Aspetti della criminalità organizzata nei Balcani

Emilio Cocco investigates in this chaper the topic of organised crime in the Balkans and aims to frame it as a development problem. Cocco deals with the major theories of organised crime and discuss the most important issues of the debate. Also, he brings in examples from a selection of case studies from former Yugoslav countries and Albania. According to the author, the growth of organised crime is one of the most relevant factors intervening in the shaping of the present political and economic outlook of the region. Also, it is an early warning mechanism that indicates the inconsistencies and the gaps of the political measures that should engender economic development and territorial balance. In other words, Cocco suggests that organised crime is not just a matter of public order or law enforcement but it refers to the corruptive influence on political and economic institutions that is hold by criminal subjects, which activate ehtnic ties or exploit the attraction of easy money making mechanisms on the legal actors. For Emilio Cocco organised crime shall be defined as an illegal activity performed by a collectivity to earn money and make profit from a set of goods and services prohibited by the law. In this perspective, a first major distinction is drawn between ordinary crime and organised crime, where the latter it is usually overestimated and confused with less sophisticated criminal activities. As a matter of fact, one can speak of organised crime only when specific circumstances occur and first of all the existence of a coordinated collective action oriented towards an increased efficiency too complex to be carried out individually. Secondly, the organised crime implies a relationship between the illegal activities and the legal world, that is to say the ability to build strict cooperative networks with the legal economy and the political systems. Accordingly, the article explores the way organised crime take shape in the Balkans after the collapse of socialist systems, pointing out the remarkable level of efficiency pursued by those illegal institutions. A major reason for such a success is found in the collapse itself of the institutional setting, which brought about war, insecurity and more fragile institutions. These conditions are optimal for the development of criminal organisations on the territory as they are able to blackmail and exploit the legal institutions and to provide the necessary services of protection. Accordingly, the type of organised crime that flourishes in the Balkans is quite similar to the Mafia, the way it ha been labeled by Gambetta, as they are stable and organised industry that provide protection to legal and illegal activities. Nonetheless, the organised crime of the Balkans maintains specific and orginal features such as the one of its «transnational» carachter, which is different from the «international» or «diaspora» nature of the Sicilian Mafia. In other words, the organisation operting in the Balkans are able to work in more complex environment and to establish networks across traditional ethnic barriers.