Contributors

Louise Shelley

Erik R. Scott

Shalva Machavariani heads the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center’s Project on Money Laundering and Economic Crime in Georgia. Since 2002, Dr. Machavariani has been the Associate Dean for Research at the American-Georgian higher educational institution: the Caucasus School of Business. Previous to this, Dr. Machavariani was Vice-President of Caucasus University and managed projects for TACIS, INTAS, UNDP, and the World Bank. He is a graduate of the State Technical University and Tbilisi Sate University, where he earned a PhD in 1983. He has published 52 scientific works and two monographs, and he has patented two inventions.

Alexander Kukhianidze is the director of the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center, Caucasus Office, and associate professor in the Department of Political Science at Tbilisi State University. Dr. Kukhianidze has a PhD in philosophy and spent two years in the United States as a Fulbright Scholar. Most recently, Dr. Kukhianidze lead a TraCCC Georgia Office research team on Organized Crime in Georgia and its Transnational Links and has developed the course Politics and Organized Crime for MA students of Tbilisi State University.

Alexander (Aleko) Kupatadze is a PhD candidate at the School of International Relations, St. Andrews University, UK. He holds an MA degree in International Relations from Tbilisi State University, Georgia and an MA degree in International Studies from Uppsala University, Sweden. He has extensively researched smuggling and organized crime as an Associate Research Fellow at the Georgia Office of TraCCC. His doctoral dissertation focuses on "colorful revolutions" in Post-Soviet Space and its impact on organized crime.

Giorgi Siradze graduated from the Faculty of Law, Academy of the Ministry of State Security, Tbilisi, Georgia (2001), and completed the Department of Energy’s "Officer Survival Training" at the Nonproliferation and National Security Institute, Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2002; and "Major Case Management Course" at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, in 2003. In 2001-2004, he served in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia (Inspector, Senior Inspector of Especially Vital Cases). Since September 2004, he has been the Local Policy Advisor to the Delegation of the European Commission to Georgia.

Giorgi Mitagvaria graduated from the Faculty of Law, Tbilisi State University, in 2000, and is currently a senior lieutenant in the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia, Head of European Integration Division, where he is responsible for international relations and strategy planning for European Integration.

Londa Esadze has been the coordinator of the TraCCC Georgia Project on Money Laundering and Economic Crime in Georgia since 2002. Before coming to TraCCC, Ms. Esadze was the interim chair of the South Caucasian regional chapter of the GOPAC (Global Organization of Parliamentarians against Corruption) and co-chair of the GOPAC working committee on the UN Convention against Corruption. Ms. Esadze has worked as an independent expert for many international organizations such as the OECD, UNODC, UNICEF, Council of Europe, European Commission, World Economic Forum, and the British Academy Network: Women in a World of New Illegalities, Penalties, and Powers. Ms. Esadze is a winner of the American Bar Association’s international writing competition for her work, "The Role of the Rule of Law Addressing Corruption in the Emerging Democracies."