Criminal networks in a digitised world: on the nexus of borderless opportunities and local embeddedness

This article presents the results of empirical analyses of the use of information technology (IT) by organized crime groups. In particular, it explores how the use of IT affects the processes of origin and growth of criminal networks. The empirical data presented in this article consist of 30 large scale criminal investigations into organized crime, including traditional organized crime, traditional organized crime in which IT is an innovative element, low tech cybercrimes and high tech cybercrimes. Networks involved in cybercrimes or traditional crimes with an innovative IT element can be characterized as a mixture of old school criminals that have a long criminal career, and a limited number of technically skilled members. Furthermore, almost all cases have a local dimension. Also the cybercrime cases. Dutch sellers of drugs on online marketplace, for example, mainly work for customers in the Netherlands and surrounding countries

The Hybridization of Street Offending in the Netherlands

Based on the results of two research projects from the Netherlands, this paper explores how street-oriented persons adapt and use digital technologies by focussing on the changing commission of instrumental, economically motivated, street crime. Our findings show how social media are used by street offenders to facilitate or improve parts of the crime script of already existing criminal activities but also how street offenders are engaging in criminal activities not typically associated with the street, like phishing and fraud. Taken together, this paper documents how technology has permeated street life and contributed to the ‘hybridization’ of street offending in the Netherlands—i.e. offending that takes place in person and online, often at the same time