ORGANISED CRIME: UNDERGROUND ECONOMY AND REGULATIONS TO COMBAT CYBERCRIME

Abstract

Criminal organizations, with the advent of new information technologies, have found additional ways and spaces through which to commit crimes, especially in online hidden markets and through new means of laundering illicit proceeds. The opening of these new illegal markets has helped to increase the capital of criminal organizations which, if spread and rooted in the territory, can influence the various spheres of politics and decision-making processes of an entire country. Despite the seriousness of the threat, organised crime is not sufficiently understood. Although regulatory interventions and actions to prevent and combat cybercrimes perpetrated by organised crime have been implemented, through the international collaboration of the police forces with the various investigative agencies, the individual states intend to maintain full sovereignty in the area of criminal justice; all this leads to a lack of uniformity between both national and European institutions in the area of organized crime, while adequate regulation is still lacking in the dark web. In the light of the exponential increase in online criminal activity in recent years and even 25% between the first and second quarter of 2020 due to the coronavirus emergency, it is therefore essential that the individual Member States put aside uncertainties, exploiting the European Union as a fulcrum in the fight against transnational organised crime. A common solution would be to criminalize access to some areas of the Onion Routing, integrate the provisions of the article 416 of the Penal Code to apply them also to the digital context and establish the crime of mafia-type criminal association in the European legislative landscape as explained in article 416-bis of the Italian Penal Code.