Is the IT-Induced Re-Configuration of Organised Crime in Westminster by New York and West Coast Mafias a Category Mistake? How Can Legislation Be Enhanced for Successful Prosecution?

This submission is based upon the attempts by a group of New York and West Coast mafia families to re-form in Westminster in the period 2000 to 2019 and explains their activities as a ‘syndicate- as- business model.' An integrated information technology and communications' platform, the ‘Westminster Platform' is used to transplant criminal personnel, processes and investments from US and connect and embed them with local Westminster criminal groups. The platform integrates the use of GPS and convoys of cars with CCTV ‘war rooms’ for drugs distribution in local environments. It locates and tracks extortion victims for consistent harassment. A grid contextualizes and explains degrees of the technical transformation of crime in Westminster against the range of potential criminal benefits that are supplied by this platform. Five levels of IT-induced reconfiguration are recognized to understand the transformative scope of this revolutionary strand of organized crime: 1. Localized exploitation 2. Internal Integration 3. Criminal Process Design 4. Criminal Network Design 5. Redefinition of the scope of a criminal syndicate. A key question is whether the design of this ‘syndicate-as-business’ model is implicitly flawed because this integration and centralization of a range of crimes across all groups operating from a common platform is a category mistake. A category mistake suggests that criminal businesses are not effectively designed as licit businesses in plain sight based upon integrated business models. Crimes are best handled in isolation enacted by ring-fenced perpetrators. Furthermore, how can existing legislation ascribe mens rea to the embedded principal perpetrators who seek protection by using technology hubs to orchestrate crime whilst shielding their criminal intent? Are syndicates as integrated business models more susceptible to prosecution because of joined-up technical participation? Three current and available legal responses are discussed as methods to prosecute the transformed and participative scope of this transplant as a ‘genuine legal reality’ (McGuire 2012); 1) Use of Section 32, Police Act 1964, 2) Criminal Finances Act 2018- Unexplained Wealth Orders, and 3) Serious Crime Act 2015 However, new legislation is required that can capture the technological modeling of real-time components of the transplanted syndicate (revolutionary processes of network redesign,) such as the integrated use of GPS and convoys of cars and the control of CCTV ‘war rooms.' An ideal and specialist piece of legislation is proposed, an enhanced RICO style Act (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations)- that responds to integrated technical communication as a ‘joint technomic exercise.' The radical and specialist nature of this potential legislation allows time values to be recorded and used for successful prosecution. It remains an open question as to whether the US-based designers of the Westminster platform have made a category mistake in using a syndicate as business model for effective participation in UK crime. Tony Lock MA (Oxon) MBA (IT&M Cass) CPK (500 words) 17 minutes duration © Tony Lock 2019