstrom, 2007: 42)

particularly within regions with uneven or

uncertain state sovereignty. Others have argued

that the forms of governance emergent along

trade routes can imagine transborder units that

are more meaningful than those imposed

through the geographies of state boundaries

(Goodhand, 2009; Nordstrom, 2007; Schendel,

2005; Vulliamy, 2008). This ‘everyday transna-

tionality’ (Schendel, 2005: 55) is captured in

Vulliamy’s representation of the US-Mexico

border as a region he calls ‘Amexica’:

So the borderland is a country in its own right,

which belongs to both the US and Mexico, yet

neither. I call this country – 2,000 miles long

and about 100 miles wide, from the Pacific to

the Gulf – ‘Amexica’. And now, because of the

flood tide of narcotics running through it,

Amexica is a battlefield, still as charismatic

and irresistible as it is cruel and terrifying.

(Vulliamy, 2008: 28–29)

Illicit (and licit) trade routes then engender

their own political, as well as economic and

social, geographies which, in an increasingly

interconnected world, are worthy of greater

attention by geographers.

VII Conclusion

This review has suggested that discussions of

contemporary processes such as globalization,

regulation and economic liberalization which

admit only licit actors offer both empirically

and conceptually limited readings of these

processes. Much has been made within the liter-

ature, rightly, about the parallels between licit

and illicit actors under processes, such as these.

While this adds nuance and empirical reach to

discussions of these and other processes, it also

carries with it the danger of assuming that illicit

actors and their activities can be easily accom-

modated within existing models of the contem-

porary global economy and its processes.

However, as we have seen, parallels between

licit and illicit actors are not the whole story.

Despite the significant parallels outlined within

this and other work, licit and illicit economic

actors are not entirely reducible to this equiva-

lence. While there are undoubtedly strong paral-

lels between them, there also appear to be

important differences.

For example, while globalization and eco-

nomic liberalization are generally equated with

the expansion of economic opportunities, both

for licit and illicit actors, there might be

instances where they actually lead to declines

in demand for illicit goods and services. We

have seen in the Indian economy, where OCGs

circumvented economic restrictions through

smuggling illicit products such as alcohol, gold

and certain consumer goods, that following

liberalization such products became more freely

available, damaging the income streams of

many Indian OCGs (Weinstein, 2008: 25). This

example highlights the more general point that

licit and illicit actors may not necessarily

respond in the same ways to changing economic

and political contexts. Analysis that explicitly

considers the reactions of both licit and illicit

actors to these changing circumstances within

specific geographic contexts is rare, but offers

a potentially profitable avenue of future

research.

Even among illicit actors, it would seem that

there will be a range of responses to changing

economic circumstances. The responses of

OCGs to falling demand for their products and

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services, or changes within the economic and

political contexts within which they operate

more generally, will vary considerably accord-

ing to their histories, nature, structures and the

nature of these contexts. In some instances

OCGs may become more embedded within

state processes, such as urban development, as

has been observed in Mumbai, for example

(Weinstein, 2008). Elsewhere, where such

opportunities are not available or where groups

lack appropriate expertise or political connec-

tions, they may become more predatory and

increasingly involved in activities such as

cybercrime (Glenny, 2011).

As we have seen, the responses of OCGs to

changing economic and regulatory environ-

ments can be key drivers within development

trajectories across a range of geographical

contexts. Thus, these actors, the mixes of them

and their relationships to their political and

economic contexts, become the mediators of

wider economic processes and influence their

geographical patterning across space. These

factors will all shape differential outcomes both

among illicit actors and between licit and illicit

actors. This certainly suggests empirical limits

within existing geographical discussions of the

contemporary global economy, but also,

perhaps, the need to extend or rework them

conceptually to allow them to speak across this

expanded economic terrain. This is a task to

which scholars of organized crime and eco-

nomic and political geography can contribute.

To achieve this task, though, it is important that

organized crime does not remain ghettoized

within parochial conceptions of shadowy

underworlds.

Acknowledgements

The ideas in this paper have been in part devel-

oped within the undergraduate modules ‘Living

in a global world’, ‘Economic change and loca-

tion’ and ‘Global crime’. Many thanks to the stu-

dents on those modules for helping to articulate

the various ways in which we can speak of

organized crime in geographical terms. Aspects

of this paper have been presented at the workshop

‘Turbulent trade routes’ (CeMoRe, University of

Lancaster, November 2010), the Geographical

Association annual conference (University of Sur-

rey, April 2011) and in the session ‘Economic

geographical imaginations’ (RGS/IBG annual

conference, London, August 2011). Thanks to the

organizers and participants at those events for

your positive feedback. Finally, many thanks to

Rob Kitchin, the other editors of Progress in

Human Geography and the anonymous referees

for their encouragement and very constructive

comments on this paper.

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any

funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-

for-profit sectors.

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