Bennett, Phil; Cucos, Radu; Winch, Ryan

From the document: "The intersection of AI and transnational crime, particularly its application in human trafficking, represents an emerging and critically important area of study. This brief has been developed with a clear objective: to equip policymakers, law enforcement agencies, and the technology sector with the insights needed to anticipate and pre-emptively address the potential implications of AI on trafficking in persons. While we respond to the early instances of the use of AI by transnational criminal organisations, such as within Southeast Asia's cyber-scam centres, a more systemic approach is required. The potential for transnational criminal organisations to significantly expand their operations using AI technologies is considerable, and with it comes the risk of exponentially increasing harm to individuals and communities worldwide. It is imperative that we act now, before the most severe impacts of AI-enabled trafficking are realised. We have a unique time-limited opportunity--and indeed, a responsibility--to plan, train, and develop policies that can mitigate these emerging threats. This report aims to concretise this discussion by outlining specific scenarios where AI and trafficking could intersect, and to initiate a dialogue on how we can prepare and respond effectively. This document is not intended to be definitive, but rather to serve as a foundation for a broader, ongoing discussion. The ideas presented here are initial steps, and it will require innovative thinking, adequate resourcing, and sustained engagement from all sectors to build upon them effectively."

Organization For Security And Co-Operation In Europe. Office Of The Special Representative And Co-Ordinator For Combating Trafficking In Human Beings; Bali Process (Forum). Regional Support Office .NOV, 2024

By GALEOTTI, MARK

From the webpage description: "'Since 2012, Russia has strategically used criminal networks to evade sanctions, conduct intelligence, and destabilize the West. Under Putin's 'mobilization state,' illegal activities--from smuggling to cyberattacks--are seen as essential tools of warfare. This report delves into the Kremlin's alarming integration of organized crime into statecraft.' Russia's transition from a 'conscription state' to a full 'mobilization state', after the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, has intensified the involvement of criminal groups in operations tied to sanctions-busting, cyber warfare, and intelligence. Organized crime networks provide Russia with access to restricted goods, such as advanced electronics for its military, and facilitate money laundering and illegal financial flows. Notably, Russian intelligence services have relied on criminal syndicates to supplement their espionage activities, including sabotage, cyberattacks, and assassinations. The report also highlights Russia's weaponization of migration, using smuggling networks to create political instability across Europe. Meanwhile, Putin's regime has blurred the lines between state and criminal actors, using them as tools to evade international sanctions and expand Russian influence globally. 'Gangsters at War' reveals how Russian-based organized crime operates as a tool of Kremlin foreign policy, focusing not just on profits but on weakening geopolitical rivals. From sanctions evasion to destabilizing societies, criminal networks have become a key element in Russia's geopolitical arsenal. The report calls for increased vigilance, international cooperation, and stronger countermeasures to address this growing threat to global stability."

GLOBAL INITIATIVE AGAINST TRANSNATIONAL ORGANIZED CRIME. November. 2024. 82p.

By Colette Ashton

Developing country theorists claim that strategies should focus on human behaviour and economic incentives, not legal measures.

To remedy systemic corruption in South Africa, policymakers must look beyond the discourse of transparency and accountability to emerging anti-corruption theory. Policy research in this field should be multi-disciplinary, grounded in empirical research and informed by decolonial thought. There is a need for more research into the unique types and drivers of corruption at national, local and sector-specific levels, to inform policy reform.

Key findings There is international consensus that anti-corruption reforms often fail or backfire, particularly in developing countries. The dominant Western good governance approach should be supplemented by theory emerging from other schools of thought from developing countries. The good governance approach recommends transparency and accountability, prioritising better laws and improved enforcement as the primary solutions. Theorists from developing countries claim that where there is systemic corruption, it is more helpful to focus on human behaviour and economic incentives to prevent corruption. Legalistic measures tend to be one-dimensional, ineffective and sometimes harmful. Recommendations Government should: Reconsider policies in light of emerging theory and evidence from global anti- corruption practices. Develop a strategy for communicating alternative perspectives and approaches to heads and staff of anti-corruption agencies and other government institutions. Researchers should: 2 Conduct localised and sector-specific empirical research into corruption in South Africa. Conduct qualitative research into the social norms governing government institutions and the private sector. Critically analyse the South African anti corruption discourse through a decolonial lens. Social norms – what people expect others to do – are the unwritten rules governing institutions and are a primary driver of corruption. For many, obeying these rules is a logical response to structural conditions, including economic incentives and disincentives. Research shows that most people are inclined to behave ethically if their environment facilitates it. Reframing corruption as a collective action problem, where policy is designed to influence the behaviour of groups, is likely to result in more effective anti-corruption initiatives. Economic development that delivers more equitable distribution of opportunities and wealth is a precondition for building a state with the capacity to reduce corruption. Determine who the rule-following elites are and devise ways to incentivise them to exert pressure on non-rule-following elites. NGOs should: Develop partnerships with institutions working with alternative theoretical/policy approaches. Explore opportunities for cooperation with business and government in developing sector specific anti-corruption projects. Develop and execute a strategy for communicating alternative perspectives to civil society and media, and in doing so, highlight success stories. Develop pilot anti-corruption reform projects based on emerging alternative perspectives

Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, 2024. 12p.

By Donald S. Kenkel, Alan D. Mathios, Grace N. Phillips, Revathy Suryanarayana, Hua Wang & Sen Zeng

The Food and Drug Administration has proposed to prohibit menthol cigarettes, which are smoked by almost 19 million people in the U.S. Illegal markets for menthol cigarettes could not only blunt the prohibition’s intended consequence to reduce smoking but could also lead to unintended consequences. We use data from a discrete choice experiment to estimate a mixed logit model which predicts that the prohibition of menthol cigarettes would substantially increase the fraction of menthol smokers who attempt to quit. However, our model also predicts a substantial potential consumer demand for illegal menthol cigarettes. Depending on the impact of illegality on product prices, our model predicts the potential demand-side of an illegal market for menthol cigarettes could be 59-92 percent the size of the status quo market if menthol e-cigarettes are legal, and 69-100 percent the size of the status quo market if menthol e-cigarettes are also illegal. Our mixed logit model estimated in willingness to pay space implies that the mean WTP to avoid an illegal retail market is equivalent to a tax of $8.44 per pack. In our partial cost-benefit analysis, the opportunity costs of prohibition exceed the value of the reduction in mortality risks from secondhand smoke by $15.4 billion annually.

NBER Working Paper No. 32148 February 2024

Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024.

By Alex Brill, Brian J. Miller, Stan Veuger

Federal legislation to legalize, regulate, and tax cannabis could have significant impacts on the federal budget. While the specific details of any potential cannabis legalization legislation are unknown at present, such reforms are likely to affect both tax receipts and federal outlays through a wide range of mechanisms including excise tax collections, changes in the size and composition of the labor force, and the major federal health care programs. We identify the main federal budgetary implications of legalizing cannabis and estimate their likely magnitude where possible.

AEI Economics Working Paper 2023-16 Updated March 2024   Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2024. 41p.

By Annette Idler | Frederik Florenz | Ajmal Burhanzoi John Collins | Marcena Hunter | Antônio Sampai

This paper contributes to research on the relationship between conflict and organized crime (the crime–conflict nexus), using Afghanistan as a case study. For the past four decades, Afghanistan has been plagued by internal armed conflict, influenced by local, national, regional, and international external actors, and the intricate relationships among them. To varying degrees, power, politics, and criminality informed these relationships. Organized crime provides actors in Afghanistan with significant political power, while powerful political actors are uniquely positioned to reap the profits of the country’s criminal markets. This paper gives an account of the existing literature on Afghanistan’s crime–conflict nexus, identifying some of the key insights that this literature has revealed. To do so, it uses a four-pronged framework, exploring how conflict has fuelled organized crime in Afghanistan; how organized crime has fuelled conflict; how conflict over the control of illicit markets has resulted; and how organized crime has contributed to the erosion of the state. By assessing the literature on Afghanistan’s crime–conflict nexus, the paper identifies knowledge gaps and suggests areas for future research.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2023. 36p.

By Iffat Idris

This report gives the findings of a ‘quick scan’ review of available literature on political will and serious organized crime (SOC). It covers the five broad themes of the SOC Anti Corruption Evidence (ACE) research program: i) political will and SOC; ii) political will, SOC, kleptocracy, and illicit finance; iii) political will, SOC, and sanctions; iv) political will and trafficking; v) political will, SOC and COVID-19. Noting that political will is often used as a ‘catch all’ explanation for the failure of reforms or policies, the report begins by discussing definitions of political will. The literature generally describes it as the willingness and commitment of decision-makers to carry out reforms or implement policies to address particular problems. Malena (2009: 19) defines it as the sum of political want, political can, and political must. Reflecting the complexity of the phenomenon, political will has numerous enabling factors, notably implementation capacity, quality of governance, organizational set-up and functioning, and societal factors. With regard to the measurement of political will, there is consensus that mere statements, policies, or legislation are not enough – political will has to be manifested in concrete action. Political will and SOC: The review finds that political will is highly relevant to SOC, both because SOC and corruption often involve political leaders or government officials, and because political will is a necessary condition for effective efforts to combat SOC and corruption. Increasing recognition of the scale of SOC, and the need to combat it, is reflected in national and international commitments, frameworks, and so on. However, key implementation challenges include lack of coordination between different agencies or across different frameworks, and the fact that those tasked with implementation are often involved in SOC themselves. Measurement challenges include the clandestine nature of SOC. Capacity indicators, ‘objective’ situation indicators, and public perception indicators are three sets that can facilitate the measurement of political will to combat SOC. Political will, SOC, kleptocracy and illicit finance: The review finds that SOC is strongly connected to both kleptocracy (in which political leaders use their power to increase their wealth) and illicit financial flows (IFFs) (whereby funds are illegally transferred out of a country). The literature stresses the importance of political will to combat kleptocracy and IFFs. While there has been a rise in laws and regulatory frameworks to curb money laundering, implementation of these has been weak. The UK exemplifies this: it is one of the biggest global financial hubs and a major destination for IFFs, but despite laws and policies targeting IFFs and kleptocracy, progress has been limited. The report finds that the political will in Washington to curb illicit finance appears strong, but it is too early to assess the impact of this. Political will, SOC, and sanctions: Sanctions can be used to combat SOC, in particular transnational SOC, and by targeting individuals or groups rather than the general population, harm to ordinary citizens can be averted. However, while relatively easy to impose, the review finds that they are not the ultimate solution and a number of caveats apply to their use; for example, they are not a replacement for other law enforcement measures, and they do nothing to address root causes of SOC. The paper looks at the experience of the US, which has long used sanctions as a tool to combat SOC and human rights abuses, and of the UK, which is also making increasing use of these to target corruption, kleptocracy, and human rights abuses. Political will, SOC, and trafficking: Trafficking (for example, drugs, human trafficking for labor or sex) is one of the main forms of SOC, and traditional approaches to combat it fall into prevention, protection, and prosecution. The review finds that political will is especially relevant in combatting trafficking in two regards: a) determining the focus of efforts (supply-side versus demand-side) and b) determining which interventions are carried out. To date, the focus has been on supply-side interventions despite these showing limited effectiveness. The decision is largely a political one. The paper illustrates this by looking at approaches by the US to tackling drug trafficking, and approaches by both origin and destination countries to tackling trafficking in persons for forced labor. Political will, SOC, and COVID-19: The review finds that, as with conflicts and humanitarian emergencies, the COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities for SOC; for example because of increased online activities, scarcity of certain goods (such as healthcare products) and the economic downturn. Human trafficking and health sector-related crime are especially up. The paper highlights a number of factors likely to affect (diminish) political will to combat SOC related to the pandemic, including lack of public resources, and prioritization of dealing with the health impact of COVID-19. The review demonstrates the importance of political will for effectively tackling SOC, illicit finance, and transnational corruption, but also shows why it is challenging to find political will, measure it, and create demand for it.   

Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham. 2022. 56p.    SOC ACE Evidence Review Paper No. 1. 

By  Nina Tvede Korshøj  , Thomas Friis Søgaard

Research exploring online-mediated drug dealing has gained momentum in recent years. Much existing research is characterized by a primary focus on the “online” aspects of drug sales facilitated by social media, resulting in a divide between “on”- and “offline” drug dealing. We wish to bridge this gap, by focusing on the hybridity of dealing drugs via social media and by arguing for a more holistic understanding of contemporary drug dealing. Methods: This article is based on in-depth digitally facilitated oral interviews with 25 individuals with experience in dealing drugs via social media platforms and encrypted messaging apps and on observational data from different apps and platforms. Results: We found that many sellers start by dealing offline and gradually drift into sales using social media technology. While the internet offers drug sellers new opportunities to expand their business, many sellers are not technological exclusionists but rather adopt a multichannel approach where they sell both via social media and occasionally or regularly also through in-person and technologically analog means. Additionally, many sellers do not draw clear-cut distinctions between whether they use social media, SMS, or encrypted apps, but rather see their “drug sales phone” as one medium for all sales-related communication. Findings also show that local offline power dynamics continue to influence sellers’ ability to build and expand their online business and that offline as well as online networks play a crucial role in sellers’ hiring of helpers and their bulk drug sourcing. Conclusion: We discuss how our findings have analytical, conceptual, and methodological implications for the development of a more nuanced and holistic approach in the study of drug sales involving online technologies. 

International Journal of Drug Policy. Volume 130, August 2024, 104509

By Huma Haide

Organized crime actors can be spoilers in peace processes or partners in peace. Policymakers and practitioners have in some cases engaged in a strategic trade-off – accepting organized crime as part of the political settlement to achieve short-term stability. However, the relationship between illicit markets and conflict can deepen over time, entrenching criminal structures in the post-conflict state. As Kemp and Shaw (2014, p. 16) argue, ‘failure to integrate issues of organized crime into mediation strategies and peace processes will leave the international community with a potentially dangerous blind spot.’ Negotiating with organized crime groups and addressing criminal agendas in peace processes has become a reality in practice. There is, however, limited research on negotiating with criminal actors in peace processes. In seeking to address this gap, this paper reviews scholarly and practitioner literature across a wide range of research disciplines.1 Key findings from this evidence review include: • Confrontation approaches have failed to resolve the problem of serious organized crime (SOC) and, in some cases, have fuelled more violence and criminality. • Organised crime groups that have strong internal cohesion and hierarchical leadership are more likely to be considered potential partners in negotiation. • Negotiation can be a necessary approach when criminal groups have strong territorial control – serving as de facto authorities that fill governance gaps. • Socio-economic and financial opportunities, and legal leniency, can encourage criminal actors to come to the negotiating table and agree on a deal. • A criminal group’s demand for legal leniency tends to be higher when they are expected to make larger concessions, such as to disarm and demobilize. • It is challenging to determine an ‘end state’ for a criminal group and to achieve a complete resolution of the criminal agenda. • Lack of political will, inadequate resources, and weak long-term planning constrain positive outcomes of negotiation processes and deal implementation. • Negotiators and mediators need to mitigate the risks of moral hazard and strengthen criminal groups. • The lack of broad public support for negotiating with SOC actors can undermine and destroy such processes. • A balance is needed between satisfying the interests of victims and of perpetrators to avoid alienating victims and producing public backlash for negotiated deals. • Many negotiations tend to occur in secret, yet lack of transparency can undermine the legitimacy and sustainability of outcomes. This review demonstrates the importance of creating a framework for engaging with criminality and organized crime groups that extend beyond confrontation – allowing for accommodation and incorporating a wider societal change agenda through transformation. This requires an understanding of when to address SOC and engage criminal groups in peace processes; how to motivate actors to negotiate, conclude, and implement deals; how to increase the likelihood of positive outcomes; and how to mitigate risks associated with negotiation. Drawing on a wide breadth of interdisciplinary literature, this paper aims to provide insights into these crucial questions. The case studies illustrate key themes and findings from this review (see Appendix 1). In El Salvador, ineffective confrontation, the internal cohesion of gangs, and an opportune moment contributed to the successful conclusion of a gang truce. It ultimately failed, however, due in large part to public outrage that translated into political pullback. In Colombia, negotiations with the FARC2 produced an innovative transitional justice mechanism that, alongside security guarantees, served as an effective inducement for disarmament. In contrast, the absence of a requirement to disarm and demobilize was a key criticism of negotiations with gangs in Jamaica, where violence has continued. In Mali and in Kosovo, international actors were initially hesitant to address organized crime in peace processes, yet this was subsequently recognized as contributing to longer-term instability, resulting in new strategies to address SOC actors.   

SOC ACE Evidence Review Paper No. 3. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham.2023. 88p.

By David H. Ucko and Thomas A. Marks

Organised crime is not going well. According to the 2021 Global Organized Crime index, ‘the global illicit economy simply continue[s] along the upward trajectory it has followed over the past 20 years, posing an ever-increasing threat to security, development and justice – the pillars of democracy’ (Global Initiative, 2021, p. 8). Wherever governments seek to draw the line, criminal actors find profitable ways of crossing it; wherever governments fail to deliver on human need, criminal actors capitalise on citizens’ desire or despair. As of now, more than three-quarters of the world’s population ‘live in countries with high levels of criminality, and in countries with low resilience to organized crime’ (Global Initiative, 2021, p. 12). On aggregate, the associated activity amounts to an illicit form of governance, furnishing alternative services to a wide range of clients, be they the vulnerable and weak or a covetous elite. The breadth of organised crime, its clandestine nature, and its blending of creative and destructive effects make it difficult to counter. In past SOC ACE research, we argued that the response to organised crime often shares certain pitfalls with counterterrorism, at least since 9/11 (Ucko & Marks, 2022c). Both efforts have been stymied by 1) conceptual uncertainty of the problem at hand; 2) an urge to address the scourge head on (be it violence or crime), without acknowledging its socioeconomic-political context; and, therefore, 3) unquestioned pursuit of strategies that miss the point, whose progress is difficult to measure, and which may even be counterproductive. This convergence is based on the common features of the two phenomena, which are both concerned with i) collective actors, who ii) use violence and coercion among other methods; and who have iii) corrupting, or outright destructive effects on society. Though organised crime is not consciously political in its ideological motivation, it is – like terrorism – deeply political in its origins, activities, and effects. Given the conceptual overlap, and the common pathologies that undermine response, the lessons from countering terrorism are relevant also to the countering of organised crime. Focusing on the concept of ‘irregular warfare’, our past research identified six key lessons, touching upon 1) the socio-political embeddedness of the problem, 2) the tendency to militarise the response, 3) the mirror-imaging of state assistance programmes, 4) the invaluable role of community mobilisation, 5) the dearth of strategy, and 6) the need to engage more closely with questions of political will. As argued elsewhere, these challenges point to a need for greater strategic competence both in assessing the problem of organised crime and in designing a response (Ucko & Marks, 2022c).

To generate this strategic competence, this follow-on report sets out an analytical toolkit to assist planners and policymakers with the crafting of strategy. This ‘Framework of Analysis and Action’ builds upon lessons – negative and positive – learned via years of experience with irregular warfare, defined by the Department of Defense as ‘a violent struggle among state and non-state actors for legitimacy and influence over the relevant population(s)’ (U.S. Department of Defense, 2007, p. 1).1 It is a framework that finds its origins within the U.S. National Defense University’s College of International Security Affairs (CISA), where for two decades it has been used to teach strategic planning for complex and intensely political challenges (Ucko & Marks, 2022a). The framework consists of two parts: the Strategic Estimate of the Situation (which maps the problem, explores its drivers, frames, and methods, and critiques the current response) and the Course of Action (which uses the strategic estimate to design an appropriate strategy, guided by a theory of success). The framework is in this report adapted for organised crime, to enable the mapping of relevant actors and the crafting, thereby, of a viable response. By design, the framework responds to the six key lessons identified in our earlier work. This report goes through the framework and explains its adaptation to organised crime. Appendix A provides a summation of the toolkit, a ‘user’s guide’, that will facilitate application of the framework. Testing to date suggests great potential and we look forward to sustaining a dialogue with those engaged with countering organised crime to further evolve this toolkit. Indeed, since the beginning, this framework has been a living product, enriched by theoretical application in the classroom and practical use in the field.

SOC ACE Research Paper No. 19. Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, 2023. 45p.

By Amir Rotami

In this policy brief, based on published and forthcoming studies, author Amir Rostami outlines the changing nature of crime in Sweden, with a focus on organised crime, specifically lethal violence and fraud. What are the lessons learned from the Swedish crime paradox, namely the rise in organised crime, but not an equivalent rise in general crime, and what needs to be implemented to counter organised crime? The reaction to the question can be divided into two components: local and global/

European Liberal Forum Policy Paper . Brussels: European Liberal Forum, 2021. 19p.

By  James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman

In 1988, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani brought a massive civil racketeering suit against the leadership of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), at the time possibly the most corrupt union in the world. The lawsuit charged that the mafia had operated the IBT as a racketeering enterprise for decades, systematically violating the rights of members and furthering the interests of organized crime. On the eve of trial, the parties settled the case, and twenty years later, the trustees are still on the job.

Breaking the Devil’s Pact is an in-depth study of the U.S. v. IBT, beginning with Giuliani’s lawsuit and the politics surrounding it, and continuing with an incisive analysis of the controversial nature of the ongoing trusteeship. James B. Jacobs and Kerry T. Cooperman address the larger question of the limits of legal reform in the American labor movement and the appropriate level of government involvement.

New York; London: NYU Press, 2011. 320p.

By Anine Kriegler

Cannabis legalization has the potential to weaken organized crime, but it can just as easily strengthen it unless a balance is found between restriction and liberalization, coordinated across both the supply and demand sides of the market. South Africa’s current cannabis policy lacks coherence, with reforms driven more by legal challenges than by strategic policymaking, posing challenges in effectively countering organized crime.

This paper summarizes the history and status of cannabis decriminalization in South Africa and draws on a review of literature to identify a key set of variables that determine the impact of legalization on organized crime: the type and degree of restrictiveness of the new regulations; various cultural, socio-economic, and political factors; features of the criminal justice system; and the structure and nature of criminal organization in the illegal cannabis market.

Reflections are provided on what these suggest about the likely impact of South African cannabis legalization on organized crime, and potential lessons and recommendations are proposed for effective policy reform in South Africa, as well as guidance for similar decision-making in other contexts.

Effective reform requires integrating marginalized communities and black-market participants into the legal market, along with considerations for managing legal supply, strategic enforcement against criminal gangs, and public health education to ensure a comprehensive approach to reducing organized crime. A phased implementation of regulatory frameworks, ongoing monitoring, and investment in data collection are essential to assess and optimize the impact of legalization on organized crime. Geneva: SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime , 2024. 29p.

By Andres Martinez-Fernandez

Key Points

• Corruption is an urgent challenge in Mexico that undermines political stability, economic development, the rule of law, efforts to combat organized crime, and the effectiveness of public services.

• Corruption in Mexico’s security forces is a key contributor to the sharp rise of organized criminal violence and severely handicaps US-Mexico security cooperation against drug cartels.

• President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s emphasis on combating money laundering and his empowerment of Mexico’s Financial Intelligence Unit are positive developments for the government’s anti-corruption efforts. However, an increasingly hostile stance to US-Mexico security cooperation, the politicization of investigations, neglect of independent institutions, and inattention to cartel corruption are all concerning.

• The US should use a combination of diplomatic engagement, expanded cooperation against money laundering, and unilateral enforcement actions to restore trust and the effectiveness of bilateral security and anti-corruption cooperation while pushing Mexico to address its anti-corruption blind spots.

Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute, 2021. 32p.

Edited by: Melissa Demian

The introduction of village courts in Papua New Guinea in 1975 was an ambitious experiment in providing semi-formal legal access to the country’s overwhelmingly rural population. Nearly 50 years later, the enthusiastic adoption of these courts has had a number of ramifications, some of them unanticipated. Arguably, the village courts have developed and are working exactly as they were supposed to do, adapted by local communities to modes and styles consistent with their own dispute management sensibilities. But with little in the way of state oversight or support, most village courts have become, of necessity, nearly autonomous.

Village courts have also become the blueprint for other modes of dispute management. They overlap with other sources of authority, so the line between what does and does not constitute a ‘court’ is now indistinct in many parts of the country. Rather than casting this issue as a problem for legal development, the contributors to Grassroots Law in Papua New Guinea ask how, under conditions of state withdrawal, people seek to retain an understanding of law that holds out some promise of either keeping the attention of the state or reproducing the state’s authority.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2023. 210p.

By Adam Baird , Matthew Louis Bishop , Dylan Kerrigan

The Southern Caribbean became a key hemispheric drug transhipment point in the late 1990s, to which the alarmingly high level of homicidal violence in Trinidad is often attributed. Existing research, concentrated in criminology and mainstream international relations, as well as the anti-drug policy establishment, tends to accept this correlation, framing the challenge as a typical post-Westphalian security threat. However, conventional accounts struggle to explain why murders have continued to rise even as the relative salience of narcotrafficking has actually declined. By consciously disentangling the main variables, we advance a more nuanced empirical account of how ‘the local’ is both inserted into and mediates the impact of ‘the global’. Relatively little violence can be ascribed to the drug trade directly: cocaine frequently transits through Trinidad peacefully, whereas firearms stubbornly remain within a distinctive geostrategic context we term a ‘weapons sink’. The ensuing murders are driven by the ways in which these ‘residues’ of the trade reconstitute the domestic gangscape. As guns filter inexorably into the community, they reshape the norms and practices underpinning acceptable and anticipated gang behaviour, generating specifically ‘residual’ forms of violence that are not new in genesis, but rather draw on long historical antecedents to exacerbate the homicide panorama. Our analysis emphasises the importance of taking firearms more seriously in understanding the diversity of historically constituted violences in places that appear to resemble—but differ to—the predominant Latin American cases from which the conventional wisdom about supposed ‘drug violence’ is generally distilled.

Political Geography. Volume 106, October 2023, 102966

By Jirka Taylor, Shann Corbett, Fook Nederveen, Stijn Hoorens, Hana Ross, Emma Disley

The illicit tobacco trade is a global phenomenon with significant negative health, social and economic consequences. This study is intended to support efforts to better understand the scope and scale of the illicit tobacco market. The primary objective was to develop a reliable, robust, replicable and independent methodology to measure the illicit market that can be applied by the EU and its Member States. The key requirements were that the methodology would capture the total volume of the illicit trade and distinguish between the legal and illegal market, ideally distinguishing between types of tobacco products, and types of illicit trade. Based on in-depth literature reviews and interviews with key informants, we constructed a longlist of 11 methodologies that have been or could be used to measure the illicit tobacco market and assessed them against a standardised set of criteria. This resulted in a shortlist of five preferred methods (i.e. discarded pack survey, comparison of sales/tax paid and self-reported consumption, consumer survey with and without pack inspection/surrender, econometric modelling). As individual approaches, these shortlisted methods were not sufficient to meet the minimum criteria. Accordingly, these shortlisted methods were then used to formulate options for combination of methodologies corresponding to various levels of resource intensity.

Brussels: Publications Office of the European Union, 2021. 197p.

By Summer Walker

The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) researches the political economy of organized crime in many countries, including those on the United Nations Security Council’s agenda. The GI-TOC also analyzes how the Security Council responds to illicit economies and organized crime through its agenda, including through an annual review of resolutions that tracks references to organized crime. We use the term ‘illicit economies’ here to include the markets and actors involved. This series, UN Security Council Illicit Economies Watch, draws on research produced by the GI-TOC regional observatories and the Global Organized Crime Index to provide insights into the impacts of illicit economies for Council-relevant countries through periodic country reports. As the United Nations develops its New Agenda for Peace, there is a need to consider the impacts of illicit economies in the search for sustainable peace and preventing conflict. The UN Secretary-General called for a New Agenda for Peace in his report Our Common Agenda, saying that to protect peace, ‘we need a peace continuum based on a better understanding of the underlying drivers and systems of influence that are sustaining conflict, a renewed effort to agree on more effective collective security responses and a meaningful set of steps to manage emerging risks’.1 One of these key underlying drivers is illicit economies and a more effective response will need to account for this. The Security Council will play a critical role in any renewed effort. This brief provides an overview of how the Council addresses illicit economies and offers ideas for advancing the agenda. It first examines how specific crimes are addressed by the Council, expands into a wider analysis of the dynamics of illicit economies and conflict, and offers thinking around how illicit economies can be considered in the context of the New Agenda for Peace.

UN Security Counci. 2023, 22p.

By Matt Herbert | Rupert Horsely | Emadeddin Badi

Libya has been a key focus of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) since the country’s 2011 revolution. A June 2023 UNSC meeting on Libya focused on the country’s political process, the need to hold elections and support work around the reunification of security and defence forces.1 That same month, the Council re-authorized its arms embargo on the country2 and in late 2023 it is set to renew the UN mission in Libya. The UNSC has sought to advance an effective political process, reunify the country’s divided institutions and address threats to peace and security, and human rights abuses. To effect this change, the UNSC authorized and draws on the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), a sanctions committee and linked Panel of Experts, and the European Union Naval Force Mediterranean Operations Sophia and IRINI.3 Despite these efforts, Libya remains a highly fragile country. Although large-scale violence has ebbed since the Libyan Arab Armed Forces (LAAF)’s loss in the 2019–2020 war for Tripoli, the country remains divided. The Government of National Unity (GNU) – the internationally recognized government in Tripoli led by Abd al-Hamid Dabaiba – exerts direct influence over limited areas of the country’s territory, mainly in Tripolitania. Most territory, including Cyrenaica and the Fezzan, is held by the LAAF, led by Khalifa Haftar. Attempts to bridge these divides, hold elections and forge a broadly legitimate government have repeatedly failed, most recently in December 2021.4 Nonetheless, UNSC efforts in this regard continue, reflecting an international consensus that the way out of Libya’s protracted instability is likely to be found in the political track, through the establishment of a government capable of superseding the current divides and exercising sovereign control over the country.5 However, the distribution of power within Libya challenges efforts to stabilize the country through the political track alone. Belying the simple narrative of national bifurcation, the GNU and LAAF have limited and contingent control over their respective areas. Instead, armed groups rooted in municipal or tribal groupings dominate local power. Governance and security often hinge on deals and agreements continually being renegotiated between these groups and the GNU or the LAAF.

Libya’s thriving illicit economies, and their links to armed groups and political actors throughout the country, compound the challenges to the UNSC’s efforts to promote a stable peace and the rule of law.6 Profits from these markets provide a crucial funding source for armed groups, enabling and incentivizing pushback against state efforts to assert control, and drive conflicts between groups over control of key markets and routes.7 They also fuel petty and large-scale corruption, stymying efforts to rebuild rule of law and security-force effectiveness in the country.8 Efforts to prevent criminal penetration of the Libyan state have failed. Actors linked to illicit economies have increasingly become embedded within the security forces, while others seek opportunities for high-level positions and political influence. This raises the risk that criminal interests, predation and corruption will be fused into the state. Equally problematically, it risks poisoning citizen trust in and possible acceptance of future governance and security structures involving compromised actors. For these reasons, understanding how illicit economies function in Libya and their impacts, and how they are changing, is essential for the UNSC as it seeks to promote political solutions and stability in the country. This brief provides the UN and member states with a snapshot of how Libya’s illicit economies have developed over the last three years and the impact those shifts have had. In the interest of length, the brief does not detail all changes or offer a full description of the structural elements in all markets. Rather, it focuses on the most salient aspects for policymakers assessing the challenge of illicit markets. The brief begins by detailing the impact illicit economies have on armed groups and political dynamics. Next, it assesses the state of play of the main illicit markets in the country: fuel smuggling, drug trafficking, mercenaries, arms and ammunition smuggling, and migrant smuggling and trafficking. It ends with a brief set of recommendations.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime , 2023. 35p.

By The Venezuela Investigative Unit

Ten years ago, Tren de Aragua was a little more than a prison gang, confined to the walls of the Tocorón penitentiary and largely unheard of outside its home state of Aragua in Venezuela. Today, it is one of the fastest-growing security threats in South America.

Tren de Aragua’s transnational network now stretches into Colombia, Peru, Chile, and beyond. It has established some of the most far-reaching and sophisticated migrant smuggling and sex trafficking networks seen in the region. And it has spread terror in host countries and among the Venezuelan migrant population, which it has ruthlessly exploited.

But the seizure of Tocorón by Venezuelan authorities in September 2023 directly attacked the nerve center of this network. Now, a new, more uncertain, era is beginning for Venezuela’s most notorious criminal export.

Washington DC: InSight Crime, 2023. 28p.