THE LINK BETWEEN ORGANIZED CRIME AND TERRORISM

Abstract

The heightened control of financial transactions in the post 9/11 society significantly curbed the fund-raising activities aimed at financing terrorism. Terrorist groups were forced to evolve and find new ways of financing their activities, while transnational criminal organizations adapted to the new circumstances by turning into powerful hybrid criminal-terrorist entities. These traditionally separate phenomena have begun to reveal many operational and organizational similarities. Globalization of the economy has created favorable conditions for terrorist organizations and criminal groups to coordinate their activities, to cooperate and share their resources, whereas both national and international legislation have unfortunately failed to keep pace with the evolving development of crime and terrorism. This article aims to examine the individual characteristics of organized crime and terrorism by pointing out to their similarities and differences, and to analyze the complexity of the crime-terror nexus. Adequate anti-terrorist and anti-criminal policy at the national level as well as globally rests on understanding each problem separately as well as their versatile correlations. Otherwise, there is a risk of a theoretical "fusion" of one problem into another which may generate problems in combating organized crime and terrorism. The author highlights the importance of acknowledging and understanding the link between crime and terror groups as the first step towards formulating an effective state response to this evolving threat.