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Crime, Law & Social Change (2006) 45: 185200
DOI: 10.1007/s10611-006-9034-4 C
Legitimate strengths in criminal networks1
CARLO MORSELLI and CYNTHIA GIGUERE
School of Criminology/Internaltional Center for Comparative Criminology, Universitde Montral
Abstract. Extending from the organizing crime perspective, we study how legitimate world actors contribute to structuring a criminal network. This focus also underscores the facilitating role that some participants have in criminal settings. Based on a case study of an illegal drug importation network that was monitored by law-enforcement investigators over a two-year period, we nd that although most legitimate actors (or non-trafckers) had nominal roles and contributed minimally to the criminal networks structure, a minority of these actors were critical to the network in two ways: (1) they were active in bringing other participants (including trafckers) into the network; and (2) they were inuential directors of relationships with both non-trafckers and trafckers. The presence of such inuential participants from legitimate occupational settings illustrates how upperworld gures can facilitate criminal enterprise beyond the mere contributions of legitimate status and expertise.
The presence of legitimate actors in criminal networks has been a consistent concern for criminologists studying criminal markets, organized crime, economic crime, and other forms of criminal enterprise. The overlap between legitimate and criminal settings is evident, but the presence of legitimate actors in criminal contexts is still ambiguous. Legitimate actors connected to networks designed for criminal ventures may serve as tokens or exploited prey, but they may also be consensual actors pursuing their own interests. Although their place in a criminal operation may be justied by the contribution of a legitimate status or facade to the network, they may also have a more active and critical involvement.
Past research has provided opposing perspectives on this issue. The rst follows a traditional organized crime framework and places the legitimate actor under the control of the criminal entrepreneur. The second follows an organizing crime framework that emphasizes the symbiotic relationships that emerge between actors from upper- and underworlds. Our study applies social network analysis in weighing the traditional organized crime framework against its organizing crime alternative. Whether their functions are nominal or critical, legitimate actors are generally facilitators in criminal settings. We evaluate the contribution of legitimate actors in a case study of a hashish and...