Tapeworm wrote:
KWalker wrote:
...I studied transnational organized crime in graduate school and its very rare that a public figure, such as an athlete, would engage in illicit activities and not take extreme precautions to cover ther tracks...
Good thing you *studied* that. Reality says different. Watch the fallout from the Australian Crime Commission regarding doping in sport in relation to how un-organised these people are.
Weird, because they used organized criminal groups to obtain the drugs. And they had systems in place for correlating usage of products to a strict training and competition schedule. Payments went through methods that were selected for being hard to trace and/or used informal cover up methods. In cycling's case, establishing fake companies to sell image rights as a cover up is pretty damn organized and advanced. Using code names, making secret trips, and operating in a way that emphasized avoiding detection is pretty common in organized criminal activity. In fact, the basic attempt to premeditate, plan, and carry out illegal activities satisfies the very definition of "organization" in its application to crime. Organized crime relies on the creation of parallel and sometimes covert systems in order to shade illicit activity and all of these athletes/criminals did just that. The fact that they weren't the best at it and slipped up does not mean they did not attempt to operate outside of the existing legal, regulatory, and corresponding social frameworks.
Here's the FBI's definition: "The FBI defines organized crime as any group having some manner of a formalized structure and whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities. Such groups maintain their position through the use of actual or threatened violence, corrupt public officials, graft, or extortion, and generally have a significant impact on the people in their locales, region, or the country as a whole." source:
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate ... e/glossaryFormalized structure- check
Obtaining money through illegal activity- check
Use of corrupt public officials- I guess we will see on this one, but in the case of LA its been heavily implicated.
Significant impact- check
Man, CNN must be wrong too:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/02/07/sport/aus ... -reaction/Is your sole purpose to come off as a complete ass if I post anything? Or are there random pub med links you can pull that will refute any useful information I can add to this topic given that its my background, profession, and something I gained expertise in after years of studying/conducting research at a very high level?
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