of globalization in economic activity ; and it innovations. taking the progress of globalization in financial activity first, financial institutions and investors around the world now carry out a large volume of cross - border financial transactions and invest in a variety of financial assets. the u. s. subprime mortgage problem had immediate repercussions also on western european financial institutions because they made large investments in securitized products backed by u. s. subprime mortgages. financial institutions and investors in the united states and western europe had an important role channeling funds to emerging economies in regions such as central and eastern europe and in latin america. since these financial institutions suddenly scaled back their exposures to emerging economies, the financial crises of the united states and western europe have spread to the rest of the world. the second feature of the background is the progress of globalization in economic activity. since the 1990s, emerging economies – the nies, the brics, the asean countries, and the former centrally planned economies – have become full - fledged members of the market economy. although these economies continued to enjoy a level of growth higher than the industrialized economies until recently, they have now decelerated significantly due to the outbreak of turmoil in global financial markets and the drop in their exports caused by the downturn in the u. s. and european economies. emerging economies increased their presence in the global marketplace not only as production bases of durable consumer goods and parts for industrialized economies but also as a huge market for the latter's products. consequently, the decrease in the industrialized economies'exports to emerging economies has aggravated the economic deterioration in the industrialized economies. it is clear that an interregional adverse feedback loop between trading partners – a process in which both imports and exports of individual countries decline, resulting in a further economic stagnation of all countries involved – is now operating around the globe, irrespective of the level of economic development. the third feature of the background is it innovations, which have supported the progress of globalization in financial and economic activity. the widespread use and popularization of it systems has supported globalization through the increased speed of transactions, reductions in the interregional information gap, and a global network of transactions. the breakthrough in information processing capacity has enabled the formation of massive financial trading systems as well as payment and settlement systems, both of which process an enormous amount of trading information in a second. ironically, these sophisticated systems perform equally well in times of contraction in financial transactions and

financial crimes. if the perpetrators are members of the government, swift and decisive actions taken against them will make society confident in the government's policy on this issue and thus encourage law enforcement officers to fearlessly do the right things. what i have been talking about so far concerns economic crimes within a country. things get more complicated and much more difficult to combat when it comes to cross - border economic crimes. these require close cooperation of law enforcement authorities in every country. today's united nations congress on crime prevention and criminal justice is a good example of the collaboration effort at the international level. to combat transnational crime, the willingness to collaborate is strong when authorities hold the same view on such crimes. these include crimes such as trafficking in drugs, women and children, as well as trading of illegal weapons. but there are more subtle forms of economic crime where authorities find it difficult to agree on the risks. in such cases, cooperation in combating such crimes would be more difficult. examples of such cases are when bigger nations exploit the natural resources of smaller nations, which have been a practice for over 100 years since the days of colonization. modern fortes of such crimes can be seen in cases where influential businessmen from large countries move into smaller countries under the pretext of technological advancement to exploit the latter's natural resources, which often are claimed for the mutual benefits of both parties. but it is clear that the allocation of such benefits is often not balanced. there is also a case of exploitation of consumers in smaller nations when products which are hazardous to health in bigger nations, have been relocated for production and sale in less developed nations. an example of this is tobaccos and cigarettes, which come under stringent restrictions on sales and advertisement in bigger nations but have been sold in other nations with highly persuasive but subtle advertisement campaigns aimed at teenagers and women. there are also cases of certain medicines which have been banned in more developed markets and yet can still be found on the shelves of other less developed markets. there is no way for the authorities of two nations to agree that such dubious practices constitute economic crimes. but it is clear that they are exploitation of smaller countries by bigger nations with more economic clout and technological advancement. these practices still continue to the detriment of the public in smaller nations. such resentment comes not from the physical harm or destruction of personal properties, but from the feeling that they are living in an unjust world, where the rules favour big nations at the cost of smaller