Xavier Raufer is a criminologist and associate professor in the criminal science research departments at Fu Dan University (Shanghai) and George Mason University (Washington DC). He is director of studies at Cnam, in the security-defense/criminology department. He is also the author of numerous works devoted to crime and terrorism including
Le Crime globalisé
(Ed. du Cerf, 2019).
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FIGAROVOX. - At the end of January, the Marseille prosecutor announced the dismantling of an international arms sales and manufacturing network using 3D printers. Is this phenomenon of uberization of arms trafficking new?
Xavier RAUFER. -
It is nothing new in any way.
This phenomenon has already existed for at least five years elsewhere, notably in the United States, where it is widely publicized.
However, in a society of immediate information, what emerges, say, in California one day, circulates quickly around the planet.
France included, because we do not live under cover.
Next, criminologists teach about
the “displacement effect”
that governs all activity in the criminal world.
Criminals never directly oppose the State and always move in time or space.
If the police start confiscating Kalashnikovs, they will look for weapons elsewhere or otherwise.
Third certainty: criminals are pure parasites of society.
And time and again, new technologies always allow ingenious illicit applications - 3D printers included.
When I tell you that this is not recent: around 1860, more than 160 years ago, in volume IV of
Capital
, Karl Marx funnyly depicts the beneficial influence of locksmithing on the evolution of the burglar's "profession". .
Do you think that the slowness of justice - affecting the preservation of public security - coupled with this uberization can lead to an increase in violence?
Slowness of justice, no.
This must avoid the hasty because it judges complex human beings.
So she has to take her time.
It is more the slowness of repressive authorities in general that is to blame.
There is a real slowness in detecting a new type of crime (or weapon) which emerges and which must then begin to be targeted.
Furthermore, the violence of the illicit world depends little on the sophistication of the weapons available, but depends on its own logic.
Let us remember: every criminal is an outlaw;
therefore, deprived of any recourse to the said law.
A bandit cannot sue the boss of his gang in the industrial tribunal, nor can he sue the rival gang for unfair competition.
In this environment, scores are always settled by intimidation, lynching or assassination.
If there are sophisticated weapons for killing, that's better - otherwise, a simple knife will do.
Should we fear the development of this uberization of arms trafficking, facilitated by platforms like Vinted – initially intended for sales of clothing between individuals? What preventive measures can be put in place?
The criminal world does not want to break sophistication records or win
high-tech
prizes .
Within it, we find crude, cunning and greedy individuals wanting to earn as much money as possible as quickly as possible.
Better than anyone, they know that, for them (49 assassinations in Marseille in 2023...) life is often short.
As a bonus, prison of course.
So the logic is: as much as possible, right away.
The community has always had three powerful weapons: corruption, intimidation and violence.
Xavier Raufer
In addition, their surrounding world is very dangerous.
But man does not invent under threat of death.
On the contrary, it uses proven reflexes and known methods to survive.
In this case, if he has to bribe or intimidate technicians who can provide, and quickly, the means to spy on rivals, pillage or kill them, that's good.
The bosses of these gangs are not innovators: they expose a problem, we sell them the means to solve it, that's all.
The community has always had three powerful weapons: corruption, intimidation (
“we know where your children go to school”
), and violence.
This is his framework of thought.
Whether it's necessary to go through this platform or another to accumulate millions doesn't worry him much.
Now, that sites, innocent or complicit, sell weapons surreptitiously, or drugs, or prostitute minors, only illustrates what criminologists have long denounced: the Internet, the Web, is the world of automobiles, but without the Highway Code.
Therefore, why should we be surprised by its illicit dimension, or by the anarchy that reigns there?
Are law enforcement sufficiently trained in cybercrime and are they prepared to fight against this new form of delinquency?
The state apparatus thinks it is young and modern by using improper terms, such as "network" to designate gangs, or else gives in to the superficial by seeing cybercrime, where there is quite simply crime.
The framework for everything discussed here is organized crime.
We know perfectly well - or we should know - what it is: three or more individuals, stability over time, sharing of functions and loot.
This Penal Code contains all the texts useful for punishing these offenses.
For example, whether in the physical or digital world, the aggravating circumstance
“in an organized gang”
is fully valid.
To combat this phenomenon, what do you recommend?
The French state apparatus is the oldest in Europe - with the exception of the Vatican.
It has existed continuously for at least eight centuries!
Robust, it is however slow.
As mentioned previously, it stumbles over new problems - whatever they may be.
Remember the human disaster of the first heatwave.
Our recent Ministers of the Interior often evoke Clemenceau - without imitating him: at the beginning of the 20th century
,
when the criminal world launched into car robberies, it created the Tiger Brigades and thus restored order.
We live in a society of the immediate – everything is known, copied, instantly.
No sooner does ISIS decapitate its victims in front of the camera than the Mexican cartels, fascinated by the spectacle, do the same.
Now, an example of the slowness of our sovereign authorities: for more than ten years, gangs in out-of-control neighborhoods have fired fireworks at the police.
However, around Christmas 2023, in Strasbourg, a fine sleuth realizes that few factories manufacture these mortars, all in Germany: on the Kehl bridge, it is enough to search the coffers of individuals already spotted to confiscate many of these mortars.
Ten years or more for a reaction of pure common sense, quickly applicable according to the method we recommend, early detection.
The same goes for 3D machines used to make weapons or other things;
they do not fall from the sky.
Who buys them?
And how many of these buyers are aware of special services?
At this crossroads, for sure, 90% of amateur gunsmiths, present or future.
Why wait until 2040 to act, or for a tragedy to happen tomorrow?