Project Ciel is based on a small drug-importation network that was importing liquid hashish from Jamaica to Montreal. This network was targeted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Montreal Police from May 1996 to June 1997, with the main target of the investigation being the 'organizational leader'. Other key targets include the leader's 'lieutenant', and lower level mid-management individuals. The investigation produced three separate seizures, with two taking place at Mirabel airport near Montreal and another occurring at Sangster airport in Jamaica. Using law enforcement data, primarily collected through electronic and physical surveillance records, Carlo Morselli, author of the book Inside Criminal Networks, evaluated the network using popular centrality measures to identify and understand how this dark network was centered around key participants. The Ciel network was identified as being a tightly controlled organization with a relatively traditional hierarchy structure, with the ring leader distancing themself from the operation, delegating day-to-day operations to a 'lieutenant' who controlled lower level drug mules. Morselli primarily uses centralization and centrality measures (in particular, degree centrality and betweenness centrality) to explain the role of indirect and direct centrality to a network, and it's correlation to operational vulnerability and the desire to mitigate risks within the organization even when not directly involved with the actions of subordinate members of the group.
Project Ciel is based on a small drug-importation network that was importing liquid hashish from Jamaica to Montreal. This network was targeted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Montreal Police from May 1996 to June 1997, with the main target of the investigation being the 'organizational leader'. Other key targets include the leader's 'lieutenant', and lower level mid-management individuals. The investigation produced three separate seizures, with two taking place at Mirabel airport near Montreal and another occurring at Sangster airport in Jamaica. Using law enforcement data, primarily collected through electronic and physical surveillance records, Carlo Morselli, author of the book Inside Criminal Networks, evaluated the network using popular centrality measures to identify and understand how this dark network was centered around key participants. The Ciel network was identified as being a tightly controlled organization with a relatively traditional hierarchy structure, with the ring leader distancing themself from the operation, delegating day-to-day operations to a 'lieutenant' who controlled lower level drug mules. Morselli primarily uses centralization and centrality measures (in particular, degree centrality and betweenness centrality) to explain the role of indirect and direct centrality to a network, and it's correlation to operational vulnerability and the desire to mitigate risks within the organization even when not directly involved with the actions of subordinate members of the group.
Morselli's Project Siren data set encompasses actors embedded in an illicit network for the stolen-vehicle exportation (or ringing) operations. The data was obtained within a larger investigative setting between 1993 and 2005 under Project CERVO. As Morselli (2009) points out 'The main objective of this task force was to monitor and control the exportation of stolen luxury vehicles from the Port of Montreal. Shipments associated with Siren were tracked to Ghana, Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, and Switzerland. In total, 35 cars were retrieved. Cooperation between law-enforcement and border/insurance agencies was the unique feature, with the latter supplying documents from maritime shipping companies that contained information on suspect cargo and the identities of individuals or enterprises involved in their transportation. The data presented here was reconstructed from Morselli's book by researchers and maintainers of the UCINET Software site (https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware). However, the author provides an in detail description of his data collection process on his 2000 book Inside Criminal Networks. Morselli used degree centrality and betweenness centrality to determine brokerage qualifications in the Siren network when applied to ringing operations by examining the network by removing specific participants over different permutations. The ultimate goal was to find how broker extraction would disrupt the network and crime-commission process.
Morselli's Project Siren data set encompasses actors embedded in an illicit network for the stolen-vehicle exportation (or ringing) operations. The data was obtained within a larger investigative setting between 1993 and 2005 under Project CERVO. As Morselli (2009) points out 'The main objective of this task force was to monitor and control the exportation of stolen luxury vehicles from the Port of Montreal. Shipments associated with Siren were tracked to Ghana, Russia, Egypt, Iraq, Italy, and Switzerland. In total, 35 cars were retrieved. Cooperation between law-enforcement and border/insurance agencies was the unique feature, with the latter supplying documents from maritime shipping companies that contained information on suspect cargo and the identities of individuals or enterprises involved in their transportation. The data presented here was reconstructed from Morselli's book by researchers and maintainers of the UCINET Software site (https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware). However, the author provides an in detail description of his data collection process on his 2000 book Inside Criminal Networks. Morselli used degree centrality and betweenness centrality to determine brokerage qualifications in the Siren network when applied to ringing operations by examining the network by removing specific participants over different permutations. The ultimate goal was to find how broker extraction would disrupt the network and crime-commission process.