English (United Kingdom)

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/featured_content/oa?rat=en

https://curated-unify.zendy.io/wp-json/zendy-region/v1/highlighted_journal/

Global: Zendy Plus annual

Presents the access of premium content as premium feature

Premium Content

Presents the keyphrase highlighting as premium feature

Keyphrase Highlighting

Presents the summarisation as premium feature

Summarisation

Insights

Presents the pdf analysis as premium feature

PDF Analysis

Presents the zaia usage as premium feature

ZAIA

Global: Zendy Tools annual

Global: Zendy Free Plan

Global: Zendy Tools monthly

Global: Zendy Plus monthly

In recent years, the analysis of economic crime and corruption in procurementhas benefited from integrative studies that acknowledge the interconnectednature of the procurement ecosystem. Following this line of research, wepresent a networks approach for the analysis of shell-companies operations inprocurement that makes use of contracting and ownership data under oneframework to gain knowledge about the organized crime behavior that emerges inthis setting. In this approach, ownership and management data are used toidentify connected components in shell-company networks that, together with thecontracting data, allows to develop an alternative representation of thetraditional buyer-supplier network: the module-component bipartite network,where the modules are groups of buyers and the connected components are groupsof suppliers. This is applied to two documented cases of procurement corruptionin Mexico characterized by the involvement of large groups of shell-companiesin the misappropriation of millions of dollars across many sectors. We quantifythe economic impact of single versus connected shell-companies operations. Inaddition, we incorporate metrics for the diversity of operations and favoritismlevels. This paper builds into the quantitative organized crime in the privatesector studies and contributes by proposing a networks approach for preventingfraud and understanding the need for legal reforms.

Organized crime behavior of shell-company networks in procurement: prevention insights for policy and reform