Organised Crime & Crime Prevention - what works? - Scandinavian ...

NSfK’s 40. forskerseminar, Espoo, Finland 1998
These criteria were included into a short questionnaire distributed to the Estonian Police
Board and Security Police in April 1998. At the moment I have responses from the Security
Police, but am still waiting for responses from the Police Board. The Security Police reported
data about 9 criminal groups. Each group satisfies all criteria listed above.7 For details I also
used information from the PC-CO questionnaire completed by Security Police and the Police
department.
In addition to the information obtained from the interviews, it could be said that two thirds of
the reported groups are associated either with the Estonian capital Tallinn or its
neighbourhood. However, groups are operating on a regional, a national (Estonian), as well as
an international level (mostly in Russia). International links usually include Russia. One of
the groups co-operates with group(s) from Scandinavia, and the Chechens' group has
relationships with their compatriots in other countries. The groups also have relationships
with each other.
The groups reported in the survey have been operated on a long-term basis. The "oldest" for
10, the "youngest" for at least 4 years.
According to the survey results each groups contains at least 10 members. It is quite possible
that due to the specifics of their tasks the Security Police are not dealing with smaller groups.
The biggest group reported incorporates more than 100 members. The size of four groups
could be estimated as 10 to 20 individuals; another 4 groups are bigger, with 30 to 50
members. The Security Police notify that groups with more than 10 members have a
hierarchical structure with a "leader", and "inspectors" on specific types of crime. On the
lower level there are small groups of 3-4 persons, one of whom is "responsible".
The questionnaire contained questions about the ethnic composition of the groups. Two of
nine groups are ethnically homogeneous. Those are Estonians and Chechens. The other
groups have members of different ethnic origins. The Security Police estimates the proportion
of non-Estonians in criminals to be 75%.
7 When looking through the report made on the basis of the questionnaire, Security Police commented these data.
They added that there are more than 9 criminal groups in Estonia. 3 of 9 groups do not exist any more thanks to
the Security Police effort.
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