ABSTRACT
As with many other forms of transnational crime, TEC challenges conventional assumptions that criminal activity is managed through hierarchical cartels and mafia-type organizations. Rather, those engaged in this clandestine sphere rely on the operational advantages offered by network structures: that they are flexible, decentralized, and “highly resistant to decapitation and more difficult to contain” (Williams 2001: 73). Much of that involves commodity-specific smuggling networks but it also includes criminal groups involved in other forms of illegal activity and, in some cases, politically motivated organizations such as militia groups for whom TEC generates income to support other activities. For example, timber that is illegally logged in the Congo Basin, often with militia involvement, is transported to Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda, then exported to the EU, the Middle East, China, and other Asian countries with support from financiers in the US (Nellerman 2012: 6).
