The Mobility of East and Central European Organized Crime: The Cases of Lithuania, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania

In this article, an analysis is made of the socio-economic and political conditions that led to the rise to prominence of organized crime groups in four East and Central European countries, namely Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Lithuania. These four countries have undergone the transition from socialism to the capitalist market system and benefited from the expansion of the EU, the two processes, which have enabled and facilitated the rise and easy mobility of organized crime, as well as the emergence of new forms of cross-border crime. Structural changes in the setup of criminal organisations, from the ‘old-style’ strictly hierarchical organisations of the 1990s to the present-day multiple flexible criminal networks, have enabled a new generation of criminals to expand their areas of influence and develop new criminal markets and products abroad. The ease with which criminal organisations from different countries appear to be able to connect and collaborate with each other has further facilitated the increase in cross-border activities by these groups.