Groups of offenders Depending upon their structure, offences and aims, groups of child sexual abuse material offenders that exist around online sharing platforms may or may not meet the definition of an organized criminal group for the purposes of the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. Article 2 (a) of the Organized Crime Convention specifies that an organized criminal group “shall mean a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time and acting in concert with the aim of committing one or more serious crimes or offences established in accordance with the Convention, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit.”232 In this respect, the 2013 Cybercrime Study noted that contemporary, online forms of organized crime differ from traditional notions of organized crime that rely upon physical violence and trust-based relations. Instead, ICTs may lend themselves to short-lived networks across vast distances and among offenders who do not have any in-person connection.233 Some organized criminal groups and individual group members may be involved in both online and offline offences, while others may be involved in online activities only. In the area of ICT-facilitated child abuse and exploitation, for-profit organized criminal networks are known to be active in the area of child sexual abuse material production and distribution and, in particular, in markets for commercial child sexual exploitation.234 Organized criminal groups operating in this area may include those based in Asia, South-Eastern Europe, the Commonwealth of Independent States, Mexico and Nigeria.235 Through the use of ICT, offenders can more easily and less expensively recruit child victims for sexual exploitation, communicate with co-conspirators, and find customers. Groups offering child sex tourism can charge customers for the service of connecting them with their child victims across borders. Increasingly, commercial sexual exploitation of children business operators encourage their customers to pay additional fees for the recording of their exploits in the form of child sexual abuse material.236 In a recent United States based survey, 85 per cent of respondents said that they had encountered transnational groups that operate lucrative, profit-motivated child sex abuse material websites.237 The Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe noted in a 2006 report that organized crime groups are increasingly using child sex abuse material websites to steal identities and even to extort money from 229 EUROPOL. European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), 2013. Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children Online: A Strategic Assessment. Available at https://www.europol.europa.eu/sites/ default/files/publications/efc_strategic_assessment__public_version.pdf. 230 Beech, A., et al., 2008. Pp. 221-222. 231 UNICEF. Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, East Asia and Pacific. Available at http://www.unicef.org/eapro/activities_3757.html. Under Article 2 (c) of the Organized Crime Convention, a “Structured group” shall mean a group that is not randomly formed for the immediate commission of an offence and that does not need to have formally defined roles for its members, continuity of its membership or a developed structure. 233 UNODC, 2013. P. 45. 234 CSCE, 2006. Combating the Sexual Exploitation of Children. P.2 Available at. http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/humtraffdata/11. 235 See e.g. Shelley, L., 2010. Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective. 236 U.S. Department of Justice, 2010. Pp. 25-26. 237 Ibid. P. D-12. The majority of child sexual abuse material is exchanged via non-commercial channels, including public peer-to-peer platforms, as well as Tor, or the dark web.229 A large number of loose online groups of offenders exist around such platforms. Such groups may trade in specific forms of child abuse material, such as specific types of children based on gender or race. Others groups may enable users to share tactics on committing child sexual abuse material-related offences. Still others may specialize in providing advice to those in search of victims for contact abuse. Many groups serve all of these purposes simultaneously. While some commercial activity may occur, such groups tend to be primarily focused on facilitation, sharing, and community-type functions. They can provide members with an affirmation of the acceptability of abuse conduct and even encourage paedophilia, through the use of euphemisms and seemingly positive terms.230 Groups of offenders can also facilitate an exchange of knowledge and tactics for evading law enforcement. Members may, for example, share information about servers located in rogue countries that do not cooperate with international law enforcement, or about the use of encryption methods to conceal incriminating content. Group members might also alert each other with regard to ongoing undercover operations.231 Organized criminal groups 232 II. Evaluating the problem  33