Morphology of Organized Criminal Groups in Cyberspace

Existing obstacles in the physical world prompted criminal participation of contract parties in organizing their resources and making attempts in a coherent and fixed structures with a specified chain of commands, so that they can achieve criminal ends and gain more profits. Using "hierarchical structures" in real space was an effective action to apply power mechanism. The emergence of cyberspace removed real world's constraints and new structural models of organizing criminal coalition between participants in this space appeared which were different from their traditional counterparts in various aspects. The lack of research in this context sparked the need to analyze the nature and methods of organizing crime in cyberspace. This was the initial idea that struck the authors and present article is the outcome of their analysis. It is obvious that an academic scrutiny on this phenomenon provides effective theoretical-practical opportunities for law enforcement agents to prevent the development of organized criminal industry in cyberspace.