Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: The rapid and overwhelming emergence of State and Governmental forms of organized crime that have appeared on an international level within the past decade give rise to the need to call attention to the forces that have risen to shake the very foundations of both national and international security and, indeed, the very security of the world itself. It is no longer the threat of the Mafia that takes center stage in the study of organized crime, but, instead, the rapid emergence, since the 1990's, of organized criminal syndicates, gangs and terrorist groups that have fused and intermingled both in their structrures and functions with State and Governmnetal establishments to form a style of operating that serves to threaten social systems throughout the world.
In this paper, the author examines the threat to world security presented by the phenomena of illegal trafficking in nuclear weapons and materials by organized crime groups and state agents, the erosion of International law as evidenced by the use of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and the illegal trafficking of orphans, women and children to throw into question the role of the U.S., Russia, Pakistan,Northe Korea, China, India and other world governments involved in such activities.