RAND_MR1382

from the world of business, government, and law enforcement. Where the extenders are
successful, the network will have access to the portals of the licit world discussed above.
Among the tactics that extenders typically use are voluntary recruitment through bribery
and corruption and involuntary recruitment through coercion, sometimes leavened by
the addition of rewards or inducements. Their targets typically include important and
powerful politicians who can provide a high degree of protection, bureaucrats in
particularly sensitive or pivotal positions, and financial managers who provide access to
legitimate financial institutions.
Monitors. Those who ensure the effectiveness of the network and whose responsibilities
include reporting weaknesses and problems to the core organizers, who can then initiate
remedial action. These network members are particularly crucial in ensuring
implementation and providing guidance on appropriate corrective measures where
necessary. They ensure that the network is able to adjust to new circumstances and
maintain the high degree of flexibility that is critical to the capacity to circumvent law
enforcement.
Crossovers. People who have been recruited into a criminal network but who continue to
operate in legal institutions, whether governmental, financial, or commercial. Such
people not only meet Burt’s test of nonredundant contacts, but by operating in a
different sphere from most of the network, they are able to provide invaluable
information and protection.
These roles appear widely across criminal networks, regardless of their particular
specialties. There are, however, other more specific roles that also have to be filled.
Drug trafficking networks, for example, require chemists to oversee the processing of
raw materials into finished products. Although such individuals are critical to the
productive capacity of the network, their network role might be very limited. Detailed
case studies of networks, of course, require the delineation of both general network roles
and specific functional roles. The main purpose of the foregoing analysis here, though,
is to illuminate the general functions and structures of networks.
CRIMINAL NETWORKS IN ACTION
Criminal networks are characterized by diversity in composition, density of connections,
size, structure, shape, underlying bonding mechanisms, degree of sophistication, and
scope of activities. This section briefly examines several criminal networks that were
either transnational in scope or were the localized components of a transnational
network.
The Spence Money Laundering Network
In one case, a money laundering network in New York that was not very sophisticated
succeeded in laundering over $70 million for Colombian drug traffickers. The network