{"id":63154,"date":"2021-06-01T08:00:26","date_gmt":"2021-06-01T12:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/?p=63154"},"modified":"2024-09-13T10:27:38","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T14:27:38","slug":"the-economic-dimension-of-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/the-economic-dimension-of-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"The Economic Dimension of Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>During the last few decades, Colombia has experienced significant changes in terms of security and freedom. These transformations have led to a transition in the social and political perspective of the concept of public safety and the strategies, tactics, and tools necessary for its attainment. For example, Colombia has made progress in protecting life, with the homicide rate of 77 per 100,000 population in 2002 dropping to fewer than 24 in 2020.<sup>1<\/sup> In addition, Colombia dismantled many major criminal drug trafficking structures, leading to the capture of cartel leaders and the prosecution of the financial crime systems, allowing the police to shift their focus away from threats to national security toward other more urban issues and their interconnected dynamics.<\/p>\n<table class=\" alignleft\" style=\"width: 51%; border-style: none;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<table style=\"width: 99%; background-color: #102c4e; border-style: none;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><big><strong>14<\/strong><\/big><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">operations were executed in 2017, seizing 4,077 assets, commercially valued at $530 million (USD).<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><big><strong>179<\/strong><\/big><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">operations in 2018 resulted in the forfeiture of 5,934 assets, commercially valued at $1,028 million (USD).<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><big><strong>180<\/strong><\/big><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">operations were executed in 2019, seizing 23,293 assets, commercially valued at $1,073 million (USD).<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><big><strong>126<\/strong><\/big><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">operations in 2020 resulted in the forfeiture of 11,519 assets, commercially valued at $3,407 million (USD).<\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><big><strong>10<\/strong><\/big><\/span><br \/>\n<span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">operations have been executed in 2021, seizing 1,112 assets commercially valued at $46 million (USD).<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>However, despite these advances, the challenges posed by structural elements and others associated with the reconfiguration of crime in urban and rural areas still persist, requiring the Colombian National Police to guide efforts against criminal organizations and their sources of funding to reduce the degree of threat posed by crime.<\/p>\n<p>This challenge for public policy and coordination across institutions continues, despite the reduction in homicides. Criminal organizations have been generating adaptative practices, sharing knowledge, becoming technologically sophisticated, diversifying their criminal markets, and enjoying \u201cimmediately available sources of financial support, as well as a vibrant responsiveness to seize extraordinary opportunities with rates of return well above average.\u201d<sup>2<\/sup> The Colombian National Police has detected a mutation in criminal organizations\u2019 traditional hierarchal structure to more diffuse structures, characterized by a high capacity for rotation in the roles of their members, forcing the government to rethink the exclusive action of the justice administration system on the actors, proposing instead to extend it to their criminal markets, sources of income, and financial assets.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>The Need to Address Criminal Finances<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Because organized crime functions as an \u201cecosystem of illicit activities, where drug trafficking, extortion, illegal exploitation of mineral deposits, corruption, and smuggling are connected in networks of illegality,\u201d<sup>3<\/sup> its economic dimension is unquestionable. To guarantee various activities of production, distribution, and exchange of assets and services of a criminal nature, the criminal organizations utilize a division of activities (roles and functions). Various levels of responsibility are configured in criminal value chains to optimize their productivity, giving rise to criminal structures that seek to establish monopolies or oligopolies in certain territories and promote connections that guarantee their criminal economies locally, regionally, and transnationally.<\/p>\n<table class=\" alignleft\" style=\"width: 50%; border-collapse: collapse; border-style: none;\" cellpadding=\"7px\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%; text-align: center;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><em><big>\u201cThe Colombian National Police has detected a mutation in criminal organizations\u2019 traditional hierarchal structure, forcing the government to rethink the exclusive action of the justice administration system on the actors.\u201d<\/big><\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>Estimates of the impact of money laundering and terrorist financing on the Colombian economy indicate that money laundering would reach 3 percent of GDP, representing approximately $4,477 million annually.<sup>4<\/sup> Other estimates indicate that the total income from the sale of cocaine in Colombia during 2008 was approximately $3,800 million, and that local drug trafficking came to represent $895 million of income for drug dealers.<sup>5<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>This information has allowed the police to identify four indicators of the rational of organized crime groups in Colombia and their multidimensional impact:<\/p>\n<p><strong>1. The expansive use of violent means with a differential focus in urban and rural areas.<\/strong> Rural homicide has increased by 33.58 percent between 2016 and 2020. This dynamic contrasts with the decrease in murder-for-hire in urban and peripheral areas.<\/p>\n<p><strong>2. The alteration of the social order through the positioning of organized crime structures in the informal economy.<\/strong> Criminal structures seek to establish an arbitrary system of justice and to undermine the legitimacy of the state. Their main purpose is to acquire the favor of the communities to guarantee the exchange of assets and informal services, for example, with \u201cpay daily\u201d loans (small loans outside the financial system that carry high interest rates). They also seek to resolve disputes between citizens, up to the point of coercion, extortion, or intimidation.<\/p>\n<table class=\" alignright\" style=\"width: 50%; border-style: none; background-color: #102c4e;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><big><strong>Colombia Peace Deal<\/strong><\/big><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">In 2016, the Colombian rebel group, FARC, signed a peace accord with the Colombian government led by then-President Juan Manual Santos, ending a conflict that had cost more than 200,000 lives and displaced more than 7 million people.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">However, since FARC has disarmed, criminal gangs and drug traffickers have reemerged, fighting to control Colombia\u2019s lucrative illegal narcotics and mining industries and targeting union organizers, indigenous leaders, environmentalists, and community activists\u2014like Velasco\u2014for speaking up and opposing their presence.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><strong>3. The eruption of organized crime in the management and political administration of the territory.<\/strong> Forms of constraint are exercised against political and jurisdictional authorities, in addition to seeking to co-opt the state agents in charge of criminals\u2019 control and prosecution. This increases the risks of adversely affecting the prestige of the institutions, the confidence of the citizens, and the distribution of resources for the public sector.<\/p>\n<p><strong>4. Difficulties for the implementation of the peace agreement.<\/strong> The permanence of criminal economy circuits and their intersection with the objectives of Colombia\u2019s peace deal with FARC upsets the stability of the territories, places, and communities that were affected by the conflict (see sidebar). The continued interaction of organized crime with vulnerable communities contributes to the normalization of their role in Colombia.<\/p>\n<h3><span style=\"color: #9a1b22;\"><strong>Systemic Intervention Against Criminal Economies<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Within the framework of the Operational Planning and Management Model, the Colombian National Police identified the impact of criminal finances as a transversal operational axis. The Directorate of Criminal Investigation and INTERPOL (DIJIN), a unit with law enforcement functions, designed a model methodology to pursue capital flows, monetary assets, information, and people. This model, articulated in the National System for the Fight against Organized Crime (SINCO), seeks to strengthen coordination across agencies and institutions to comprehensively and effectively dismantle the financial systems on which criminal organizations rely.<sup>6<\/sup><\/p>\n<p>These advances have accomplished a number of operational priorities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Recognizing the need to solve an organizational problem, the Colombian National Police created a unit designed to focus on the criminal prosecution of money laundering and the confiscation of illicit assets.<\/li>\n<li>The Colombian National Police designed a highly specialized position with specific profiles for investigators in charge of money laundering and asset forfeiture.<\/li>\n<li>Specific qualification training was structured with interdisciplinary content and knowledge management for investigators, judicial experts, and analysts.<\/li>\n<li>A strategic decision was adopted to guide operational efforts, giving priority to longitudinal investigations that decipher the web of power relations and financial flows that fuel crime, and to allow in-depth investigations to generate knowledge about how associations between criminal structures are created and destroyed.<\/li>\n<li>Tools and techniques for the correlation and detection of criminal patterns are being used to strengthen the capacity for analysis and information processing by the public and private sectors, which corresponds to the Center for Criminal Analysis goal to use a systemic and correlated vision in the analysis of criminal organizations\u2019 culture.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The information derived from these accomplishments has been fundamental in understanding these crimes, identifying approaches in public policy, and executing operations to prevent the reproduction of self-referential crime models.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The analysis of social networks helps to guide operations in breaking the links between the nodes of a financial network and generating knowledge about the morphology and attributes that accompany each node.<sup>7<\/sup><\/li>\n<li>The permanent appointment of specialized prosecutors, who are in charge of directing and coordinating the DIJIN in the investigation of criminal conduct, enables successful prosecutions.<\/li>\n<li>A model of sustained operations is used to identify the convergence of criminal actors and illicit economies. The Prosecutor\u2019s Office appointed prosecutors to guide a specialized group of criminal investigators to investigate money laundering and terrorist financing and to seize assets for the comprehensive investigation and prosecution of organized crime structures.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>It should be noted that the evolution of these operational logics has been accompanied by legislation that supports the seizing of assets and the prosecution of money laundering, continuing the methodological cycle with each investigative exercise.<\/p>\n<table style=\"border-style: solid; border-color: #f5a81c; background-color: #ffffff;\" border=\"2\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<th style=\"width: 870px; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #ffffff; border-style: solid;\" colspan=\"7\"><strong><span style=\"color: #f5a81c;\">Table 1: Methodology to Disrupt Criminal Financial Systems<\/span><\/strong><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 90px; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #ffffff;\"><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 136px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #102c4e;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Comprehend<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 125px; background-color: #102c4e; border-color: #ffffff; border-style: solid;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Identify<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 84px; background-color: #102c4e; border-color: #ffffff; border-style: solid;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Characterize<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 176px; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #102c4e; border-style: solid;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Prioritize<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 124px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #102c4e;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Intervene<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 135px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #102c4e;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">Evaluate<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 90px; background-color: #6ba0e1; border-color: #ffffff; border-style: solid;\"><strong>Activities<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 136px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Train investigators, analysts, and prosecutors, in new forms of concealment and generation of criminal income.<\/li>\n<li>Establish the causal links and relationships between dynamic actors and criminal phenomena (homicide, environmental damage, money laundering, etc.).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 125px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Use information gathering instruments.<\/li>\n<li>Search and track information from formal and informal sources.<\/li>\n<li>Exchange information in the established judicial and analysis scenarios.<\/li>\n<li>Correlate information from criminal analyses<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 84px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Establish taxonomies of modality analysis.<\/li>\n<li>Search and map the interaction of the justice administration system (national and international), with these new techniques.<\/li>\n<li>Determine key actions to carry out the crime.<\/li>\n<li>Study the economic performance from the geographical impact.<\/li>\n<li>Perform crime analysis in context.<\/li>\n<li>Estimate the impact of criminal conduct<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 176px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Identify financial components.<\/li>\n<li>Articulate monitoring, surveillance, and control entities for the identification of irregular capital flows, such as behaviors associated with money laundering.<\/li>\n<li>Identify economic activities by which illicit transactions permeate and give the appearance of legality.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 124px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Define criminal connections.<\/li>\n<li>Capture and prosecute criminal actors.<\/li>\n<li>Deploy investigative capsules (integration of capacities with other institutions or specialized personnel) in the regions with the highest prevalence of financial operations, related to money laundering<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 135px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Activate lines of social and situational crime prevention.<\/li>\n<li>Determine the effectiveness of the operational process.<\/li>\n<li>Analyze the expansive and sustained capacity of the criminal structures affected in its financial component.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 90px; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #6ba0e1; border-style: solid;\"><strong>Actions in pursuit of finances<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 136px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Reconstruct the criminal system and the sequence of related operations<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 125px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Consolidate an articulation route for detection. Identify people, structures, services, and networks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 84px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Characterize modalities and modus operandi.<\/li>\n<li>Construct alerts for new identified modalities<\/li>\n<li>Deliver the information characterized to the prosecution<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 176px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Formulate strategic financial objectives<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 124px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Establish mirror operational processes of involvement in criminal finances.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 135px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Determine operational balance by resolved investigative processes, accusations, arrests, prison measures, dislocations, administrative measures for asset forfeiture<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 90px; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #6ba0e1; border-style: solid;\"><strong>Actors involved<\/strong><\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 136px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Investigators, judicial expert, and analysts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 125px; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb; border-style: solid;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Investigators, judicial expert, and analysts<\/li>\n<li>Financial Information and Analysis Unit<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 84px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Investigators, judicial expert, and analysts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 176px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Prosecutor, investigators, judicial expert, and analysts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 124px;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Prosecutor, investigators, judicial expert, and analysts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"width: 135px; border-style: solid; border-color: #ffffff; background-color: #eaf1fb;\">\n<ul>\n<li>Prosecutor, investigators, judicial expert, and analysts<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>These activities have been reinforced by the internal instruction to the Criminal Investigation Service to have criminal prosecution units in each political department and capital city with more than 15,000 police officers. The goal is to diminish criminal finances through such actions as confiscation, the demolishment of buildings used for drug sales in urban areas, and the forfeiture of assets. This component is subject to evaluation by investigators and the impact of each operational action programmed with the Attorney General\u2019s Office is assessed.<\/p>\n<p>In this way, important results have been achieved in the pursuit of criminal economies. In the period between 2017 and 2021, the National Police carried out 578 arrests for money laundering. Among those arrested were 517 Colombians, 22 Spaniards, 13 Mexicans, 12 Ecuadorians, 5 Venezuelans, and 9 individuals of other nationalities, demonstrating the global nature of organized crime.<\/p>\n<table class=\"alignright\" style=\"width: 50%; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: #102c4e; border-style: none;\">\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"width: 100%;\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\"><strong><big>IACP RESOURCES<\/big><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u25a0 <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/learn.theiacp.org\/products\/scams-r-us-hsi-efforts-to-combat-global-organized-crime-enterprises-committing-complex-fraud#tab-product_tab_overview\">Scams R Us: HSI Efforts to Combat Global Organized Crime Enterprises Committing Complex Fraud<\/a><\/span> (conference workshop)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">learn.theIACP.org\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u25a0 \u201c<a style=\"color: #ffffff;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/multidisciplinary-environments-power-collaboration\/\"><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Multidisciplinary Environments and the Power of Collaboration<\/span><\/a>\u201d (article)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin-left: .5in; text-indent: -.2in;\"><span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">\u25a0 \u201c<span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><a style=\"color: #ffffff; text-decoration: underline;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/a-regional-approach-on-organized-crime-the-colombia-experience\/\">A Regional Approach on Organized Crime: The Colombia Experience<\/a><\/span>\u201d (article)\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>In the period between 2017 and 2021, the Domain Right Extinction Group has carried out 509 operations, in which 45,935 assets were seized, valued at approximately $6,086 million (USD). These operations included the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>14 operations were executed in 2017, seizing 4,077 assets, commercially valued at $530 million (USD).<\/li>\n<li>179 operations in 2018 resulted in the forfeiture of 5,934 assets, commercially valued at $1,028 million (USD).<\/li>\n<li>180 operations were executed in 2019, seizing 23,293 assets, commercially valued at $1,073 million (USD).<\/li>\n<li>126 operations in 2020 resulted in the forfeiture of 11,519 assets, commercially valued at $3,407 million (USD).<\/li>\n<li>10 operations have been executed in 2021, seizing 1,112 assets commercially valued at $46 million (USD).<sup>8<\/sup><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, Colombia\u2019s president signed a law creating the Fund for Rehabilitation, Social Investment, and Fight against Organized Crime (FRISCO), which receives the assets that are forfeited.<sup>9<\/sup> This law was modified in 2017, setting aside 10 percent of FRISCO\u2019s assets to aid the DIJIN in strengthening its investigative function.<sup>10<\/sup> This represents a significant boost to the fight against criminal finances in Colombia.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Notes:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><sup>1<\/sup>Pablo Chaparro-Narv\u00e1ez et al, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/revistabiomedica.org\/index.php\/biomedica\/article\/view\/2811\/3401\">Mortality from Homicides in Colombia, 1998\u20132021<\/a>,\u201d <em>Biomedica <\/em>36, no. 4 (2016): 572\u2013582.<\/p>\n<p><sup>2<\/sup>Bernard P\u00e9rez Salazar, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/revistas.unimilitar.edu.co\/index.php\/dere\/article\/view\/2532\/2213\">Transnational Criminal Organizations, \u2018Ungoverned Spaces,\u2019 and an Emerging Doctrine<\/a>,\u201d <em>Proleg\u00f3menos<\/em> 10, no. 20 (2007): 17\u201326.<\/p>\n<p><sup>3<\/sup>Unidad de Informaci\u00f3n y An\u00e1lisis Financiero (UIAF), <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uiaf.gov.co\/\"><em>Compendium of AML\/CFT Not<\/em>es<\/a> (UAIF, 2020).<\/p>\n<p><sup>4<\/sup>Luis Edmundo Su\u00e1rez, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.uiaf.gov.co\/\"><em>The Economic Dimension of Money Launderin<\/em>g<\/a> (UAIF, 2017),<\/p>\n<p><sup>5<\/sup>Daniel Mej\u00eda and Daniel Rico, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/repositorio.uniandes.edu.co\/bitstream\/handle\/1992\/41004\/dcede2010-19.pdf?sequence=1&amp;isAllowed=y\">The Microeconomics of Cocaine Production and Trafficking in Colombia<\/a>,\u201d CEDE Documents, no. 19 (Universidada de los Andes, Faculty of Economics, 2010); National Planning Department (DNP), \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230321071532\/https:\/\/www.dnp.gov.co\/Paginas\/Narcomenudeo,-un-lucrativo-negocio-que-mueve-6-billones-de%20pesos%20anuales.aspx\">Drug Dealing, A Lucrative Business That Moves $6 Billion Annually<\/a>,\u201d November 9, 2016.<\/p>\n<p><sup>6<\/sup>Colombian National Police, <em>National System for the Fight against Crime<\/em> (Bogot\u00e1 D.C.: Imprenta Nacional de Colombia, 2017).<\/p>\n<p><sup>7<\/sup>Jorge Miceli, \u201cV<a href=\"https:\/\/revistes.uab.cat\/redes\/article\/view\/v14-n1-miceli\/117-html-es\">alidity Problems in Social Network Analysis: Some Integrative Reflections<\/a>,\u201d <em>Revista Hispana para el An\u00e1lisis de Redes Sociales<\/em> 14, no. 1 (2008): 1-45.<\/p>\n<p><sup>8<\/sup>Statistical, Criminal, Contraventional and Operational Information System of the Colombian National Police (SIEDCO), \u201cJudicialization for Criminal Finances 2017\u20132021,\u201d February 23, 2021.<\/p>\n<p><sup>9<\/sup>Congress of Colombia, Domain Extinction Code, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.alcaldiabogota.gov.co\/sisjur\/normas\/Norma1.jsp?dt=S&amp;i=56475#91\">Law 1708 of 2014<\/a>, <em>Official Gazette, <\/em>No. 49039, January 20, 2014.<\/p>\n<p><sup>10<\/sup>Congress of Colombia, Domain Extinction Code, amended, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.suin-juriscol.gov.co\/viewDocument.asp?id=30032535\">Law 1849 of 2017<\/a>, <em>Official Gazette, <\/em>No. 50299, July 19, 2017.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"pullout pullout--wide alignleft\"> <strong>Diego Le\u00f3n<\/strong> is a major with the Colombian National Police, which is using the disruption of criminal financial systems to hobble or dismantle organized crime groups.<\/aside>\n<p>Please cite as<\/p>\n<p>Diego Le\u00f3n, \u201cThe Economic Dimension of Crime: Disruption of Criminal Finances by the Judicial Police and Intelligence Directorate of the Colombian National Police,\u201d <em>Police Chief<\/em> 88, no. 6 (June 2021): 50\u201354.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During the last few decades, Colombia has experienced significant changes in terms of security and freedom.\u00a0These transformations have led to a transition in the social and political perspective of the concept of public safety and the strategies, tactics, and tools necessary for its attainment. For example, Colombia has made progress in protecting life, with the homicide rate of 77 per 100,000 population in 2002 dropping to fewer than 24 in 2020. In addition, Colombia dismantled many major criminal drug trafficking structures, leading to the capture of cartel leaders and the prosecution of the financial crime systems, allowing the police to shift their focus away from threats to national security toward other more urban issues and their interconnected dynamics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4042,"featured_media":63155,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[134,126],"tags":[1735,1873,1874,459],"class_list":["post-63154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-policing","category-topics","tag-colombia","tag-colombian-national-police","tag-criminal-organizations","tag-money-laundering"],"acf":{"subtitle":"Disruption of Criminal Finances by the Judicial Police and Intelligence Directorate of the Colombian National Police","post_author":"Diego Le\u00f3n, Major, Colombian National Police","main_category":"Global Policing","legacy_article_id":"","legacy_issue_id":""},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.4 (Yoast SEO v24.6) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Economic Dimension of Crime - Police Chief Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.policechiefmagazine.org\/the-economic-dimension-of-crime\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Economic Dimension of Crime\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"During the last few decades, Colombia has experienced significant changes in terms of security and freedom.\u00a0These transformations have led to a transition in the social and political perspective of the concept of public safety and the strategies, tactics, and tools necessary for its attainment. For example, Colombia has made progress in protecting life, with the homicide rate of 77 per 100,000 population in 2002 dropping to fewer than 24 in 2020. 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