The Nature of Organized Crime Leadership: Predicting Leaders through Meeting Networks

• In Event: Mafia and Organized Crime: Leadership, Recruitment, and Facilitators

Abstract

Organized crime leaders are careful in balancing efficiency and security. Whereas leaders refrain from telephone calls to reduce exposure, they can hardly avoid meetings. Meetings may thus provide important insight into leadership in criminal networks.
The paper analyzes the participation of criminals in two types of events: meetings and telephone calls. It focuses on four large investigations targeting distinct organized crime groups. For each investigation, Firth’s logistic regressions predict leadership roles through centrality measures in meetings and wiretaps.
Results show that meetings capture leaders’ behaviors better than wiretaps. Predictions are 4-11 times better than a random selection. Betweenness centrality is always the strongest predictor of leadership.

Authors

• Francesco Calderoni, Università Cattolica - Transcrime

• Elisa Superchi, Università Cattolica - Transcrime