Hidinginplainsightfinaldraft 410

RESEARCH QUESTION
What open sources can help forecast

criminal and national security targets in the
Houston Domain of the future?
Morgan Anderson
Derek Carter
Stefany Cornejo
Joshua Causey
David Fujimoto
Paul McDonald
HIDING IN Victoria Rivas
Nick Salinas
Theodore Shull
PLAIN SIGHT Katherine Watson
Supervised by Dr. David McIntyre

Seeing the Future of Crime through Open Source Research
Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
I. INTRODUCTION 5
II. LITERATURE REVIEW 8
III. METHODOLOGY 12
IV. ANALYSIS 14
A. Organized Crime 14
1. Fall Semester 15
2. Spring Semester 16
3. Evaluation of Sources 16
i. University of Southern California Technology and Human Trafficking 16
ii. Kirsta Melton 17
iii. International Migration Policy and Law Analysis (IMPALA) Database 17
4. Sample Finding From Sources 18
5. Sample Conclusion 18
B. Violent Crime 18
1. Fall Semester Research 19
2. Spring Semester Research 20
i. Observatorio de Legislacin y Poltica Migratoria 22
ii. Insight Crime: Investigation and Analysis of Organized Crime 22
iii. John P. Sullivan 23
C. Terrorism 25
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i. Terrorism financing 26
ii. A Comparison of Domestic and International Research Institutions 28
iii. Radicalization, Terrorism, and Government Response 30
iv. Current Efforts and the War of Ideas 32
v. Countering Violent Extremism 32
D. White-Collar Crime/Future Crime 34

i. Bruce Schneier 40
ii. Ray Kurzweil 41
iii. Marc Goodman 42
iv. Thomas Frey 43
v. Michio Kaku 44
V. RECOMMENDATIONS 46
VI. FUTURE RESEARCH 52
ANNEX A: DEFINITIONS 55
ANNEX B: SUB-GROUP FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 57
ANNEX C: DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES THROUGH 2050 62
ANNEX D: BIBLIOGRAPHY 64
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) evolved into an intelligence-
driven and threat-focused law enforcement agency as it faced continued
challenges in the ever-changing world. The FBI assumed more responsibility
as a member of the Intelligence Community and a law enforcement agency
2
at the turn of the 20th century . Since 2001, the FBI has worked tirelessly to
implement effective organizational changes to meet their new priorities. The
FBI Houston Field Office strives to be a leader in these changes and uses its
innovative intelligence analysts to support critical FBI Missions. The FBI
Houston Field Office worked with Texas A&M University to better determine
What open sources can help forecast criminal and national security targets
in the Houston Domain of the future?
The Texas A&M University capstone worked diligently to help the FBI
better develop their sources of open-source intelligence. We produced
actionable open sources in four of eight areas of investigative interest. We
fixated on widely available data and information, targeted commercial data,
individual experts, and gray literature in the field of organized crime,
violent crime, terrorism, and white collar crime because of the high-level of
value to the FBI Houston area of responsibility.
The research methodology focused our efforts in two parts: sources

informing trends predating 2016 and sources informing emerging trends. We
identified criminal events from the past 15 years, and identified sources
developed before these events that indicated a trend leading to the event.
We used those sources to help us develop sources indicative of emerging
trends. The next five months we focused on developing sources to indicate
emerging or future trends in the FBI Houston area of responsibility.
The organized crime sub-group focused on trafficking in persons,

specifically sex trafficking, because of Houstons diverse economy,
transportation industry, and demographics. We found the FBI should focus on
emerging technologies, transportation development and changing policy
sources to better understand sex trafficking in Houston. The FBI Houston
should work in close collaboration with advocacy groups to help identify
victims and understand emerging trends. The violent crime sub-group
focused on Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13) emerging trends and found FBI
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Houston should focus on trends in technology to monitor how gangs will use
technology to further their criminal enterprise. The terrorism sub-group
focused on terrorist events, specifically countering terrorist financing and
countering violent extremism. The subgroup recommended the FBI partner
with international trade and finance organizations and academic research
institutions to better understand emerging trends in terrorism. The white-
collar and future crimes sub-group focused on health-care crime. FBI Houston
should focus on developing and maintaining access to fringe sources and
academic literature for the useful development of emerging trends.
Our report identifies specific sources for FBI Houston to exploit in

developing emerging trends in their investigative priorities. Future research
is necessary to develop further sources in emerging trends. The FBI should
work to leverage the sources we provided. FBI Houston or another capstone
can work to develop methods to utilize sources better, improve information
sharing, counter disinformation, conduct trend analysis, and develop
alternative future scenarios.
Although FBI Houston is a leader in the law enforcement and

intelligence community, the growing fast paced interconnectedness of world
demands the FBI remains ahead of emerging criminal trends that threaten
our nation. We worked to identify open sources hiding in plain sight that
potentially contain valuable indicators of future trends that may affect the
Houston domain. Focusing on developing these open sources will help the
FBI better accomplish their mission.
I. INTRODUCTION
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the primary law
enforcement agency tasked with enforcing federal laws and upholding the
Constitution of the United States. Prior to 1908, law enforcement was
primarily the responsibility of local jurisdictions. In the early 1900s Henry
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Fords Model-T rolled off the production line in providing the opportunity for
criminals to travel between jurisdictions quickly, leaving law enforcement
disadvantaged. The Department of Justice (DOJ) quickly realized it had no
one to investigate these cross-jurisdictional crimes and needed to borrow
criminal investigators from the Department of Treasury (DOT). However,
these loaned DOT federal employees were not meeting the needs of
Attorney General, especially after the assassination of President McKinley.
The growth of criminal enterprises across vast geographic distances forced
the Theodore Roosevelt administration to lay T foundation for todays
modern FBI.
The FBI is responsible for investigating crimes against or of interest to

the United States. Throughout the 20 th century, the FBI evolved to meet new
and emerging threats but as a new century approached the FBI found itself
operating in a new world of rapid advancement. The slow bureaucratic
structure of the FBI left it vulnerable to the shifting modern world. September
11th, , 2001 was the exact turning point which formed todays FBI. The FBI
was no longer in charge of only investigating crimes, including terrorist
attacks, but is now tasked with actively preventing them.
Todays FBI is an intelligence-driven and threat-focused national

security organization with both intelligence and law enforcement
responsibilities (https://www.fbi.gov/about). The FBIs number one mission is
to prevent terrorist attacks against the United States. Todays FBI works
closely with the IC to use all types of intelligence information domestically,
including OSINT, to meet their national law enforcement priorities.
The FBI is responsible for investigating crimes that fall into nine
general areas of investigative interest. Each regional or City field office
receives guidance regarding investigations from the main FBI Headquarters,
located in Washington D.C. In addition to national priorities, the Houston
Field Office determines specific areas of investigation based on the types of
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crimes that are prevalent in the Houston domain. To generate the quality of
analysis required by our client, our capstone determined that it was
necessary for each sub-group to focus their research on specific types of
crime within the general areas of investigative interest. These particular
crimes were either currently prevalent in the Houston domain or had the
potential to appear in the Houston domain in the future.
The national FBI priorities are:
1. Protect the United States from terrorist

attack.
2. Protect the United States against foreign
intelligence operations and espionage.
3. Protect the United States against cyber-
based attacks and high-technology crimes.
4. Combat public corruption at all levels.
5. Protect civil rights.
6. Combat transnational/national criminal
organizations and enterprises.
7. Combat major white-collar crime.
8. Combat significant violent crime.
The FBI has 56 field offices and more the 350 satellite offices around
the United States. The FBI also operates 60 international offices. The broad
reach allows the FBI to work with local, state, federal, and international
partners. The Houston Field Office is responsible for one of the largest cities
in the United Statesperhaps making their responsibility one of the greatest
amongst their peer field offices. The innovative intelligence analyst from the
Houston field division worked closely with the capstone from Texas A&M
University to determine What open sources can help forecast criminal and
national security targets in the Houston Domain of the future?
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II. LITERATURE REVIEW
Through research, we developed a method for identifying open sources
that inform possible future trends in crime. First, the culture and historical
context of the FBI have shaped how their investigative role has evolved over
time. Second, the use of open source intelligence (OSINT) in the Intelligence
Community (IC) has grown, since the dawn of the Internet Age. Third, the
development of scenarios which provide possible futures can aid planning for
uncertain futures. Each of these components of our research--FBI culture and
history, open source intelligence and scenario planninghas contributed to
the development of our methodology to research crime in the future.
The role of the FBI has changed throughout the 21st Century. In his
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book, The FBI, Ronald Kessler provides insight into the FBIs culture, roles,
and priorities before this transformation into an intelligence-driven
organization. The FBI was primarily an investigative, law enforcement agency
which prioritized domestic crimes and criminal justice, (Kessler 1994).
President George W. Bush expanded the Bureaus mission to include a new
priority: prevent terrorism (Nobel 2016). This instantly transformed a
reactionary agency into one that must take proactive measures to identify
and prevent future criminal opportunities and threats.
The FBI describes crime through a particular framework of Targets,

Actors, and Platforms, or TAPs (FBI capstone discussion, September 2016). A
target is an area of criminal opportunity. This could include critical
infrastructure, such as a dam or an electric grid, or something less tangible,
such as American legitimacy. Every crime must have an actor, or a criminal.
This criminal must have intent and motivation. These motivations can be
driven by both external factors--including social, political and economic
factorsand internal factors unique to an individual or criminal organization
(FBI capstone discussion, September 2016). A facilitation platform describes
the means through which a crime can be committed. This TAPs framework is
an efficient lens to view previously committed crimes. However, TAPs is
limited in that it provides no thought process to identify future potential
crimes. The TAPs framework is descriptive, not predictive.
OSINT, however, is a medium that can provide insight into future

changes and trends in crime. OSINT is defined by the Department of Defense
(DoD) as intelligence that is produced from publicly available information and
is collected, exploited, and disseminated promptly to an appropriate
audience for the purpose of addressing a specific intelligence requirement,
(DoD). The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) describes OSINT as having an
essential role in giving the national security community as a whole insight
and context at a relatively low cost, (CIA 2016). There are four categories of
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open sources, including;
1) Widely Available data and information;
2) Targeted Commercial Data;
3) Individual Experts, and;
4) Gray Literature--or literature not managed by commercial

publishers, (CIA 2016).
Historically, OSINT played a secondary role to information collected

clandestinely. In the IC, clandestine information was viewed as more valuable
because it was harder to obtain (CIA 2016). The rapidly expanded use of the
Internet and other advanced telecommunications have further complicated
this challenge. The CIA states that in this new environment, secret
information alone may be less important than the synthesis of OSINT and
other forms of clandestine intelligence (CIA 2016).
The FBIs new role as a preventive agency can be augmented through

the use of OSINT and future-planning frameworks. Futurist Peter Schwartzs
The Art of the Long View develops his approach to future planning through
scenario building. Schwartz argues that one can gain strategic insight into
the future through scenario building. He articulates that scenario building
provides avenues for thinking and learning, but emphasizes that scenarios
are not predictions into the future. The futurist highlights the importance of
understanding critical uncertainties in a scenario, or areas where
assumptions about the future are made. While The Art of the Longview
does not explicitly apply its methodology to future crime, the text does
highlight the utility scenarios provide in future-planning. The book contains
information on where to look for future-relevant insights, such as changes in
science and technology and perception shaping events. Lastly, the book
provides a framework to view how the future is shaped through Science,
Technology, Economy, Environment, and Politics (STEEP). (Schwartz 1997).
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The IC utilizes scenario building to aid future planning and identify
implications for national security. The Office of the Director of National
Intelligence (ODNI) produces a quinquennial report which postulates future
scenarios 20 years into the future. The ODNIs Global Trends 2035 Paradox
of Progress, identified several emerging themes and trends including:
technology acceleration, increasing global tensions, shifting economies,
climate change, and a change in the nature of conflict. Three scenarios are
built around these trends and discuss implications at the national (Islands),
regional (Orbits) and sub-state and transnational (Communities) levels. (DNI
2016). One of the strengths of this report is that it identified broad trends
and rigorous examination through the use of analytic simulations. The report,
however, does not provide the IC agencies it serves with a methodology or
approach to further conduct research and analysis in future-oriented
planning.
This capstone sought to make-up for this intellectual shortfall through

devising a methodological approach to identifying open sources hiding in
plain sight which will empower the FBI to conduct its own thorough analysis,
in conjunction and coordination with the ODNI. The capstone synthesized
techniques from the FBI, Peter Schwartz, the ODNI, and scholarly research
methods, to formulate a novel approach to open source analysis.
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III. METHODOLOGY
The capstone utilized the first semester of the two-semester project to
narrowly define the scope of the research question. A weekly evaluation of
the teams progress was recorded to inform future FBI capstones on avenues
that have received at least cursory consideration. We believe that evaluating
the process of defining our method is of value for reproduction of our work
and reapplication to future threat environments.
Weeks one and two were used to develop a fundamental

understanding of the FBIs culture and investigative priorities and to assign
team roles and expectations. Weeks three and four were used to research
the current trends in the Houston domain related to the economy,
healthcare, energy, national security, human trafficking, and organized
crime. Global Trends 2030 was the guiding document for studying these
trends across the entire nation until the Global Trends 2035 Report was
released in January 2017. Further, our first client meeting introduced the
capstone to the FBIs legal guidance and the targets/actors/platforms
approach to studying potential threats. In weeks five and six, the capstone
was briefed by the FBI on the Bureaus national priorities and the team
began to consider a quantitative framework for investigating the intersection
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of these priorities and potential criminal threats. During weeks seven and
eight, the team continued a discussion of a quantitatively based threat
forecasting model and decided that such a model was beyond the reasonable
scope of this project. An alternative approach focused on the STEEP + TAPs
framework was adopted as a guide to researching the areas of investigative
interest. Weeks nine and ten were used to create an in-progress review brief
and to research the individual team areas of investigative interest. During
weeks eleven and twelve, the capstone considered the intersection of black
swans and red motorcycles with the framework for inquiry, further refined
the in-progress review, and created an initial agenda for the second
semester.
During the second semester, the capstone identified the working

definition of sources (noted below) and scanned a broad array of institutions,
organizations, and agencies to compile a list of credible sources for studying
the changing threat environment of the future. Team members gathered five
sources each week to contribute to the source database. In dividing the
workload for our final products, the group split into three functional teams:
the presentation, the written product, and the deliverable. To present the
source database with content rich analytics, the team developed the Future
Target Source Tool (FTST) that extracts and analyzes data from the source
database.
The capstone selected four areas of investigative interest for future

threat analysisorganized crime, violent crime, terrorism, and white collar
crime/future crimesbased on the individual researcher's interest, time
constraints, and the prioritization of depth over breadth. We used a
retroactive STEEP analysis, drawn from The Art of the Long View, to test
sources accuracy for predicting future crime. For this analysis, we identified
criminal events from the past 15 years, and identified sources developed
prior to these events that indicated a trend leading to the event. Further, the
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team used the STEEP analysis to determine TAPs in each area of
investigative interest. The ODNI AIS Standard 1 was recommended to the
capstone as a process for classifying the utility of sources. However, the
team decided that analysis beyond amalgamating sources was overreaching
for the possible goals of the spring semesters work. The scope of the project
is the Houston domain, but the capstone agreed that sources from
comparable metropolitan areas and national trends could inform research on
the particular geographic region.
IV. ANALYSIS
Introduction
Four sub-groups focused on separate areas of investigative interest: 1)

organized crime, 2) violent crime, 3) terrorism, and 4) white-collar
crime/future crimes. While each team followed the capstones general
methodology, we found that different methodologies were required for
different types of crime. As a result, each sub-group has a slightly different
approach to identifying sources for future crime in respective areas.
A. Organized Crime
After deliberating over the FBI national priorities and the particular
interests in Houston, our sub-group chose organized crime as our
investigative area. We specifically focused our research on human trafficking
due to the high incidence of this crime in Houston. In 2016, the National
Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) received the second largest
number of human trafficking reports from Texas. NHTRC also received the
greatest number of reports from Houston out of any other city in the U.S.
(Ricke 2016). Houston is an area of criminal opportunity for human trafficking
for several reasons. The city has diverse nationalities, religions, and
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socioeconomic statuses, allowing victims from other areas to go unnoticed
upon arrival in the area. Houston is also one of the fastest growing
metropolitan areas in the country, with an extensive transportation structure
serving as a facilitation platform for human trafficking.
After preliminary research, we narrowed our scope specifically to sex

trafficking. Although Foxhall (2017) highlights the higher number of victims
of labor trafficking than sex trafficking in Houston, our research indicated
that sex trafficking research was necessary for this project for two reasons:
1) Houston would increasingly be a site for recruitment and exploitation of
sex trafficking victims during and after Super Bowl LI and 2) one of the
largest knowledge gaps lies in the area of data collection on sex trafficking
(Laczko 2002). The following research is based on this understanding.
1. Fall Semester
Over the course of the fall semester, we sought to answer the following
question: What sources have led us to the current understanding of sex
trafficking? Using this question as a basis for our research, we discovered the
importance of understanding the actors, facilitation platforms, and targets of
sex trafficking in the development of this industry. The following table
highlights these key points, garnered from sources located in the Annex D of
this paper. Definitions of the following terms are also found in the Annex A.
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Using these findings, we were able to narrow our focus on the FBIs
topic of interest: targets. The actors and facilitation platforms are critical to
identifying the targets of sex trafficking. Our spring semester research
question was based on this understanding.
The FBI IPR concluded our first semester of research. From the IPR, we
gained insight to guide us in our future research. Members of the FBI
encouraged us to pursue creative ways of thinking about each of our areas of
interest. Although there were no FBI personnel specifically focused on sex
trafficking to provide feedback, we were reassured that there was significant
interest in the issue of sex trafficking.
2. Spring Semester
In the spring semester, we updated our research question with

consideration to the fall semester findings: What sources will help develop
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the FBIs understanding of the future of sex trafficking? The sources located
in the Annex D provide a greater understanding of how sex trafficking will
change in the next 10 to 15 years. The following four sources are amongst
the most important for the FBIs consideration.
3. Evaluation of Sources
i. University of Southern California Technology and Human

Trafficking
The focus of the Technology and Human Trafficking Initiative at the

University of Southern California (USC) is the current use and broader
implementation of information and communication technologies in the
international fight against human trafficking. The initiative began in 2010
after policymakers decided to invest in research related to connecting
technical solutions for information sharing among anti-trafficking
organizations. For instance, software was designed to detect possible cases
of online sex trafficking activity. In addition, a report is published each year
discussing the relationship between technology and human trafficking.
Technology is a significant component in many sex trafficking cases
specifically; 63 percent of child sex trafficking victims surveyed were
advertised online, while 42 percent of victims met perpetrators online. Sixty-
two percent of children had access to a cell phone, and 42 percent had
access to the internet while being trafficked (Hughes 2014). USCs initiative
is important because it provides information about technology as a
facilitation platform for sex trafficking, and as technology changes aspects of
sex trafficking will simultaneously alter.
ii. Kirsta Melton
Kirsta Melton is the Assistant Attorney General of Texas responsible for

prosecuting human trafficking cases. In interviews with Melton, she stated
that the law has a position in the normalization of sex trafficking. High-grade
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policies criminalize sex trafficking and provide victim services to reduce
revictimization, which in turn addresses and reduces the normalization of sex
trafficking. She is a valuable resource because she identifies policy priorities
necessary to changing the culture and the normalization of sex trafficking in
society. Meltons experience in prosecuting sex trafficking cases also gives
her unique access to the victims and sellers and buyers of sex. This source is
valuable to identify case patterns and changing trends in sex trafficking.
iii. International Migration Policy and Law Analysis (IMPALA)

Database
The IMPALA Database contains qualitative and quantitative research

focused on the effects of migration policy on social, economic, demographic,
and political trends. This is important because changes in immigration policy
simultaneously alter the sex trafficking industry. The IMPALA Database also
provides information regarding U.S. visa issuance. For instance, the T
Nonimmigrant Status (T-Visa) is issued to protect victims of human
trafficking. Trends, regarding the recruitment and exploitation sites of the sex
trafficking industry, can be gleaned from an analysis of T-Visa issuance.
Collecting data from this source is valuable to understand and analyze the
relationship between immigration and sex trafficking.
4. Sample Finding From Sources
Several different terms are used in the literature to describe the same
concept. The most common term used is human trafficking, and it was
used approximately 62 percent of the time in our research, followed by sex
trafficking at about 25 percent. Other terms such as trafficking,
trafficking in persons, and child labor trafficking were used at 8 percent,
4 percent, and 2 percent, respectively.
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5. Sample Conclusion
Sex trafficking is a difficult subject to study because of the misuse of

related definitions. The lack of consistency in terminology within the
literature highlights the paucity of cross-sector communication between
different areas of study. It also leads to a misunderstanding of the issue and
a miscalculation of the scale of the sex trafficking industry.
B. Violent Crime
As a sub-group of the capstone project, studying and analyzing

connected sources of violent crime in the Houston area of operations, our
research focused on a major contributing source of violent crime: the gang
Mara Salvatrucha-13 (MS-13). Our early research discovered several gangs
in Houston that could qualify as contributors to the citys violent crime rate.
To have an accurate analysis, we researched the gang's past sources and its
correlation to any of that gangs activities. To do this, a quantifiable
technique was needed to distinguish the gangs and ultimately choose a gang
to study.
In analyzing the Texas Department of Public Safety Texas Gang Threat

Assessment Reports from 2012-2015, one singular gang showed a noticeable
acceleration. MS-13 is currently considered a Tier 1, the highest achievable
statewide threat ranking within the threat assessment matrix by the Texas
Fusion Center (Texas Gang Threat Assessment 2015). MS-13 members are
known for their brutal murders, dismemberments, contracted home
invasions, and other highly violent crimes. In recent years there has been an
increase in memberships partly due to the increase in illegal-alien gang
members crossing the Texas border into the US. Law enforcement agencies
in Houston have reported the highest number of identified MS-13 members
in the state of Texas (Texas Gang Threat Assessment 2015). These significant
facts led our team to narrow the scope from the broad topic of gangs to one
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gang that intersected the responsibility in both violent crime and Houston.
1. Fall Semester Research
Once a viable source of violent crime was identified the next step was
to deliberate and focus on a plan of action. We created a research question
that supported the capstones framework of determining sources from the
past 10-15 years that described, predicted, and/or forecasted the current
disposition of MS-13: Are there any past sources that would describe the
establishment and growth of MS-13 in the city of Houston? This allowed our
sub-group to narrow our research to find open sources that could potentially
highlight forecasting of the establishment and growth of MS-13 in Houston.
Our research found that up to 15 years ago, scholars were writing specifically
about the increased immigration from Central America, including El Salvador.
From this research, the first step for the establishment of MS-13 within
the U.S. would be centered on personnel coming from El Salvador. The
sources identified during the first semester (see FTST) provided links to the
immigration of gang members from El Salvador and their use of immigration
policy at the time to relocate into the United States. Once established, the
gang members used extreme and violent tactics to embed into American
gang culture. Applying this pattern coupled with the predictions of Houstons
demographics allowed us to pinpoint the sources that described both the
establishment and growth of MS-13. In summary, our research found that the
first semester granted us enough insurance to continue to analyze MS-13s
contribution to Houstons violent crime.
2. Spring Semester Research
Although apparent direct correlations of MS-13s growth and

immigration from Central America over the last 30 years existed, we
recognized the harm of hindsight bias in our research. To expand, we
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identified the easiness of connecting causation and effect after MS-13
became a prominent gang. Our next step required us to revamp the research
question to reflect our goal of validating the sources we found in the first
semester. To ensure we met the requirement of pinpointing specific types of
sources for the client to follow, we ensured identified sources maintained
resiliency and integrity over time.
The spring semester focus shifted to validating first semester sources

and potentially finding new sources that produced indicators of MS-13s
changes into the next 15 to 20 years. While MS-13 remains the most violent
gang in both Houston and the U.S. as a whole, our research question had to
depict changes in another aspect other than violent crime. The following
research question was developed to address these changes: What sources
indicate MS-13s move towards organized crime? To create a threshold to
analyze the changes of MS-13, we studied what makes an organization
qualified as organized crime as defined by the Department of Justice. The
new research question now allowed us to narrow our evaluation of current
sources like the sources from the first semester. As a result, our research
focused on characteristics of MS-13 that mimicked lower level crime
organizations that have been officially labeled organized crime.
In the first semester, we initially began by analyzing case studies to

find sources and found it to be unconducive to our research. The case studies
allowed us to pull targets, actors, and platforms but did not enable us to fully
explore and answer our research question. The sub-group re-evaluated our
work thus far and found that the best course of action would be, to begin
with our background sources. These sources provided context, such as the
Texas Gang Threat Assessment reports, Department of Justice definitions,
and FBI website.
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After research, it was evident that each MS-13 set differed in every
region, with one exception. The United States and El Salvador are the only
two sets that have a correlation (Carlos Garcia 2016) This gave us the
opportunity to explore International sources written in either English or
Spanish due to the sub-groups bilingual capability. This vital asset provided
our sub-group a new outlet of sources and led us to answer our research
questions.
Reviewing sources of recurring crimes and changes in El Salvadors MS-

13 pinpointed us to sources that were observing and predicting that the
nature of transnational gangs was headed in the direction of organized
crime. This led us to believe that this could later translate or manifest itself
in the United States MS-13. Because the correlation between the two is
rather small, the team also decided to complete a historical analysis of the
evolution of organized crime. This analysis suggested that this is not a new
phenomenon, rather an identifiable cycle in the realm of criminal groups
(Fred Burton 2006). Well-known organized crime groups all evolved from
criminal gangs before transforming into what most recognize now as
mafias or crime syndicates. Taking this analysis coupled with existing
future reports such as DNI 2035 the team could extract the necessary
factors that could potentially allow MS-13 to move towards organized crime.
From the violent crime sub-groups long list of sources (see FTST), we
found only a select set of sources recurred in both our fall and spring
semester research.
i. Observatorio de Legislacin y Poltica Migratoria
Observatorio de Legislacin y Poltica Migratoria is in el Colegio de La

Frontera Norte, in Mxico. This translates to the Observatory of Immigration
Legislation and Policy, a project founded by the Frontera Norte College, the
National Commission of Human Rights, and Ford Foundation. This source is
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an information system solely focused on collecting, reviewing, and analyzing
data on immigration policy, and human rights in the United States-Mexico-
Central American region (Acerca del Observatorio de Legislacion y Politica
Migratoria 2012). This project looks at these issues from the federal, state,
and local level in both Mexico and the United States, and at the national level
from Central American countries. This source of information is of value in
seeing immigration trends, motivational factors, and most importantly it
presents implications. Additionally, this source reviews immigration policy
implications not only in the United States but throughout the region that
directly impacts gang membership increase or decrease as stated in the
Texas Gang Threat Assessments.
ii. Insight Crime: Investigation and Analysis of Organized Crime
Insight Crime: Investigation and Analysis of Organized Crime an

independent non-profit research institution headquartered in Columbia with
an office at American University. This institution focuses on the study of
threats to national and citizen security in the Americas. Their mission is to
deepen and inform the debate about organized crime in the region by
providing the public with regular reporting, analysis, and investigation on the
subject and state efforts to combat it. (Insight Crime About us) This began as
part of our background source but grew as it continued to have valuable
reports on the gangs activities from 2010 to today. The most valuable aspect
of this source was that it has a section built for investigations. These
investigations range in topics, but for our context, they had an investigation
that contained articles that were from a multi-year research initiative in
evaluating the transnational criminal capacity of MS-13 in the US and El
Salvador. (Insight Crime, 2010)
iii. John P. Sullivan
John P. Sullivan a career police officer, author, and avid researcher on

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transnational organized crime in the Americas. Currently serving as a
Lieutenant with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, adjunct
researcher at the Vortex Foundation, senior research fellow at the Center for
Advanced Studies on Terrorism (CAST); senior fellow at Small Wars Journal
with a doctorate in Information and Knowledge Society from the
Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3). (Small Wars Journal, 2005) His exploration of
transnational gangs, third-generation gangs, and impact of transnational
organized crime on sovereignty in Mexico and other countries allowed us to
go further in answering our second-semester research question. One article
that was of specific interest that discussed the potential for gangs and
transnational criminals to utilize technology to wage netwar is his Urban
Gangs evolving as Criminal Netwar Actors. This brought out criminal
opportunities and platform from which MS-13 could use to evolve to
organized crime. Not only does Sullivan serve as a good source but also as a
source base. We were able to find other authors that had valuable and
applicable research in this topic due to his collaborations and references.
Found value in seeking out sources from other countries due to

differences in culture, language, politics, and economies (mainly, non-English
speaking). Sources originating from foreign countries that had to be
translated into English had different cultural undertones (See Map Below).
These sources also focused on motivational factors and loopholes that
accounted for the massive growth MS-13 has had.
23
The violent crime sub-group created an overall framework that could

be duplicated and would withstand the expiration of information. The thought
process creates a mold where MS-13 can be replaced with another emerging
crime organization and indicators present in current sources can offer a
prediction of future evolution.
C. Terrorism
The Terrorism sub-groups research efforts focused on both

international, home-grown, and domestic terrorism. During our initial
research, our subgroup focused on domestic, Houston-related attacks.
However, we discovered an important link between international, home-
grown and domestic terrorism, and realized that the distinguishing lines
between these types of terrorism are not always clear. Considering these
findings, in addition to request from FBI Houston, we expanded our focus to
all three types of terrorist attacks by identifying sources on the following
topics: terrorist financing, foreign research institutions and American
research institutions, and countering violent extremism (CVE).
24
As our Capstone began discussions of the FBIs areas of investigative

interest, one member of our sub-group was also studying domestic terrorism,
and was interested in understanding the sovereign citizen movement. After
meeting for the first time, we realized that we all had an interest in
homeland security issues and in particular terrorism. We formed the
terrorism sub-group because we saw this class as an opportunity to develop
our subject-matter knowledge. While we shared a common general curiosity,
we also realized that we had different reasons for our interest - such as
cultural, social, and financial aspects of terrorism. We searched for ways in
which open-source material could provide information on the current and
future state of terrorism.
We found that several prominent authors mostly in the field of

terrorism had correctly predicted current trends in terrorism, such as lone-
wolf attacks, in studies and research conducted in 1995. While the majority
of authors that we analyzed were wrong in their specific predictions, the
more general trends that they presented were accurate.
After presenting our research to the FBI, the terrorism sub-group

received specific input from an FBI terrorism manager that they would be
interested in anything that we could find on Countering Violent Extremism
(CVE), an area that had not been explored by the terrorism sub-group
previously. It was also suggested that we should not limit our scope to
domestic terrorism alone, and allow the research to point us in other areas.
In the spring semester, after FBI guidance from the IPR, the terrorism
sub-group decided to conduct research in four primary investigative areas: 1)
Terrorism Financing, 2) A Comparison of Domestic and International Research
Institutions, and 3) Counter-Radicalization
25
Initiatives. The terrorism sub-group found terrorist financing research is done
through multiple international collaboration efforts, such as the Financial
Action Task Force, OECD, IMF, and the World Bank. CVE findings were
consistent across academic sources, government sources. Notably, they
recommend a soft-power approach and developing counter-narratives.
International research and think tanks proved to each have different research
perspectives on terrorism. Think Tanks such as CSIS and RAND provide a
large-scale foreign policy approach to countering terrorism. In contrast, many
research institutions abroad, such as in Europe, view counter-terrorism as a
more local, domestic concern.
i. Terrorism financing
The most extensive, collaborative research institution to enable a

partnership between nations concerning terrorist financing and anti-money
laundering is the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), located in the
Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) headquarters in Paris. The
FATF was founded in 1989 based on the G7 initiative to counter money
laundering (Who We Are, 2017). Following the September 11 Attacks, this
task force expanded its mission to countering terrorism finance operations
(Who We Are, 2017). The organization set international standards to combat
money laundering and terrorist financing in their 2012 report (FAFT 2012).
The FATFs 2015 report Emerging Terrorist Financing Risks highlighted
novel approaches that both large-scale and lone-wolf terrorist operations are
currently utilizing (FATF, 2015). Novel financing operations and tactics
included social media and internet campaigns, crowd-source funding, and
natural resource extortion.
With the rise in social media and Internet use, terrorist organizations
such as ISIL can expand their potential donor reach to everyday citizens and
26
individuals, through activities such as crowdsource funding, and sharing
terrorist cause-based links via social media. The Meir Amit Intelligence &
Terrorism Information Center (ITIC), located in Israel, elaborated on new
methods of terrorist financing, including the non-profit transfer of funds to
terrorist activities. Additionally, the report discussed foreign fighter financing
challenges and opportunities. While individuals are much more difficult to
trace through financial patterns, FAFT emphasized that law enforcement can
identify key indicators such as multiple travelers from hometowns departing
on the same day.
The 2015 FAFT report argued that natural resource extortion, as

utilized by ISIL, could also be further utilized elsewhere, and could indicate
further crimes. Natural resources such as diamonds, coal, and agricultural
products are a source for terrorism financing in areas such as East and West
Sub-Saharan Africa, as well as Latin America. The report discussed how
political corruption and instability were two of the most prominent
government characteristics to enable terrorist natural resource extortion.
Two other international financial institutions, the OECD Directorate of

Financial Enterprise Affairs and the World Bank CPIA database on
Transparency, Accountability, and Corruption in the Public Sector also
produce reports that can aid counter-terrorism financing. The OECD further
discussed the link between government corruption as one of the highest
indicators of terrorist activity. The World Bank CPIA produces a yearly report
that describes government corruption across all industries.
The FAFT report further discussed how multinational enterprises

(MNEs) and other businesses engaged in natural resource extraction are
vulnerable to terrorist threats. This threat is particularly high when business
extraction occurs in areas that compete with rising or active terrorist
organizations. Key business executives of these companies, along with their
family members face greater risk of kidnapping for ransom, extortion, and
27
violence.
ii. A Comparison of Domestic and International Research

Institutions
In the Washington D.C. foreign policy community, several think tanks

have made significant contributions to the literature on domestic and
international terrorism and on countering violent extremism. The RAND
Corporation and the Center for Strategic and International Studies are noted
as providing particularly valuable insights. From RAND, Martha Crenshaw and
Brian Jenkins have been contributing to the terrorism cannon for over forty-
five years. At CSIS, Anthony Cordesman is making meaningful contributions
to the terrorism literature through his publications that tracks government
and private reporting on terrorism (Cordesman, 2016). Further, think tanks
in Washington and around the world deserve attention in tracking the
changing trends in terrorism. They are: the Stimson Center, Brookings
Institution, the Heritage Foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, the Wilson Center, the Center for a New American
Security, the American Enterprise Institute, the International Institute for
Security Studies, Chatham House, and the Council on Foreign Relations.
Many international research organizations provide focused research on

areas which can aid the FBI in various topics related to terrorism. For
example, the International Institute for Counter-terrorism, located in Herzliya,
Israel, conducts extensive research on cybersecurity and terrorism. A report
by the cyber group discussed the Internet of Things (IoT) challenge and
mentions search engines that enable terrorists to access key information
about such targets. These search engines enable users to target devices by
type, country, versions, etc. Additionally, the report comments on how
manufacturers of these goods are not incentivized to ensure security for
consumers of IoT goods.
28
Many European terrorism think tanks and research groups focus either
the majority or all of their efforts on CVE. European nations have a much
larger number of foreign fighters who have joined ISIL, and multiple countries
have dedicated resources to researching methods to reduce radicalization.
Sweden, Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom are all
nations that have anti-Radicalization specific research institutes. The
University of Leidens Institute of Global and Security Affairs, in the
Netherlands, has a project which will become finalized this year, to counter
radicalization--titled PRIME: Predicting, Interdicting and Mitigating Extremism.
PRIME calls for an interdisciplinary approach to CVE. Within the PRIME
Project, Leiden Universitys Centre for Terrorism and Counterterrorism (CTC)
main responsibility is to oversee the development of a detailed script
outlining the manner in which lone actor extremists prepare for their attacks
(PRIME, 2017). Radicalization Research, a nonpartisan organization in the UK
also supports this interdisciplinary approach to CVE, calling for collaboration
between primary and secondary schools, local law enforcement, the judiciary
system, and international counter-terrorism organizations (Aims, 2017).
iii. Radicalization, Terrorism, and Government Response
According to researchers, threats of terrorism are never static and

constantly evolving, and the policies that nations adopt in the aftermath of
attacks should give a realistic assessment of countering this complicated
threat while not creating new terrorist grievances or alienating communities
within our own borders (Crenshaw and LaFree. 2017). While politicians may
act quickly to label an incident as an act of terrorism, the search for the true
culprits may be complicated by the fact that there is no universally accepted
definition of terrorism. Crenshaw and LaFree note this difficulty in the first
paragraph of their new book Countering Terrorism, and how the study of
terrorism and counter-terrorism itself is often a confusing and contentious
field. One common danger is the vast, seemingly knee-jerk response that
29
terrorism can incite by causing a broader retaliation than is needed to foil
additional attacks. Many terrorist attacks have a secondary goal of forcing
governments to overreact to real or perceived threats, which further
alienates communities here or abroad, and feeds directly into the terrorists
narrative helping to strengthen their ideology and to attract new recruits on
the global stage.
In a survey of prominent academics in the field of terrorism, two

leading scholars tallied 109 contrasting definitions to describe the
phenomenon of terrorism as we know it today, and there is also no standard
definition shared between the different branches of the U.S. government,
various law enforcement agencies, and international bodies like the United
Nations. This lack of consensus on how to distinguish terrorism from other
forms of political violence is in large part because of the politicization and
controversy surrounding it, and this is particularly the case when classifying
domestic political violence from the far-right or far-left as terrorist acts. Most
researchers rely on the Global Terrorism Database for collecting data,
however by using its standards, it does not include typical criminal violence
which may appear to be terrorist attacks (like mass shootings) or terrorist
plots that were unsuccessful or foiled by authorities, which could be useful
for studying future trends in the field.
One disturbing trend is highlighted in Global Trends 2035: Paradox of

Progress - that the nature of conflict is changing right before our very eyes.
Hybrid groups like ISIS, AQAP, and Hezbollah are targeting weak states and
conflict zones as they now seek to conquer territory, while promoting their
global brand and inspiring others to commit atrocities in their name. In
June 2014, ISIS racked up several political accomplishments by capturing
Mosul and declaring the State of the Islamic Caliphate. During this period, a
crucial evolution of ISIS propaganda occurred as the group formed its Al-
Hayat Media Center (HMC) in Syria. The HMC specialized in catering to non-
30
Arabic audiences, and demonstrated this focus with the release of the first
issue of Dabiq in June 2014, which was published in Arabic, English, Russian,
French and German. In this issue, Alberto Fernandez, Vice President of Middle
Eastern Media Research Institute (MEMRI), recalls the sense of being heavily
outgunned and outnumbered was palpable, both in terms of our own
resources and in what everyone else was doing against this adversary
worldwide. According to his account, this was a surprise to official
Washington which had suspected that the global Salafi-jihadi threat was
ebbingthat al-Qaeda and its franchises (which at the time would have
included the Islamic State of Iraq) were contained and on a downward trend
(Fernandez, Alberto - Vice President of MEMRI 2016). According to multiple
authors, these transnational groups are now specifically targeting
impressionable and confused youth on the world stage, and ISIS messages
and style, in particular, are likely to be copied by new generations of violent
extremists because of the revolutionary techniques (Crenshaw and LaFree.
2017).
iv. Current Efforts and the War of Ideas
A growing number of practitioners and scholars point out that current

counter-terrorism efforts are woefully insufficient to combat the social,
political, and technological challenges posed by violent extremist ideology.
We urgently need a new paradigm one that recognizes violent

extremism as the global, generational challenge that it is and leverages
all tools available to defeat it in this fight. We will need to take terrorists
off the battlefield, disrupt plots, and safeguard our borders. But we will
never eradicate the violence caused by these groups until we defeat their
ideologies (Proctor and Green 2016).
Experts have identified a variety of forces that can lead to the

radicalization process, including political perceptions of injustice, social
31
marginalization, and personal grievances that might push individuals to
extremist organizations; and individual characteristics like impulsiveness,
recklessness, and thrill seeking that skilled recruiters use to pull recruits
into their causes. Nevertheless, many Muslim millennials across the globe
suffer from a profound identity crisis. From Boston to Paris, Nairobi to
Dhaka, young Muslims are struggling to find purpose and questioning how
their Muslim faith fits into a globalized, connected world (Proctor and Green
2016).
v. Countering Violent Extremism
Countering Violent Extremism is a broad term that can encompass a

whole range of programs to address the radicalization process and attempt
to de-radicalize those who are at risk of committing violent extremist acts
through community engagement and various social services (Romaniuk
2015). The first manifestation of CVE policy in the U.S. government
appeared in the 2006 National Security Strategy (NSS) from the White
House. The 2006 NSS was articulated as part of the long strategy of winning
the battle of ideas by undermining the appeal of extremist ideologies and
narratives and stemming recruitment or mobilization to terrorism. (Proctor
and Green 2016)
It was hoped that CVE programs would build more resilient

communities, foster more partnerships between minority communities,
protect those most at risk, and help to reintegrate and rehabilitate those who
had been radicalized by any extremist ideology back into their larger
communities. Following some initial missteps in implementation, and the
realization that broadly-based methods could yield unintended consequences
(e.g. further radicalizing some individuals), government agencies and private
partners are now rebooting their CVE efforts for a more precise and targeted
approach instead of a standard one size fits all solution. While the term CVE
is considered by some in the business to have become a tainted brand,
32
over suspicions of it being used exclusively as a law enforcement tool to
surveil and report on the Muslim community, and its singular focus on Islamic
extremism, scholars still insist that the initiation of CVE programs are the
most important development in the counter-terrorism field in the past
decade (Romaniuk. 2015).
The CSIS Commission on Countering Violent Extremism reports that the

U.S. government faces constant challenges in how to address an ideology
that hides within Islams, while choosing to sidestep the issue of
interpreting religious texts and disenfranchising community (Proctor and
Green 2016). The government has attempted to promote moderate Islamic
authorities to challenge extremist beliefs and narratives, at home and
abroad, without having the expertise or insight regarded as legitimate and
credible by these disparate authorities. Currently, CVE programs and
practitioners are not unified in a strategic or tactical sense, and they lack
general agreement on boundaries and the rules of the road for CVE efforts,
including standard definitions of both the problem and the solution.
The U.S. government has attempted to separate CVE efforts in the

domestic realm from those at the international level, despite clear
indications that ideology is exported to the global community. Perhaps, most
importantly, the US governments CVE programs lack a compelling and
alluring counter-narrative to offer those prone to radicalization a fulfilling
alternative.
Not all terrorism research is identical; different countries have different

investigative areas based on contextual need. Europe particularly focuses in
counter-radicalization efforts because they experienced a greater influx of
migrants and are geographically closer to areas that attract foreign fighters.
33
These differences in terrorism research across the world are due to

changes in demographic trends. Because Europe has seen a massive influx
of migrants from the Middle East and the Levant, in a short period of time,
they have larger numbers of foreign fighters migrating to join ISIL.
D. White-Collar Crime/Future Crime
Our sub-group researched white collar crime and future crime during
this two-semester capstone. Unlike, our peer sub-groups, we transitioned
from one research area to another after we found that the majority of white
collar crimes in the past 15 years are in-part due to technological
disruptions. That is, criminal opportunities form at the intersection of
targets, actors, and platforms by way of leveraging criminal insights into
technology that law enforcement is unable to prevent due to inadequacies in
current laws, knowledge, or administration. Our intent is not to make precise
predictions, rather, to illuminate open sources that point to likely future
technological disruptions that are based on emerging technologies that are
vulnerable to criminal exploitation. As our research during the first semester
indicates, many of the technological disruptions that exist today were
foreseen by several different types of sources. This finding highlights the
value of looking to a diverse set of sources to investigate and prioritize future
criminal vulnerabilities to enable prevention by appropriate law enforcement
agencies.
Our sub-group began the research process by selecting white collar

crime. The Houston domain has many types of industries, and a large
quantity of those businesses are part of the financial and healthcare sector.
In the past, several high-visibility financial crimes like the Waste
34
Management, Enron, and WorldCom scandals gained the attention and
required the resources of the FBI. These crimes had nation-wide
consequences regarding lost jobs, lost pensions, devalued investments, and
the loss of trust in financial institutions. Houston also has the dubious
distinction of being ground zero for MEDICARE fraud and leads the nation
in prosecutions related to these types of crimes. As reported by the Houston
Chronicle, some of the largest frauds in the nation have been unearthed in
the Houston area, and greed and easy money drive the schemes, and the
Houston area has plenty of both (Banks 2016). In June of 2016, as part of a
nationwide sweep the Southern District of Texas (SDTX), the United States
Attorneys Office (USAO) and the Department of Justice Medicare Fraud Strike
Force charged 22 individuals in 11 cases involving over $136 million in the
alleged fraud (USAO, Southern Texas 2016). Its clear the Houston Domain
remains an area in which Healthcare fraud is a significant issue and will
continue to be so in the near future.
Over the course of the fall semester, our sub-group researched several
cases of Healthcare fraud. During this period of the capstone, our research
question was what open sources are currently reporting on, or who have
previously reported on, data, trends, and models regarding Healthcare Fraud
in the United States. During our research, we identified the Targets, Actors,
and Platforms involved in each healthcare fraud case and looked for patterns
among these cohorts. This method of the investigation led us to several
types of sources who were reporting on healthcare fraud, well beyond our
initial expectations. For example, we discovered that the Criminal Justice
Section of the American Bar Association (ABA) had a White Collar Crime
Institute which produced a newsletter and held annual conferences. Many of
the presentations included material on trends within a particular facet of
white collar crime, including healthcare fraud (ABA 2016). Another source of
information was the American Society of Criminology which also held annual
35
conferences and published articles like Todays White Collar Crime: What
Have We Learned in the Past 70 Years? (Brightman 2009). In summary,
there were many open sources of information regarding healthcare fraud that
were not produced by law enforcement agencies but those with a vested
interest in the field of study like law schools, industry groups, and various
academic and professional journals.
As the fall semester progressed, we gradually expanded our research

to include sources that included information about each healthcare fraud
specific target, actor, or platform. In addition, our sub-group used a STEEP
framework (Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental or Political) as a
method to identify any driving trends that may have led to the conditions
which caused an increase in healthcare fraud in the United States, or
specifically within the Houston domain. After collecting and briefly analyzing
roughly 60 sources, our sub-group categorized each open source into one of
six categories: Government, Media, Private Industry, Academia, Professional
Organizations, and Think Tanks/Advocacy Groups.
Our sub-group had three general findings during the fall semester. The
first is that changes in technology (platforms) have caused exponential
growth in the cases of healthcare fraud. The combination of electronic
medical records, computer-based patient information, internet based claims,
and the lack of fraud detection mechanisms (software) created a perfect
storm of vulnerabilities and opportunities for criminal actors. The second
finding is that there is an increasing number of providers and administrators
(those with access to patient information) who are willing to perpetrate
fraud. Within the last twenty years, doctors, nurses, pharmacists, ambulance
companies, nursing home employees, and medical supply company
employees are increasingly willing to perpetrate a relatively low-risk, high-
reward crime and place their greed above the care of patients. Our sub-
group's third finding is that academic and professional journals were both the
36
most numerous and best sources of information regarding information about
healthcare fraud. For example, every major law school in the U.S. produces a
regular newsletter or full journal. Unlike media reports, Academic journals go
beyond just reporting the facts they are peer-reviewed, often contain
sections on criminal cause and effect, and usually address the future
implications of trends or emerging aspects of criminal targets, actors or
platforms. For example, in June of 2014, the Notre Dame Journal of Law,
Ethics, and Public Policy published an article entitled White Collar Crime:
What It Is and Where Its Going. From the introduction:
we present this work to help clarify the concept of white-collar crime,

discuss what it has traditionally been perceived to be and what it is
becoming in the age of computers, the Internet, and rapidly advancing
technology. In the end, the reader will hopefully have a better understanding
of the nature of white collar crime, its impact on our society and the
direction in which it seems to be heading (ND Journal 2014).
This is just one example of open source information about the future of
crime contained in an Academic Journal. Industry or professional groups also
have a vested interest in the particular crimes which affect the lawful
conduct of their business. As such, they are willing to share information and
expose actors and platforms which undermine the credibility and faith in
their business models or bring unwanted scrutiny to their business practices.
This type of information is often published in trade-specific magazines,
newsletters, websites, blogs, and conferences.
At the beginning of the spring semester, our sub-group elected to

modify both the research question and our specific area of research both
trying to now inform the FBI about the future. We modified our research
question to: what open sources are currently reporting on, data, trends, and
37
models regarding the future of crime in the United States. Unlike crimes
already committed and prosecuted, there are much fewer open sources of
information that describe or predict future crimes. Individuals and groups
who specifically research future crimes are very limited; no one has a
formula or model for predicting and identify crimes 10-15 years in the future.
What these individuals normally do is describe trends, like those associated
with Social, Technological, Economic, Environmental or Political changes, that
may create different scenarios (or alternate futures) in which criminals may
emerge and/or find new opportunities. This discovery caused our sub-group
to refine its research focus towards specific drivers of change. Also, there will
be acts perpetrated by individuals that are not crimes today say groping or
robbing of individuals in Virtual Reality (VR) worlds or medical identity theft
through stealing of a DNA sequence that may be crimes in the future. The
one thing we can be certain of is this the future will contain some new
criminal targets, actors, and platforms, as well as different combinations of
these three elements which may or may not be the result of trends that are
visible today.
As the spring semester progressed, our sub-group focused its research

on individuals, organizations, and publications that published material about
the future. Not surprisingly, these sources were entirely different from the
ones we discovered in the fall semester. Due to the nature of their work, it
was problematic to establish an objective method to grade their credibility.
By design, futurists make predictions which often are intended to push the
limits of knowledge rather than follow a linear model of cause and effect
they are creative, out-of-the-box thinkers. The work of futurists can be found
in traditional sources like books, magazine articles, and websites but also
more non-traditional sources like blogs, TED talks, consortiums,
documentaries, YouTube channels, and on social media.
All of the individuals and organizations which published information

38
about the future used some sort of STEEP-like framework to create specific
scenarios. What we found is that almost all of these sources considered
technology to be a significant driver (if not the largest) of change, and
predicted that advances in technology would increase both the number and
type of criminal targets and criminal platforms. In the National Intelligence
Councils 2017 report Global Trends: Paradox of Progress they list
technology as one of seven trends that will have a profound influence on the
world in 2035. The report states technology is accelerating progress but
causing discontinuities. Rapid technological advancements will increase the
pace of change and create new opportunities but will aggravate divisions
between winners and losers. Automation and artificial intelligence (AI)
threaten to change industries faster than economies can adjust (Global
Trends 2017). The report goes on to state technology will continue to
empower individuals, small groups, corporations, states, as well as
accelerate the pace of change and spawn new complex challenges,
discontinuities, and tensions (Global Trends 2017).
As the Houston Field Office considers changes in technology, it should

develop a methodology to Red Team some of the changes. History has
indicated that criminals have often taken advantage of technological
changes like using the dark web or drones to deliver illegal drugs before
law enforcement has developed investigative techniques to police these
areas. In addition, the criminal justice system lags behind, and lawmakers
have not changed/updated their statutes to prosecute these acts. Part of this
methodology would include a select group of analysts or agents who take a
predicted type of technology and identify means in which they could use it to
commit a crime. Futurists also use this method of identifying and making
predictions about potential criminal targets and platforms. As such, our sub-
group provided the following criteria within our open sources from which the
39
FBI could evaluate the credibility of each source: his/her credentials, their
notable insights (past or present), and the implications for their predictions.
i. Bruce Schneier
A lecturer and fellow at the Harvards JFK School of Public Policy, Bruce
Schneier has been called the security guru by the Economist. Bruce is the
author of 13 books, hundreds of articles, academic papers, and has testified
before Congress on the criminal implications of internet security (Schneier,
About Bruce Schneier 2017).
The internet of things is composed of sensors that collect data (e.g.

temperature), devices that analyze the data and use it for a task (e.g.
computers), and machines that change the condition of the setting around us
(e.g. thermostats). The continued integration of the internet into these
devices using the principles above is akin to building a giant robot if
considered on a global scale. The risk to human life becomes more
pronounced as medical devices, and driverless cars become an additional
variable to the internet of things. Moreover, according to Bruce Schneier
when it comes to the internet of thingsattack is easier than defense, and
most software is poorly written. At its current state, the global internet of
things lacks any planned architecture and is, therefore, vulnerable to bad
actors that could disrupt society at the expense of lives. (Schneier, Click Here
to Kill Everyone 2017)
By 2020, over 26 billion devices will be connected to the web

(Angelidis 2015). The increased connectedness of such systems or the
internet of things, is expected to have an economic impact of $2.7 to $6.2
trillion by the year 2025 (Segal 2016). As this trend continues, the danger of
disruption to infrastructure and potentially attacks that lead to death may be
more likely. On October 21, 2016, a massive denial of service attack used
thousands of routers, webcams, and other internet connected devices in
40
private homes to initiate the largest denial service attack ever launched. The
attack affected internet users ability to access major social media and
shopping websites along the East Coast of the United States. Home
appliances, traffic infrastructure, the power grid, and even our water supply
are connected to the internettherefore vulnerable to attack by hackers. As
the internet of things becomes a more pervasive element in our society,
attacks like the October 21st attack are just the beginning. (Schneier, Click
Here to Kill Everyone 2017, O'Brien 2016)
ii. Ray Kurzweil
Inventor and author, Mr. Kurzweil is credited with inventing several of

the first text, speech, and orchestral music synthesizers devices. Ray
Kurzweil is the recipient of several awards and honors including the MIT-
Lemelson Prize, the National Medal of Technology (presented by President Bill
Clinton), and he was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame.
(Kurzweil AlNetwork 2017)
3-D printers will increase in capability and use by society by the year
2025. Scientist and developers have already demonstrated less advanced
applications of 3-D printers by printing human cartilage. According to
Kurzweil, the 3-D printers will be sophisticated enough to print clothing and
organs like downloading an eBook with pre-packaged materials. (Howard
2015)
The use of 3-D printers and virtual/augmented reality are emerging

technological developments that are arriving at criminal tipping points that
will gain practical use for modern criminals. The capability to print complex
objects akin to using a k-cup is likely to impact the black market as future
criminal enterprises may leverage 3-D printers to print organs, medications,
and clothing for the black market. At its current technological state, 3-D
printers have demonstrated the ability to print weapons, eyeglasses, and
41
jawbones. Scientists are working diligently to achieve revolutionary
accomplishments that will change medicine forever and affect the illegal
medical change as well. (Ventola 2014)
iii. Marc Goodman
Marc Goodman is a global security advisor, author, and futurist who

consults on cybercrime, cyberterrorism, and information warfare. Marc has
advised organizations such as INTERPOL, the United Nations, NATO, and the
LAPD. In addition to his consulting work, Marc serves as a Chair for Policy and
Law at Silicon Valleys Singularity University; a venture sponsored by NASA
and Google to, address humanitys grand challenges. Marc holds a Master
of Public Administration from Harvard and a Master of Science in the
Management of Information Systems from the London School of Economics.
(Goodman, Marc Goodman Biography 2013) Goodman is also the author of
the 2015 book Future Crime: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle
for Our Connected World, and has given numerous TED talks on the
intersection of technology and criminal platforms.
Drones are increasing in number, and sophistication and have the

potential to be used not only as weapons systems but also criminal platforms
capable of facilitating violent and non-violent crime. Drones lack clear and
effective regulations by the federal government despite recent FAA efforts to
require registration. Additionally, recent criminal and terrorist activity has
demonstrated that drones can be used to carry drugs, bombs, weapons that
can be used against a variety of targets. Drones in the hands of criminal
significantly expand the vulnerability of targets in the homeland. (Goodman,
A view from the unfriendly skies: How criminals are using drones 2013)
Although drones are being used by homeland security and the

Department of Defense for protecting the border, criminals are also using
drones for unlawful purposes. Drug cartels in Mexico and FARC Rebels in
42
Colombia are already using drones for the transportation of narcotics. In
Britain, drones have been used by gangs for the delivery of cell phones,
guns, and drugs to convicts in Prisons nine times in 2014 (Milmo 2016). ISIS
is also reportedly using small drones to drop bombs on Iraqi troops. Criminals
and terrorists could use mounted weapons on inexpensive drones and attack
targets just as easily as the intoxicated government employee that landed a
similar drone on the White House lawn in 2015the most protected house in
the United States (Sanchez 2015, Schogol 2017). Bank robbers, domestic
gangs, and other criminal elements may use drones to attack and surveil law
enforcement just as more sophisticated criminals could use drones to
conduct industrial espionage. (Goodman, A view from the unfriendly skies:
How criminals are using drones 2013)
iv. Thomas Frey
As a celebrity speaker and futurist, Thomas Frey has written about the
implications of future advances in technology on society, and regularly
speaks to Fortune 500 companies like Boeing, GE, Pepsi, and Visa. Thomas
has also been featured in articles in publications such as Popular Science,
The New York Times, National Geographic, and Forbes. (Frey, Thomas Frey
Biography 2016)
The neutral currency called Bitcoin operates outside the control of

nations as a digital currency that is stored on a permanent secure network
that is available for the public to inspect. However, purchases and identities
are anonymous, therefore an attractive platform for people wanting to use
the currency for illegal purposes. Bitcoin will be a major disruptor to banking,
e-commerce, charities, music, gambling as it subverts regulations and laws
governing each of these industries. Unlike traditional currency, Bitcoins
circulation is limited to a capped amount. That is the number of Bitcoins in
circulation will not be increased, and therefore the rapidly increasing value
may rise to unsustainable levels. If the current trajectory of Bitcoin
43
continues, countries may establish Bitcoin reserves, finance significant
infrastructure projects with the digital currency, and eventually acknowledge
it as globally accepted currency. (Frey 2017)
Bitcoin and other similar cryptocurrencies make transactions virtually

invisible to governments, unlike traditional currencies that have oversight
through the international banking system. Already a currency prevalent to
the Dark Web (i.e. the uncataloged internet), Bitcoins growing value, and the
digital anonymity offered by the money is already leading to criminals using
cryptocurrency as means to avoid law enforcement (Mihm 2013).
Furthermore, because of its increasing value, Bitcoin will become a more of a
lucrative target for theft by hackers (Shin 2016).
v. Michio Kaku
Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist and author that has written
several bestselling books on the future. Michio has also been featured on
several television programs on Discovery, Science, and BBC in addition to
being a contributor on the show CBS: This Morning. Dr. Kaku holds a B.S.
from Harvard and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkley.
(Kaku, About Dr. Michio Kaku 2017)
Augmented reality will be a common aspect of everyday life 20 to 50

years from now. Contact lenses will be able to display everything from
information from the internet to translations of foreign languages.
Furthermore, people wearing these advanced contact lenses will view
superimposed images that will have applications for everything from driving
directions to games. (Kaku, A Scientist Predicts the Future 2013)
Virtual and augmented reality will become more vulnerable to

criminals as the sophistication increases and its use becomes more prevalent
in our society. In a 2015 report on Real Worlds in Virtual Worlds by the
International Association of Police Chiefs, virtual goods exceeded $14 billion
44
in sales in 2014 (International Association of Police Chiefs 2015). The
consulting firm, Deloitte, also projects that by the year 2020, augmented
reality will have over 1 billion users that will use the technology for
entertainment, gestural interfacespotentially any flat surface may
integrate augmented reality technology (Deloitte Development LLC 2015).
The rise in popularity and advancement of virtual worlds is therefore only
likely to increase the number of criminal opportunities and vulnerabilities for
people to exploit.
Fringe sources like Marc Goodman are worth following as a type of

fringe source that has written and presented extensively on trends and
disruptive forces among criminal targets, actors, and platforms. He has spent
decades studying and predicting future crimes. As a credit to his work,
Goodman foresaw the need for law enforcement to acquire the training and
equipment necessary to combat cyber criminals - back in 1997. He also
correctly predicted the consequences of law enforcement falling behind
criminal enterprises as they exploited the emerging vulnerabilities within
technology. (Goodman 1997)
Criminals leverage emerging technological trends to exploit yet

unforeseen criminal opportunities to further their criminal enterprises. Fringe
sources are similar to a red teaming methodology as they attempt to frame
the internal criminal thinking of how they [criminals] might leverage
dramatic shifts in technology as platforms to exploit new vulnerabilities
against targets. Given the nature of criminals ability to adapt quickly to
exploit victims, fringe sources should not be immediately discounted based
on their unscientific approach. Like criminals, fringe sources approach to
identifying future disruptors is creative and often unscientific, and they only
45
have to be right part of the time.
V.
RECOMMENDATIONS
A. Organized Crime Sub-Group
The Houston Field Office should examine sources

discussing trends in technology, transportation, and
policy because...
changes in technology and transportation coincide with changes in

their role as a facilitation platform for recruiting, advertising, and
transporting trafficking victims. Policies related specifically to sex
trafficking, child welfare, and immigration are important because
previous victims, foster children, and immigrants are targets for sex
trafficking. As related technology, transportation, and policies change,
the vulnerability of these groups will simultaneously alter.
The Houston Field Office should develop contacts with

related advocates in the Houston Domain...
in order to develop a coordinated effort and improve

information sharing. This may be in the form of a task force, which
includes advocacy groups, law enforcement, victim services personnel,
lawyers, immigration services, and other interested persons. Each
group has a unique role in countering the sex trafficking enterprise.
46
The Department of Justice should partner with
academics, government agencies, and nonprofit
organizations
to adopt a common definition of sex trafficking. This

discussion will allow for research to be more easily found, understood,
and aggregated for effective research and policy development.
B. Violent Crime Sub-group
The Houston Field Office should follow:
1) Observatorio de Legislacin y Poltica Migratoria

(Academia), 2) Insight Crime (Think Tanks/Advocacy
Group/Professional Org.), and 3) John P. Sullivan (Academia). They
began as part of our background sources, but continued to provide
value throughout our research. Each one has valuable reports related
to the gangs activities.
The MS-13 National Gang Task Force and the

Houston Field Office should use foreign sources to
expand their perspective on MS-13.
Foreign sources have already concluded MS-13 is developing into

organized crime. These sources also discuss future implications of the
gangs development. For example, MS-13 members are beginning to
substitute drones for human observers. This new practice changes
their previous information network of hundreds of youths.
The MS-13 National Gang Task Force (at FBI HQ)

should monitor open sources (see FTST) for...
any links or patterns in some or all sets of MS-13. If MS-
47
13 sets begin to develop a consolidated structure, it will likely indicate
an evolution to organized crime.
C. Terrorism Sub-Group
The FBI HQ should follow and interact with

international trade and finance organizations,
such as the intergovernmental Financial Action Task

Force, to identify novel terrorist financing strategies and
track changes in international criminal activity. This will allow for
greater international cooperation and trend identification, especially as
connected to the Houston natural resources industry. The FATF sets
specific guidelines (see FTST) to combat money laundering and
counter terrorism proliferation and financing.
The Houston Field Office should partner with

international research institutions and law
enforcement agencies to share information and
develop best practices in countering violent
extremism.
Many European countries and Israel have specialized research

institutions, such as the University of Leidens International Center for
Counter Terrorism, dedicated solely to CVE and counter-radicalization.
Furthermore, the Houston Field Office should partner with its sister
cities law enforcement agencies, such as those in Marseille, France
(see Evaluation of Sources).
The Department of Justice and FBI HQ should be

consistent in their use of the terms terrorism and
countering violent extremism
A consensus definition would create a common
48
perspective for (relevant stakeholders in terrorism research and
crafting responses to terrorism, improving the quality of research that
informs FBI and DOJ level policymaking to counter terrorism) both the
primary and tertiary contributors to terrorism research. Both
organizations share a common theme, and most law enforcement
agencies use the FBI definition which stresses methods over
motivations. For example, incidents may or may not be labeled
incidents of domestic terrorism or crime which could affect funding
availability and future responses. A common definition of both the
problem and the solution would allow for more collaboration, effective
measurement of response initiatives, and better indicators of potential
violations of civil liberties.
The Department of Justice should lead an interagency

effort to reconsider the classification level attached to
terrorist incidents.
The increase in the classification levels for previously unclassified reports

from entities such as the National Counterterrorism Centers (NCTC) -
Worldwide Incident Tracking System (WITS) - which stopped releasing
publicly available reports in 2014, have prevented nongovernmental
institutions from producing high-quality research on terrorism.
D. White-Collar Crime / Future Crimes Sub-Group
The Houston Field Office should incorporate fringe

sources, and industry leaders (e.g. health care) into
existing red teaming processes
to utilize their expertise as means to integrate emerging

technological disruptions into how criminal enterprises might use new
or unknown vulnerabilities to their desire intent against targets.
49
The Houston Field Office should contract fringe sources
(e.g. futurists like Marc Goodman) to work in
cooperation with a Houston research firm to
develop a comprehensive report on how future demographic

changes and emerging technological disruptions will affect the greater
Houston domain as well as inhibit the mission of the
Houston Field Office.
The FBI HQ should maintain a subscription to (or

database of) journals or newsletters from the major law
schools in the U.S.
This database should be made available to the various field

offices and crime-specific task forces, and should be searchable by
topic, school, and author. The FBI should also consider either an overt
or undercover presence at the annual meetings of the White Collar
Crime Institute and like organizations.
The Houston Field Office, in partnership with the Miami

Field Office, should collect and maintain a copy of any
reports/presentations from Healthcare-related industry
conferences addressing crime or fraudulent activities
among stakeholders.
50
VI. FUTURE RESEARCH
Limited resources, including time and human capital, required the
capstone to develop a project scope which focused on four of the FBIs nine
areas of investigative interest. Our capstone team recognizes further
research must be completed in order to understand all of the available
sources related to future crime, and to develop effective methods to make
better use OSINT. Further research needs to be done in the following topic
areas: the utilization of the sources, information sharing, counter-messaging,
disinformation, trend analysis, red-teaming, and alternative future
scenarios. Accurate information is essential to provide the FBI and its
partners with actionable intelligence and the data required to prioritize
resources - all with the goal of staying one step ahead of criminal actors. All
of the suggested areas of study require the continued pursuit of healthy
relationships with community and inter-agency partners as well as the
integrity of information.
Our capstone team identified potentially untapped sources for the FBI
to include in its decision cycle. However, further research is needed in how
the FBI could utilize, disseminate and develop relationships to better serve
its mission. Building relationships, especially with organizations and
individuals identified in this report, is essential for the FBI to maintain a
competitive advantage in the current or future environment where criminal
actors have an advantage. The information needs to seamlessly flow or be
gathered from the source to the FBI and (potentially) vice-versa. Information
sharing mechanisms already exist, but there are obvious problems with the
dissemination of the information to all professional groups who have equity
in certain criminal activity. The Houston Field Offices FIG or another
capstone should analyze the information sharing mechanisms, and explore
how they could be better organized, marketed or improved. They could
51
research the barriers to communications and determine how to strategically
target information and the OSINT sources we have provided throughout this
report. Also, the FBI could contract an outside academic or professional
organization to conduct research on potential future criminal targets, actors,
and platforms within a specific area like financial crimes or human trafficking.
Studying the information sharing mechanisms, both between law
enforcement agencies and with private industry or academia is important
because the owners of critical infrastructure or business/industries have a
vested interest in ensuring the legal and regulated practice of commerce.
Another area of future research is within the field of disinformation and

counter-messaging. With the increase in both official and unofficial media,
there has been a corresponding increase in sources of information that are
false and unsupported. States and groups around the world have conducted
misinformation campaigns, and there is an increasing sense of distrust -
even with reputable news organizations. As these trends continue, it is
essential that a group look at how disinformation affects their own sources
and how threat actors take advantage of misinformation. The FBI depends on
the trust of the public and relationships with different overt, covert,
classified, and unclassified sources. The FBI would benefit greatly from a
study of how to craft their message during this time, how to maintain trust
with the American people, how to preserve the integrity of their information,
and how to counter threat actors who take advantages of disinformation.
Lastly, the Houston Field Office should consider a robust red-teaming

or red cell effort, especially when it comes to emerging or future
technologies. In other words, a small group of field agents and analysts
should conduct brief research on these types of technologies and then
develop a methodology to think or act like criminals. This group could
explore and report on ways in which new technologies create opportunities
for criminal actors, new or modernized facilitation platforms, and future
52
targets of criminal activity. The red-teaming approach could be expanded to
include all of the drivers of change: social, economic, environmental, and
political/policy. Depending on available funds and time horizon, this effort
could also be contracted to a group of futurists and/or another capstone
team.
ANNEX A: DEFINITIONS
Academic Sources: Sources from an educational environment or
community concerned with the pursuit of research, education, and
53
scholarship.
Actor: A person or entity who wishes to conduct a criminal activity (FBI).
Buyers: In reference to sex trafficking; purchasers of the trafficked victims

(also known as Johns).
Countering Violent Extremism: The use of non-coercive means to

dissuade individuals or groups from mobilizing towards violence and to
mitigate recruitment, support, facilitation, or engagement in ideologically
motivated terrorism in furtherance of political objectives (Khan, Humera).
Criminal Opportunity: The convergence of a target and platform that

allow a motivated, able actor to commit a crime.
Facilitation Platform: The method or opportunity by which an actor can

commit a crime.
Future Targets Source Tool (FTST): An interactive database developed by

the capstone team to enable research and data collection of sources that
describe future trends in crime.
Government Sources: Sources that come from the governing body of a

nation, state, or community.
Media Sources: Sources derived from the main means of mass

communication (broadcasting, publishing, and the Internet).
Other/Fringe Sources: Sources from emerging, outside groups such as

futurists, fringe scientists, and studies not yet adopted by mainstream
academia or government.
Primary Traffickers: In reference to sex trafficking; individuals responsible

for selling the victims (also known as pimps).
Private Industry Sources: Sources on industry-specific concerns usually as

a means of enterprise for profit, and is not controlled by the State on
industry-specific. concerns
Professional Organizations/Think Tanks/Advocacy Groups Sources:

Sources from professional and advocacy interest groups; think tanks soft
power; mechanisms focused on countering extremist ideology and its appeal
to American youth by incorporating technology, health, education,
54
communications, cultural, philanthropic, financial and non-government
sectors (Homeland Security Advisory Council 2016).
Recruiters: In reference to sex trafficking; individuals responsible for

gleaning information from prospective victims for the primary traffickers.
Secondary Traffickers: In reference to sex trafficking; individuals appointed

by the primary traffickers to supervise others (also known as bottom girls).
Spotters: In reference to sex trafficking; individuals responsible for

identifying prospective victims for the purpose of sex trafficking.
Sources: An organization, institution, person, or publication from which

information on future crimes can be obtained
Tertiary Actors: In reference to sex trafficking; enablers or profiteers of sex

trafficking industry (i.e. hoteliers, transporters, security personnel,
investors).
ANNEX B: SUB-GROUP FINDINGS AND

CONCLUSIONS
Organized Crime Sources Findings and Conclusions
Findings
55
1 Sources discussing trends in technology, policy, and
transportation highlight changes in the targeted populations and
facilitation platforms of sex trafficking.
2 Advocates in the field of sex trafficking, including nonprofit

organizations, academics, victim services personnel, and
members of law enforcement, serve as valuable sources for
research because they have the unique experience of working
with victims and related policy matters.
3 Related academic institutes address the necessity for a

multidisciplinary approach to research on sex trafficking because
they address how issues such as transportation, technology, and
policy can influence organized crime groups who are involved in
sex trafficking.
4 Several different terms are used in the literature to describe the

same concept. The most common term used is human
trafficking, and it was used approximately 62 percent of the
time in our research, followed by sex trafficking at about 25
percent. Other terms such as trafficking, trafficking in
persons, and child labor trafficking were used at 8 percent, 4
percent, and 2 percent, respectively.
Conclusions
1 Sex traffickers constantly adapt to changes in technology, policy,

and transportation to remain effective at targeting vulnerable
populations through available facilitation platforms.
2 Organizationally, there is not a structure for advocates to

collaborate to serve victims and eradicate sex trafficking.
3 Diverse areas of study, such as international relations, political

science, information systems, and industrial distribution, are
critical to understanding the actors, facilitation platforms, and
targets of sex trafficking.
4 Sex trafficking is a difficult subject to study because of the

misuse of related definitions. The lack of consistency in
terminology within the literature highlights the paucity of cross-
56
sector communication between different areas of study. It also
leads to a misunderstanding of the issue and a miscalculation of
the scale of the sex trafficking industry.
Violent Crime Sources Findings and Conclusions

Findings
1 Found value in seeking out sources from other countries due to

differences in culture, language, politics, and economies
(especially, non-English speaking). These sources also focused
on motivational factors and loopholes that accounted for the
massive growth MS-13 has had.
2 Academic sources presented the best indicators for immigration,

which is a key contributing factor to MS-13's establishment.
3 Technology is changing MS-13's practice of using youths for its

information network. Human capital is being replaced by drones.
As a result, youths will transfer from their role as informants to
perpetrators of crime.
4 During the second semester we found that non-English sources

made up 44% of our research. A breakdown within each source
type is as follows: Academia 47%, Government 22%, Media 83%,
Think Tanks/Advocacy Group/Professional Organization 36%, and
Other/Fringe 33%.
Conclusions
1 The non-English sources we noticed targeted heavily the MS-13

located in El Salvador, we know that this is partly due to their
vast expansion and power in the region. A takeaway from this
point is that although they are biased towards this location, it
works in our favor as there is a correlation between the US and El
Salvador MS-13. El Salvador MS-13 crimes, behavior, and culture
can have an impact and in a way, be the guinea pig for other MS-
13 sets to learn from and therefore incorporate new or revise
methods.
2 The violent crime sub-group created an overall framework that

could be duplicated and would withstand the expiration of
information. The thought process creates a mold where MS-13
can be replaced with another emerging crime organization and
57
indicators present in current sources can offer a prediction of
future evolution.
Terrorism Sources Findings and Conclusions

Findings
1 International Trade and Finance Organizations identify novel

terrorist financing strategies and track changes in international
organizations.
2 Not all terrorism research is identical; different countries have

different investigative areas. Europe particularly focuses on
counter-radicalization efforts.
3 The lack of a common definition of terrorism stifles effective

policy development and coordinated academic research.
4 The government is impeding private industries ability to do

research that was previously considered an acceptable level of
disclosure.
Conclusions
1 These differences in terrorism research across the world are due

to changes in demographic trends. Because Europe has seen a
large influx of migrants from the Middle East and the Levant, in a
short period of time, they have larger numbers of foreign fighters
migrating to join ISIL.
2 Clear, timely information and coordinated definitions of terrorism

can lead to coordinated research and policymaking. Disjointed,
or efforts without transparency can lead to ambiguous findings in
terrorism research.
3 There is currently a deep divide between counter-terrorism

researchers - who believe we are no closer to answering our
original question about what leads people to commit political
violence - and government agencies that recognize this reality,
but nonetheless, promote CVE programs which assume there
must be qualitative ways to identify would be terrorists.
White-Collar Crime/Future Sources Findings and Conclusions

58
Findings
1 There are a surprising number and diversity of non-law

enforcement organizations that study, research, and publish
information on white-collar crime. These types of sources include
journals published by law schools and collegiate criminal justice
programs. Others include the American Bar Associations White
Collar Crime Institute and the American Society of Criminology.
2 Any ecosystem of professionals is going to have a vested

interested in illicit activities which affect the legal practices of a
given profession. Formal groups publish papers and/or
presentations that highlight trends or identify criminal targets,
actors, and platforms within a certain industry. For example, a
group called Managed Healthcare Executive Professionals
published a journal article that indicated the popularity of
preferred provider organizations and point-of-service plans over
the traditional HMO can present a greater risk for overutilization
and fraud from "phantom" patients and services (Allmon 2001).
3 Fringe is a category of sources that are underappreciated.

These organizations and individuals offer creative insight on
future innovations and emerging trends that may present
vulnerabilities for a criminal to exploit.
Conclusions
1 Non-law enforcement sources of information on white-collar

crime may be unrealized or underappreciated. Academic
institutions do not approach this topic with the intent to
prosecute but rather to inform an educated audience about
cause and effect. Also, academic sources normally include
analysis on the implications of their findings and suggested
areas of future research.
2 Professional organizations may have different motives (e.g.

profit) behind the publication of information within their
respective industries. However, since they are experts in a given
field, they will have the best insight toward the normal and
abnormal practices or conditions of an industry. They will also
have valuable insight on industry-specific trends, and any
targets, actors, or platforms that may threaten the legitimate
conduct of their respective businesses.
59
3 Fringe sources like futurists are of value for the following
reasons:
1) Futurists are vested in thinking of the unthinkable or taking
the intellectual risk to think out of the box as their careers and
reputations depend on their ability to occasionally get it right.
2) They use the methods of red teaming to think and act like
potential criminals. Many futurists have spent decades
publishing and speaking on the future of technology and how it
may intersect with society.
60
ANNEX C: DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES THROUGH 2050
61
62
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RESEARCH QUESTION

What open sources can help forecast

PLAIN SIGHT Katherine Watson

Supervised by Dr. David McIntyre

II. LITERATURE REVIEW 8

D. White-Collar Crime/Future Crime 34

VI. FUTURE RESEARCH 52

ANNEX B: SUB-GROUP FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS 57

ANNEX C: DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGES THROUGH 2050 62

The research methodology focused our efforts in two parts: sources

The organized crime sub-group focused on trafficking in persons,

Our report identifies specific sources for FBI Houston to exploit in

Although FBI Houston is a leader in the law enforcement and

The FBI is responsible for investigating crimes against or of interest to

Todays FBI is an intelligence-driven and threat-focused national

The national FBI priorities are:

1. Protect the United States from terrorist

The FBI describes crime through a particular framework of Targets,

OSINT, however, is a medium that can provide insight into future

1) Widely Available data and information;

2) Targeted Commercial Data;

3) Individual Experts, and;

4) Gray Literature--or literature not managed by commercial

Historically, OSINT played a secondary role to information collected

The FBIs new role as a preventive agency can be augmented through

This capstone sought to make-up for this intellectual shortfall through

Weeks one and two were used to develop a fundamental

During the second semester, the capstone identified the working

The capstone selected four areas of investigative interest for future

Four sub-groups focused on separate areas of investigative interest: 1)

After preliminary research, we narrowed our scope specifically to sex

In the spring semester, we updated our research question with

i. University of Southern California Technology and Human

The focus of the Technology and Human Trafficking Initiative at the

ii. Kirsta Melton

Kirsta Melton is the Assistant Attorney General of Texas responsible for

iii. International Migration Policy and Law Analysis (IMPALA)

The IMPALA Database contains qualitative and quantitative research

4. Sample Finding From Sources

Sex trafficking is a difficult subject to study because of the misuse of

As a sub-group of the capstone project, studying and analyzing

In analyzing the Texas Department of Public Safety Texas Gang Threat

1. Fall Semester Research

2. Spring Semester Research

Although apparent direct correlations of MS-13s growth and

The spring semester focus shifted to validating first semester sources

In the first semester, we initially began by analyzing case studies to

Reviewing sources of recurring crimes and changes in El Salvadors MS-

i. Observatorio de Legislacin y Poltica Migratoria

Observatorio de Legislacin y Poltica Migratoria is in el Colegio de La

ii. Insight Crime: Investigation and Analysis of Organized Crime

Insight Crime: Investigation and Analysis of Organized Crime an

iii. John P. Sullivan

John P. Sullivan a career police officer, author, and avid researcher on

4. Sample Finding From Sources

Found value in seeking out sources from other countries due to

The violent crime sub-group created an overall framework that could

The Terrorism sub-groups research efforts focused on both

As our Capstone began discussions of the FBIs areas of investigative

We found that several prominent authors mostly in the field of

After presenting our research to the FBI, the terrorism sub-group

2. Spring Semester Research

The most extensive, collaborative research institution to enable a