Staff from RegNet’s CEPS team have been awarded a prestigious ARC Linkage Grant for a collaborative research project between The Australian National University and the Australian Federal Police (AFP).

The ANU research team, led by Professor Rod Broadhurst, includes Dr Sandy Gordon, Dr Grant Wardlaw, Ms Julie Ayling and Dr Nicolas Farrelly, will work with Assistant Commissioner Tim Morris, head of AFP intelligence, on the project which received $331,000 in funding from the Australian Research Council.

The team will look at how criminal service hubs within Asia operate and contribute to transnational crime, which impacts on Australia. The project will draw on the Australian Federal Police’s unique Liaison Officer network and case material to examine the scale and nature of criminal activity in select Asian cities. 

The research will focus on the untested belief that globalisation has transformed traditional criminal groups into adaptive, temporary 'networks' that may be located anywhere in contrast to traditional hierarchical groups wedded to certain places, and aims to improve countermeasures against major crime groups.

And in other news:
 
Professor Broadhurst has also successfully been awarded a separate grant for: ‘Policing organised crime in China: Identifying trends and improving countermeasures’.
 
The study will investigate the structure of organised criminal groups in China, and assess the benefit of current and proposed countermeasures.  Professor Broadhurst's research will review organised crime cases, especially those convicted under article 294 of the Chinese criminal code and interview police, procurators and judges in a number of cities across China.
 
The grant of $AUD94,000 was awarded by the Hong Kong SAR General Research Fund to Professor Broadhurst and colleagues Dr Lena Zhong and Professor Tit Wing Lo of City University of Hong Kong.