评论
打印
Organised crime
有组织犯罪
Farewell to the heist
和抢劫说再见
British gangsters are more professional and cosmopolitan than in the past
英国黑帮比以往更专业化和国际化
“YOU won't believe this, but they've just stolen a train.” That was the astonished message of the police officer who reported the “Great Train Robbery”, a heist that took place 50 years ago, on August 8th 1963. A gang of 15 men from across London's underworld stopped a train by turning the signal red, brutally coshed the driver and made off with ￡2.6m (then $7.3m) in cash from the mail cars. They decamped to a nearby farmhouse to play Monopoly with the stolen banknotes. Despite fleeing the country, almost all the culprits were eventually captured.
报道“火车大劫案”的警官传递出令人震惊的消息：“你绝对不会相信，但他们刚刚抢劫了一辆火车！”这起劫案发生于50年前的1963年8月8日。十五名伦敦黑帮组成的犯罪团伙通过将信号灯变成红色让火车停下来，随后暴打司机并带着260万英镑（约合730万美元）逃离邮车。他们撤到一个附近的农舍用偷来的钞票玩大富翁。尽管逃离了英国，但几乎所有的罪犯最终都被捕获。
For all its daring, in its cast of characters and casual violence the Great Train Robbery typified the organised crime that flourished in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. The “faces”, as the most notorious criminals were then known, hung out in smoky pubs on their self-designated patches. Groups such as the Richardsons, who were based in south London, and the Krays, in east London, mostly made their money extorting from local businesses and petty criminals. Reputation was everything: to get involved in the racket, criminals would have to beat up a few prominent people, or spend some time in prison.
“火车大劫案”中案犯们的性格以及随意暴力所表现出的胆大包天都具有二十世纪六七十年代在英国十分猖獗的有组织犯罪的典型特点。这些声名狼藉的罪犯随后被发现在他们自己标榜的领地泡吧。像伦敦南部的Richardsons以及东部的Krays一样，这种团伙大部分都靠敲诈本土企业以及小规模犯罪谋利。在这行，名声就是一切：为了入行，罪犯不得不殴打一些知名人士或者在监狱蹲上一段时间。
That world ended in the 1970s and 1980s. Sentences got stiffer; Bertie Smalls, an armed robber turned “supergrass”, informed on dozens of London's criminals. The spectacular Brink's-Mat robbery of 1983, when six robbers stole ￡26m (then $38m) in cash, diamonds and gold from a warehouse at Heathrow airport, led to much infighting. Most disruptive was the rise of the drugs trade. Drugs were more profitable than extortion and robbery—but they also rewarded different skills. Instead of relying exclusively on hard men, criminal outfits also needed foreign connections to import the drugs, distribution networks to sell them and a way of laundering the cash.
上述情形于二十世纪七八十年代销声匿迹。判决更加严厉；全副武装的强盗伯蒂向警方告密，检举几十个伦敦的罪犯。1983年的的Brink's-Mat劫案导致了许多的混战，六名劫匪从希斯罗机场的仓库里偷走价值260万英镑（约合380万美元）的现金、钻石和黄金。最具破坏性的还属毒品交易的增长。毒品比敲诈和抢劫获利更多，但同时他们也需要不同的技能。犯罪团伙需要国外货源、分销渠道以及洗钱途径，而不仅仅是几个硬汉。
Since then, Britain's organised crime scene has diversified sharply. Whereas gangs were once extremely local—defined by their territory—crime is now much more globalised, says Charlie Edwards of the Royal United Services Institute, a think-tank. One visible change is the arrival of criminals with foreign origins. Turkish gangsters import a lot of heroin. Eastern European smugglers import sex workers and export stolen cars; some Vietnamese immigrants run cannabis factories.
从那时起，英国有组织犯罪的情况迅速变得多样化。一个智囊团——英国皇家联合服务研究院的查理·爱德华说，曾经的帮派都是按照他们的领地划分，具有本土化特点，而现在的犯罪则更加全球化。一个可以察觉到的变化是大批具有外国血统的罪犯的到来。土耳其黑帮进口大量海洛因。东欧走私者进口性工作者并出口赃车；一些越南移民经营着大麻工厂。
Yet when it comes to crime, Britain's trade balance is probably positive. Most gangsters are still white, British and have working-class roots, according to Dick Hobbs, a criminologist at the University of Essex. They are just better connected than their forebears—and have roamed much farther. The large number of British expatriates in places such as Amsterdam and southern Spain gives cover to British criminals. Mark Lilley, a bodybuilder and drug dealer from Merseyside was arrested in Spain last month after 13 years on the run.
然而，当涉及到犯罪时，英国的贸易平衡可能是积极的。埃塞克斯大学的犯罪学家迪克·霍布斯表示，大部分黑帮至今还是由白人、英国人和有工人阶级根源的人组成。他们比父辈联系更加紧密，也逃得更远。在阿姆斯特丹和西班牙南部地区的大批英国侨胞给英国罪犯提供了掩护。一名来自默西塞德爱好健美的毒贩子经历了13年的逃亡生涯后上个月在西班牙被捕。
And today the fastest-growing scams are not connected to drugs. London has become a centre for global money-laundering, says Federico Varese, a specialist in mafias at Oxford University. Russian gangsters in particular route their cash through British banks. Home Office officials are concerned about electronic fraud and stockmarket manipulation by organised gangs, as well as corruption in government-procurement contracts.
时至今日，增长最快的骗局和毒品没有关系。牛津大学黑手党问题专家费德里克·瓦雷泽说伦敦已经变成了国际洗钱中心。特别是俄罗斯的黑帮通过英国银行洗钱。内政部官员担心电子欺诈、股市被黑帮操纵以及政府采购合约的腐败等情况。
All of which suggests that, 50 years after the Great Train Robbery, Britain's traditional blue-collar, hands-on crime is a thing of the past. In its place is something less visible and harder to police. That is still damaging, but in some ways the change is an improvement. Britain's murder rate is as low as it has been in decades—and murders connected to organised crime are few and far between. Gangsters have moved on. The Great Train Robbery, for all its grisly aplomb, now looks like little more than rather old-fashioned thuggery.
所有的一切都表明，在“火车大劫案”发生50年之后，英国传统的具有“蓝领”、“动手”标签的犯罪已经成为历史。取而代之的是一些更难发现和侦破的案件。那仍然具有破坏性，但从某种意义上来说也是一种进步。英国的谋杀率近几十年来一直很低，与有组织犯罪相关的谋杀更是少之又少。黑帮已经向前迈出一大步。因可怕的暴力而出名的“火车大劫案”现在看起来只不过是过时的暴行而已。译者：周洋 校对：黄佳欣
译文属译生译世
