Introduction
It is now a well-known fact that macro-criminality, in recent years has achieved wider dimensions, scopeand dangerousness.
We are not facing any longer a fragmented and occasional criminal phenomenon, but rather a network of organisations which are invading various fields of activity and, in some Countries they even touch the government apparatus, the bureaucracy, and the security agencies.
The phenomenon of "organised crime" has gone beyond national borders and has acquired international connotations with its ablility to act worldwide. It has now become an authentic threat for society.
The main feature of this macro-criminality is the rapid accumulation of resources, this is achieved thanks to the vasst unbalance existing between the low costs of management and the extremely high revenues; the result is the need to re-invest the accumulated capital, with a deeper and wider infiltration by organised crime into the financial and economic fabric of a society.
This implies a thorough and constant criminal presence, even though usually well camouflaged and integrated into society to such an extent that it is difficult to perceive it. Consequently the defence mechanisms appear slow and inadequate.
Organise crime tends to influence the economic and financial decisions in the infiltrated Societies and in some cases, the political and administrative decision-making process.
It is easy to understand why the criminal multinationals select as their favourite targets those Countries with vulnerable governmental structures and judicial rules, and weaker economic and social systems. Countries where it is easy to enter into the wealth producing cycle, with a first phase of capital accumulation, then the laundering stage and finally the re-investment of the capital thus purged from any traces of the original illegality.
This close interconnection between crime and the economic-financial circuits does not exist only in the most vulnerable Countries: the activities at the base of the crime business, that is drug trafficking and arms trading - often mingled and in various ways inter-connected with local and international terrorists - by their own nature acquire relevance if carried out in an international context. The expansion of criminal groups on the international market becomes thus a compulsory operative choice, with an scope of action comprising the entire international community.
The cases of functional "internationalisation" of organised crime are multiplying: the Colombian Mafia, for example, possesses a network for selling cocaine in the United States, it has formed there a laundering network which extends to various cities and encompasses banks and financial institutions, through which the cartels can even get clearance from the credit institutions of the Country of origin.
It has been said that just drugs can yield hundreds of billions of dollars yearly to a dozen criminal organisations; such an amount rates after the income of the first ten richest Countries in the world.
It has also been said that in Los Angeles boys of 15-16 years of age are able to earn, through selling drugs, up to 5 million liras in only one day.
The examples given, apart from shocking anyone with no clear idea of extent of the phenomenon, should provide a clear indication of the extreme dangerousness of organised crime, because the attack it launches against the institutions is concentric and multi faceted. It moves in many directions, it infiltrates the social fabric in every layer, from the lowest and most wide-spread (the youths, the unemployed, the immigrants), to the highest (the economic-financial contexts, the so called "white-collar workers").
What we face now is a war which has many fronts, is fought in thousand theatres using an extremely complex and fluid arsenal.
There is also a psychological effect stemming from the spreading of crime in society, it generates a widespread feeling of fear, of vulnerability, of impotence, of mistrust towards the State and its institutions. They appear powerless, defenceless in the eyes of the common people, or even aiding this development instead of being a stronghold against it, the State appears absent, far away, or even as giving up to the winner.
This is why, in the presence of such a vast and frightening phenomenon, the answer by the Countries must be fast and adequate, both in quality and quantity. And should be based on closed co-ordination interacting at a local, national, and international level.
Form this perspective, the intelligence contribution is essential. Its use in a sector which up to a little time ago was an exclusive domain of the Police Forces, has represented that element of novelty that the task required.
The fields in which the Services can provide a frutiful collaboration is the research on organised crime in its areas of origin, so to establish structural connotations, objectives, operative methods and international connections; further to determine the trends of traffics, to say nothing of the financial and commercial channels through which the flows of capitals and suspect investments are activated.
The action must project itself in every direction, since all the geographic areas are now, even if in different ways, touched by the expansion of macro-criminality.

Organised crime throughout the world
A quick overview on the presence of organised crime in the various geographic areas will be useful to create a unified picture of the diffusion of the phenomenon and a map of drug-trafficking and of money laundering, that up to today appear the main activities of criminal associations.

Europe
The old continent still represents a pole of attraction for international criminal associations, both as an arrival point or as transit for illegal traffics of various nature and also as a profitable investment market for "laundered" capital to be inserted into the legal financial circuit.
If on the one hand many Countries have become more sensitive to the problem of laundering, on the other some Countries still offer significant opportunities to capital coming from anywhere, or tolerate the existence of the so called "tax havens" within their territory.
The situation of Central-Eastern European countries deserves separate and special consideration.
With their opening to market economy, organised crime is consolidating absorbing and moulding the endogenous criminal groups, thus threatening the stability of local institutions and conditioning the relations with other Countries;
This trend allows criminal organisations to take advantage of the widespread flexibility, both in the "modus operandi", and in the choice of objectives.
As far as the so called Russian Mafia is concerned, its peculiar characteristics, as known, are:
- the development of organised groups based on ethnicity (Georgians, Caucasians, Chechenians, Uzbechians, Armenians) that with the use of violence control rackeetering in the Russian territory, and even the drug market, both in Russia and in the surrounding Countries;
- the alleged involvement of former agents of the disbanded Security services or former -policemen, who often work as intermediaries between groups of European businessmen and the new Russian bureaucracy, or seem to be well introduced into banking institutions, or within commercial and financial companies which are active within the international circuit.
In general, a series of factors, such as:
- a legal system still not comparable to Western European ones, above all in the economic-financial sector;
- not sufficiently specialised bodies tasked with combatting crime;
- the prolonged economic crisis;
continue to attract the attention of the main trans-national criminal organisations towards the Central and Eastern European countries.
The financial interest of international groups towards the Balkans and Estonia, Lettonia, and Lithuania is an example. They have opened themselves to market economy and are ready to offer off-shore conditions to non-resident juridical persons (the same zone sees, as far as drug-trafficking is concerned, the consolidation of the so called "Baltic route").
Among other things, there exist indications that prove a "return penetration" towards Western Europe which is essentially embodied in activities of investment of income illegally accumulated.
In said case, the establishment of many Russian financial institutions working in off-shore accreditation in the Islands of Cyprus and Malta is to be underlined.
In Europe a constant increase in the presence of Chinese individuals and businesses, today probably expressions of criminal micro-associations, but most probably, tomorrow, vehicle of penetration of criminal groups of an even more consistent weight and value in the international area, and in the illegal financial ramification.
Worth mentioning, finally, is the Balkan area where, especially Montenegro where connections between the Italian "Sacra Corona Unita" and local criminal groups have been ascertained. From the original smuggling of foreign cigarettes, these appear to have moved to drug and arms trafficking and, above all, to illegal immigration from Albania and the former-Yugoslavia towards Italy and Europe.

Africa
It is an area of interest for the traditional production of cannabis and for the rising phenomenon of the trade and use of South American cocaine particularly in the areas of intense tourism. The Maghreb, Morocco in particular, still remains as the place where most of the hashish is produced, notwithstanding the declared political will to resolve the problem creating an efficient contrasting apparatus.
Moreover, the phenomenon which must always be followed with greater attention is the development of crime from Nigeria and from Ghana. Their aim is to transport drugs autonomously and to provide cheap labour to big organisations.

In the laundering sector the interest of trans-national crime in investing large amounts of capital in real-estate and touristic infrastructures in the North African countries remains unchanged.

Middle-East
Even if the area still plays a very important role in the production and trafficking of opiates, the political importance given by governments to the clearing of the areas of opium cultivation to attract foreign investments has forced criminal groups to diversify their strategy, getting involved in the refinement and trade of cocaine and bringing into drug-trafficking local political factions (Hezbollah and PKK). The immediate result was the development of opium cultivations in the Southern Republics of the former U.S.S.R.
Some signals of strong interest of trans-national crime in the opportunities offered by the foreign capital flowing into the area for the re-construction of some Countries are to be followed and carefully monitored.

Asia and Oceania
In these areas, drug-trafficking is still the driving force for trans-national organised crime. It is well known that the most important opium producing areas are in Asia: the "Golden Triangle" (Laos, Thailand, and Myanmar), and the "Golden Crescent" (Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan), and now also the Republics of the former U.S.S.R. (Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakistan, and Tajikistan) and the Southern regions of China on the border with the "Golden Triangle".
The present geo-political conditions and the inadequate actions of contrast have further aided criminal organisations, not only from Asia, to exploit "the industry of transformation" of capitals; Malaysia, in particular the island of Labuan, has now joined Hong Kong and Singapore, traditionally involved in the phenomenon.
Money laundering is carried out by Asian criminal organisations also in tax-havens such as Vanuatu, Nauru, the Solomon Islands, and Papua New Guinea.

The Americas
Examining the American continent it can be seen that the tensions between Peru and Ecuador have in no way slowed down or influence the drug-trafficking activities.
Further it appears that the eradication of opium cultivations, conducted in Brazil and Colombia, even with U.S. financing, have not produced the desired results.
Recent police operations have proven the consolidated existence, in Venezuela and Colombia, of channels for cocaine supplies, run jointly by the 'Ndrine from Calabria, Camorra and the Sicilian Mafia through well established international routes.
It is not worth to linger on the Andes area where the major producers of cocaine are located (Peru, Bolivia, and Colombia) and where the Cali, Medellin, and La Guajiria cartels operate.
Instead the Central American countries are gaining growing importance in this respect. The extension of the cultivation of drug substances and an increase in the flow of money to launder and re-invest is being ascertained.
For all those involved in the field the Caribbean islands, tax-havens par excellence, continue to represent an unsolved problem.

Lines of action in contrasting organised crime
As we have seen, the international development of criminal groups necessarily require supranational modus operandi and strategies.
Leaving aside the structural analysis of the criminal organisations, essential and inevitable pre requirement when preparing a contrasting action, we will instead touch upon the main objective of organised crime, the financial profit.
This is done through:
- the accumulation of capital coming from illegal activities;
- the laundering of said capital;
- the investment in legal activities at a high profit.
all this process develops in a context that goes beyond the single Countries.
Essential instruments which can be used to hit such primary interests of criminal organisations effectively are therefore international co-operation, and the adjustment of the legislative measures of the Countries adhering to the conventions ad hoc stipulated.
In fact, it is known that in this phase the international interest in contrasting the criminal organisations and the single countries' interest to protect their own economy and their own banking and financial structures, frequently clash.
One of the examples of said difference of interests is the existence of the tax-havens, used by all the main criminal organisations.
The world conference on Trans-national Organised Crime, held in Naples last November, recognised that top priority must be given to the measures contrasting economic and financial crime, that is that stage of the criminal activity ( the transformation form illegal to legal business) which represents both the most vulnerable moment of the criminal action and the most serious threat to the institutions.
The threat to the institutions entails:
- the introduction of masses of capital into national and international financial circuits that, if they are able to upset the weaker markets, inevitably will end up influencing even the stronger ones and undermining economic competition in entire regions and Countries;
- the insidious and constant penetration in every sector of the economic life - primary, secundary and tertiary, crushing or constraining the "healthy" forces;
- the individual "get-rich-quick" scheme, that attracts outcasts and poorer classes, but this even works with the middle classes, who are exposed to the temptation of easy and quick earnings.
Many European Nations have introduced criminal, and administrative provisions aimed at preventing and contrasting the accumulation of capital by the macro-criminality.
These provisions with others are aimed at facing and hitting the socio-political habitat in which the "Mafia" crime begins and develops. The system of "territory control" with which it protects and re-enforces its own structures must also be hit.
To act out contrasting strategies - as it was stressed during the conference in Naples - it is necessary to distinguish the routes to follow at a national level and at an international level.
On the National level, the Countries should:
- develop educational programs whose tendency should be to create a culture of morality and of legality;
- adopt measures raising the awarenees of public opinion on the effects of organised crime;
- break the wall of silence and intimidation through measures favouring the collaboration of the people belonging to criminal associations;
- create and equip special investigative units, experts on the structures and the operative methods of criminal groups.
On the international level, it is instead desirable that every country lays the foundations for an effective system of co-operation with other countries in the investigative sector and in the judicial one.
For this aim, it would be useful to:
- increase technical collaboration whose aim is to assist emerging and developing countries, so as to improve the potential of their judicial and investigative systems;
- to encourage a regular exchange of experiences and of specific knowledge, and the training of the people belonging to the Judiciary, police, and intelligence bodies, as well as the concrete application of effective counter-measures, planned in advance.

SISMi counter-actions
In trying to give more drive to the fight against organised crime the Italian legislator, with law 410/91, has called on the Intelligence and Security Services to act in this field, entrusting on SISDe and SISMi "... respectively nationally and internationally, the task of performing intelligence and security tasks against any danger or form of subversion from organised crime which threaten the institutions or the development of the civil society."
We have reached this stage through the awareness of the necessity of a specific and intense intelligence activity which does not interfere with the judiciary police, but that should rather be, as substantially provided for in the law, its pre requisite and support.
For its own area of competence, SISMi has asked for, and therefore makes use even of the collaboration of the Security and Intelligence Services of friendly Countries, providing where necessary even technical-administrative support.
The intelligence activity, carried out abroad, is performed to gather specific information which will then be transferred to the judiciary police for the ensuing examination, and to analyse the trends of trans-national organised crime even in the political, socio-economic, and geographical contexts that in various ways influence the birth and growth of the phenomenon.