This book explores how organized crime has adapted and evolved in sync
with ever-expanding technologies to update its popular image and to
conduct its covert operations. It shows how organized crime operates in
dark virtual spaces and how it can now form a dynamic interactive system
with legitimate online spaces, solidifying its criminal exploits and
resources, and making them attractive to a new generation of computer
users. Focusing on Italian Mafias, Russian and Georgian criminal groups
and drug cartels, and Asian crime syndicates such as Yakuza and Triads,
this book aims to describe and explain the reasons behind the continuity
of online and offline crime, taking into consideration whether or not
internet culture has radically changed the way we perceive organized
crime and if so how, and thus how the shift in popular imagery that the
internet has brought about affects its actual illegal activities. We
also consider how organized crime has shifted its locale from the
physical to the virtual, how cybercrime has allowed criminal
organizations to adapt and reinvent themselves, and how the police now
use technology against organized crime.
To better understand the new generation of criminals, it is becoming
increasingly urgent to understand the latest technologies and how
criminals utilize them. The Dark Mafia is an engaging and accessible
introduction to understanding virtual organized crime. It will appeal to
students and scholars of criminology, sociology, policing, and all those
interested in the digital age of organized crime.
