UNITED NATIONS
Economic and Social Council
Distr.
GENERAL
E/CN.15/1996/2
4 April 1996
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH

COMMISSION ON CRIME PREVENTION AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

Fifth session

Vienna, 21-31 May 1996

Item 3 of the provisional agenda [*E/CN.15/1996/1.]
V.96-82119T

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13. Western Europe, for example, has become the focus of much criminal activity, as a lucrative market, as the destination of illegal migrants, as a source of luxury cars that are stolen and exported to other countries, as a battleground for rival organizations and as an attractive locale for extortion and for the infiltration of legitimate business, leading some observers to refer to a "common market of crime". [Note 1: See Christopher J. Ulrich, The Price of Freedom: The Criminal Threat in Russia, Eastern Europe, and the Baltic Region (London, Institute for Conflict Studies, 1995).] This is clear from the detailed information provided by Austria, which summarized the main trends of organized crime in that country. Its most salient feature is the diversity of groups from countries in eastern and south-eastern Europe, as well as Turkey, that are operating in the country. Criminals from Albania and Yugoslavia and its former republics are particularly active. Moreover, their links with politicians and army leaders in their home countries give them a high degree of impunity. For example, for the activities of some of the ethnic Albanian criminals who have settled in Austria, the control centre is in the Kosovo area in Yugoslavia. Drug trafficking, prostitution, arms trafficking and crimes against property are their major activities.

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