Chinese organized crime and situational context: comparing human smuggling and synthetic drugs trafficking

This article criticizes the 'ethnic' conception of organized crime and puts forward an alternative view that does not put ethnicity first, but rather social networks and situational context. It focuses upon Chinese organized crime, a phenomenon where the preoccupation with ethnicity is paramount, and compares findings from extensive research into two different transnational criminal activities that are carried out by Chinese offenders in the Netherlands. The first topic, human smuggling, is well researched, whereas research into the second topic, trafficking in precursors (the basic ingredients for the production of synthetic drugs), is largely lacking. The article highlights the major theoretical and empirical similarities and differences between these two criminal activities and discusses the relevance of the main findings for theory and research

JRK is a positive regulator of β-catenin transcriptional activity commonly overexpressed in colon, breast and ovarian cancer.

The loss of β-catenin inhibitory components is a well-established mechanism of carcinogenesis but β-catenin hyperactivity can also be enhanced through its coactivators. Here we first interrogated a highly validated genomic screen and the largest repository of cancer genomics data and identified JRK as a potential new oncogene and therapeutic target of the β-catenin pathway. We proceeded to validate the oncogenic role of JRK in colon cancer cells and primary tumors. Consistent with a β-catenin activator function, depletion of JRK in several cancer cell lines repressed β-catenin transcriptional activity and reduced cell proliferation. Importantly, JRK expression was aberrantly elevated in 21% of colorectal cancers, 15% of breast and ovarian cancers and was associated with increased expression of β-catenin target genes and increased cell proliferation. This study shows that JRK is required for β-catenin hyperactivity regardless of the adenomatous polyposis coli/β-catenin mutation status and targeting JRK presents new opportunities for therapeutic intervention in cancer