Økonomisk Kriminalitet Nordiske Perspektiver - Scandinavian ...

they want. The salesman calls when it is time. New booze is introduced to
costumers who love exotic bottles from abroad. Importers and salesmen have their
seasons just as legitimate businessmen have theirs, like Christmas, New Year’s Eve,
Midsummer Night, summer holidays or festivals. The Winter Olympic Games in
Lillehammer in 1994 was a boom for business, legitimate as well as illegitimate.
Big medals were won and some big money was made that February. But what
about the consequences for the business and the market when criminals are
stealing alcohol at gun point? Violence and theft are bad for business. The
customers do not get what they have asked for. Wholesalers who have got alcohol
by credit face trouble with the creditors. Partners start suspecting each other; who
is in alliance with the enemy? Such consequences may seem peculiar for an
illegitimate market since the victims can not engage the legal system, but legitimate
businessmen are victimised too, by burglars or insiders who are in league with
criminal networks.
The amount and intensity of police - and customs control makes a huge difference
too. Offensive investigation, by competent investigators, infiltrators and informers -
when the police have political backing and extra resources - is very disruptive for
the market. Isolation in custody may be very traumatic for entrepreneurs who have
worked in peace for years, and never been to a police station or courtroom before.
“The headlines in the local newspaper were the worst part of it,” tells a wholesaler
about the custody. He is a respectable member of several clubs in his local
community. Smugglers take a break, or go undercover themselves almost like a
resistance movement. Those who are caught start accusing each other. The
customers do not meet the salesmen any more. They are told, in a rather
conspiratorial way, where to park theirs cars with the key on the left front wheel
and money in the glove box, instead. Then they have to wait while the car is
loaded by some unknown people in an unknown garage or factory, and driven
back to them in an hour or so. Some customers find it exiting. More of them shy
away. “It really scared me off,” one of them comments.
The 50 cannabis plantations that were seized by the Norwegian police in 2007-
2008, were both peculiar and “lookalikes”, seen from a business point of view. The
investors, organizers, instructors and gardeners, except an assistant from Eastern
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