ABSTRACT
But what exactly is the nature of this threat? To a large extent, transnational criminal enterprise involves some form of smuggling, defined by my dictionary simply as the practice of bringing in or taking out illicitly or by stealth.6 Of course, criminal groups engage in many other illegal activities (extortion, fraud, theft, and so on), but the crossborder dimension of their business largely involves smuggling in one form or another. The following analysis highlights the paradoxical, double-edged, and even interdependent relationship between the business of smuggling and the business of trying to thwart it.7
