Characteristics of criminals and crimes . Some crimes may be geographically diffused and temporally dispersed. In organised crimes such as transnational narcotics trafficking, criminals often live in different countries, states, and cities.
Drug distribution and sales occur in different places at different times. Similar situations exist in other organized crimes (e.g., terrorism, armed robbery, and gang-related crime). As a result, an investigation must cover multiple offenders who commit criminal activities in different places at different times. This can be fairly difficult given the limited resources that intelligence and security agencies have. Moreover, as computer and Internet technologies advance, criminals are utilizing cyberspace to commit various types of cybercrimes under the guise of ordinary online transactions and communications.