ABSTRACT
This empirical chapter adopts an entrepreneurial approach, drawing from Passas's Global Anomie Theory and ‘partnership model’ approach ( Haller, 1990 ; Passas and Nelken, 1993 ) to organised crime to investigate Italian and Russian organised crime mobility abroad and their infiltration into the UK real estate sector. This analysis chapter explains why Italian and Russian organised criminals go abroad, offering insight into their choices to invest in the UK real estate market and the availability of criminal opportunities in this sector which affect the degree of vulnerability of the UK economy to their infiltration. For instance, the data shows that Italian and Russian organised crime groups adopt flexible business modus operandi abroad such as in the UK real estate market without using extensive violent methods and mafia traits, as compared to their mode of operation in their homeland. The London real estate market emerges as a typical and important example of how the cross-border activities of Italian and Russian organised crime groups and their business strategies can be driven by the presence of structural disjunctions, mismatches, and inequalities in socio-legal, political and economic areas, which increase the degree of vulnerability of this sector.
