Terrorism or Organized Crime
Niall Shannon CISSP, M.ISRM, FCMI
Security | Operational | Project | Technical Management
Disclaimer
This document has been produced by Niall Shannon, a Security Professional as a personal document and as such any views or comments contained within are of a personal opinion and in no way reflect the thoughts, Policies, or views of any company, or Governmental body that I may have been affiliated with.
This document was intended for the use and reading pleasure of Security Professionals.
The author would be happy to discuss any of the points raised herein at any time, with any person - in relation to education or further discussion.
Any part of this document which may be of use can be copied and used in an educational setting using the appropriate reference.
Terrorism / Organised Crime
The greatest threat to our democratic society and the lives of our citizens, at this present time in Northern Ireland is, as it has been for over forty years, the presence of Paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. This can be seen ever more evidently in the political stalemate that we have in our Political Process with the continuation of Brexit and the growing calls for a referendum on Irish Unity.
I, personally, do not believe that the minority should control the majority in the way that they are, i.e. because of the actions of a few the will of the majority is hindered. When we look at the most recent period of conflict in our country it has created bitterness and hatred, culminating in distrust and dishonesty from every quarter of society. We as a democratic and civilised society can never fully understand what drives people to attempt to destabilise our duly elected officials in their work and bring us back into a conflict that we no longer want or which we are willing to accept.
Definition of Terrorism: The unofficial or unauthorized use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims (supplied by Oxford English Dictionary)
This definition could certainly have been applied to all of the derivatives of so called “Paramilitary” organizations in Northern Ireland on either side of the divide throughout the last period of unrest.
Today, in my opinion, these organizations have no mandate or political aim to pursue therefore they have become no more than Organized Crime Gangs, whom are making money illegally through intimidation using the cover of Paramilitary/Terrorist affiliation.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland without doubt have become a service which has set out to become an all inclusive service for the people of Northern Ireland, and I am glad to say in my own experience of serving within the PSNI, this is being achieved, with more people calling and trusting Police, less turning to these criminal organizations to try and solve their problems, but unfortunately these organizations still exist, creating fear, intimidating people and attempting to kill or maim Police Officers, Prison Warders and more recently threatening the lives of Journalists, for their own financial gain and to garnish support from individuals who see themselves as unwanted or outcasts to “normal” society.
The PSNI as a public service are not immune to the financial constraints of and cuts that are being imposed upon it, with less than 7,000 officers now in service and more retiring year on year that are not being replaced due to these financial barriers. This has a bearing on the ability of frontline uniformed officers to try and deal with the organised crime gangs at a street level, with less time being afforded to proactive Police work due to the pressures of the reactive work of these same officers. This is further exasperated by other Public Services reliance on the Police Service to help manage their risk, with their clientele.
Traditionally the favoured ways of making money for these gangs would be things such as: extortion, protection money, security, counterfeit goods, drugs and fraud. If we look at each of these “fundraising” activities individually, we as a Society may be able to evaluate threat and be able to pass appropriate information and intelligence to the Police service to assist in combating these gangs. (There are various ways of doing this anonymously)
Extortion: The practice of obtaining something, especially money, through force or threats:
We all know that this was a common practice throughout our past, especially within the construction trade, possibly even with men put into place on the building site as apprentices or labourers collecting money at the end of the week as if collecting wages. This is a process which has to stop it feeds the organizations and raises prices for law abiding citizens in their future purchases.
Protection: The practice of paying money to criminals so as to prevent them from attacking oneself or one’s property:
This seemed to affect every business in Northern Ireland at some point or another and was highly prevalent again within the construction industry with some companies having to pay possibly two or three gangs per building site to ensure that their equipment and workforce were safe onsite. This form of gaining money is still in use in Northern Ireland especially in areas whereby, one denomination is in a majority or in areas where a paramilitary organization is trying to exert control.
Security: The state of being free from danger or threat:
This has taken many forms with the majority being now in Small localised Security Service Companies. Man-Guarding personnel standing on a door/building site or any other premise that requires man guards to line their own pockets whereas the people who are at the top of these small organizations are funnelling money to illegal organizations and also into their own pockets. Some of these companies may be running as legitimate companies, with the only real way to tell is by some creative accounting. Forensic Accountants would be able to analyse what overheads these companies have legitimately and what looks out of the ordinary, (Men claiming money from the state prefer to be paid in cash) are there high cash payments going out or high cash transactions on the company account. Also within this a legitimate Security Guard has to be licensed by the Security Industry Authority (SIA), who as a public body would be able to provide details through inter-agency agreements which would not fall under GDPR as they refer to national security. The people on the door are through my own experience lower level or enforcers within crime gangs.
Counterfeit Goods: Made in exact imitation of something valuable with the intention to deceive or defraud:
The main majority of counterfeit that we see from criminal gangs is in the genre of multimedia i.e. DVD, Games or Musical CD. These genres are sold through markets and bars but more recently being controlled by sharing sites on the internet where persons do not pay for the downloading of the DVD, Game or Musical CD, but the site is paid legitimately by advertising agents for the displaying of company logos and advertising. These forms of counterfeit are worth in excess of $1 billion worldwide. How much of this goes unnoticed or untapped in Northern Ireland is unknown to the author at this time, although a recent case in L’Derry estimated that the web author for a sharing site had garnished an income of in excess of ￡82,000 and defrauded the industry out of several million pounds. If the crime organizations have tapped into this form of industry several departments within the Police Service and other agencies would be required to fully investigate.
Other forms of counterfeit can be harder to spot and detect by the “man on the street” if they are being sold through legitimate shop fronts at a price they would normally expect to pay. Cigarettes and Diesel fuel being two of the largest culprits were by legitimate shop owners can either be forced, duped, coerced, or indeed see a way to maximise profit and defraud HMRC.
Drugs: A medicine or other substance which has a physiological effect when ingested or otherwise introduced into the body:
Drugs, prescription, illegal and those not yet categorised could quite possibly be the biggest money revenue maker for all criminal gangs within the island of Ireland. Drugs are being shipped in large quantities from countries in Asia that are in blister packs made to look like authorised prescription drugs. These types of drugs are easily bought on the internet.
Cannabis is being home grown in smaller quantities around the whole of the island and supplied in dealer bags, in nearly every town and village. Other drugs such as cocaine and heroin are coming into the country and being shipped around by car, bus or HGV transport. These shipments are arriving into the country mainly from the form of sea going vessels, and without proper legislation and control the flow of the drugs cannot be stopped. There are eight main ports in Northern Ireland (5 Commercial and 3 Fishing), and there are over thirty ports in the Republic of Ireland. At this point neither government would be capable of challenging the full stem of these routes for the drug trade due to budgetary constraints, lack of political will, and cross border co-operation/inter agency team that would be required within the already stretched Law Enforcement Agencies both sides of the border.
Although these crime gangs are operating both sides of the border the best that the Police Services (An Garda Siochana and the PSNI) can hope to achieve in combating them at this moment in time is at a street level, and at small Cannabis factories. This of course would have to be intelligence led either from on street dealers and users or through the use of Police and Intelligence resources both sides of the border. This may be made more difficult with the introduction of Brexit and the UK no longer able to avail of European Arrest Warrants although we are told that expedited extradition processes have been arranged.
Fraud: A person or thing intended to deceive others, typically by unjustifiably claiming or being credited with accomplishments or qualities:
Organized Crime Gangs have many ways of defrauding the system, getting both government money and our hard-earned cash. This could be as we have already touched on by the sale of counterfeit goods and passing them off as genuine articles, defrauding the government through benefits scams, or by defrauding HMRC by the sale of illegal fuel, or unsuspecting companies by the use of illegal dumping sites. All of these ways are putting cash in the hands of criminals to fund their activities and their lifestyles. Unfortunately, all need separate resources to try and combat these different types of fraud.
So how can we go about trying to defeat and bring these gangs before the courts with real and meaningful charges in a way that the sentencing is also real/meaningful and above all create a deterrent for anyone who may want to fill the void of the person being prosecuted.
To do this I believe that the Police Service and the Public Prosecution Service requires to take an individual and to put each offence that can be proved, to them in one interview culminating in one case file, with each and every offence listed. These offences may be coupled with prosecutions from Jobs and Benefits, HMRC, Environment Agency and any other interested partner agencies.
All of these agencies have their own fraud and investigative departments which sometimes get “protective” of the information that they have and the sharing of information between the agencies can be restrictive based on their own interpretations of the Data Protection Act 1998, the associated 2003 amendments, and the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). As interested government agencies they should all want the same thing, to see a person or persons associated with crime duly prosecuted for indiscretions which warrant such sanctions.
For a Police Service this is difficult to do as they have many different departments, possibly all looking at the same people, building separate cases and an overall intelligence picture. My belief is that a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) should be appointed focusing on a select list of individuals that could be seen as a hierarchy of Paramilitary or Organised Crime Activity.
The person within this role would have to forge relationships with all Partner Agencies and also with various departments within the Police Service, culminating in an overall intelligence picture and ultimately a large case file which would see all offences tried at the same time for maximum effect within the courts and hopefully for maximum sentences. It may be that by freeing the Police service from some of its current restraints based upon historical rank structures that the service may actually be able to save in terms of budgetary constraints and deliver a service on the frontline more efficiently.
The choice of wording in media outlets within Northern Ireland have led us to believe that these Paramilitary Organizations are classified as Terrorists. It is my belief that this is no longer the case and our language should change on a psychological level with all interactions from the Police Service to the media calling these groups organized crime gangs. This language has started to be adopted I have noted with some but not all of the newer “middle management” team within the Service. By changing the language the Service and Media use we are taking away these organisations credibility within their communities and exposing them as criminal gangs as opposed to terrorists with a political agenda.
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4 年Excellent article and very well written certainly an eye opener!