By Bryce Pardo and Peter Reuter

  The synthetic opioid crisis in North America has increased fatal overdose rates to unprecedented levels within a matter of a few years. It involves new technologies, a new source of supply (the chemical industry in China), and new forms of distribution (the internet and mail). These elements are perhaps even more difficult to suppress than other supply sources from foreign countries. This has led to an assumption that nothing can be learned from prior experience in trying to control drug markets. In this paper, we first explore what might be learned from some notable past successes. We begin by examining a set of episodes in which enforcement against a specific illegal drug market had more than a brief impact on supply, though the enforcement may have caused other harms. Examples include the near-elimination of the quaaludes market in the 1980s and the “heroin drought” in Australia in the early 2000s. Exploring common features of these past successes reveals insights that may reduce the risk of fatal overdose. We then examine the characteristics of fentanyl distribution in detail, noting that taken individually, the

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  differences (such as the low costs of fentanyl production and its distribution by mail) are in fact not so distinctive: it is the combination of many differences that creates the unique threat. In response, authorities need to change priorities in supply control domestically. Prior to the arrival of fentanyl and other synthetic opioids, it was reasonable for police and prosecutors to focus on (1) raising prices and restricting availability to reduce consumption and (2) minimizing the violence and disorder around street markets. Yet today, a more important goal may be to reduce the toxicity of the supply and thus the number of drug overdoses. This paper applies the insights of the “focused deterrence” approach developed by David Kennedy and Mark Kleiman, which involves using multiple levers to attain a specific policy goal. We conclude with some specific suggestions for local and national supply-control agencies— including the need to focus more on regulating rather than reducing markets to minimize harm, and to distinguish between markets not yet swamped by fentanyl or in transition and those where the drug is entrenched. Strategies appropriate in one context may not serve well in another.

Washington, DC: Brookings Institution, 2020. 21p.

By The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce

This, the final report of the Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce, sets out a suite of evidence-based recommendations and actions that will reduce drug-related deaths and harms and improve and save the lives of people who use drugs. Our final report has four substantive chapters. 1. Context: explores where we are now, gives an overview of the work of the Taskforce to date and discusses the legal context in which Scotland operates. 2. Culture: sets out what the ethos of the system should be and the changes that are needed to achieve this. It calls for broad culture change from stigma, discrimination, politicisation and punishment towards care, compassion and human rights. 3. Care: investigates what is needed to deliver an effective, consistent, personcentred, whole-systems approach that delivers high-quality care. It builds on the principle that drug dependency should receive parity with any other health conditions, with people getting the care they need when they need it. 4. Co-ordination: sets out the foundations of the changes that are required, including targeted resource and decisive leadership. Twenty overarching recommendations are provided at the beginning of the report. Each chapter then includes evidence-based actions that are summarised in a table at the end of the report.

Edinburgh: The Scottish Drug Deaths Taskforce, 2022. 135p.

By Chloe Gilroy

The nexus between illicit drug economies and great power competition is a critical, yet understudied, dimension of counternarcotics. If policy experts and academics understood how great power competition intersects with illicit drug economies, then counternarcotics experts would have yet another incisive theoretical lens through which to understand drug flows. This paper contends that China is unwilling to crack down on chemical precursor flows that feed the Western Hemisphere’s synthetic drug trade due to its broader geopolitical imperatives, which are shaped by great power competition. Chinese pharmaceutical and chemical producers are taking advantage of un-checked drug demand in the United States by selling chemical precursors to Mexican drug trafficking organizations that manufacture and smuggle synthetic drugs across the U.S.-Mexico border. Their involvement in the Western Hemisphere drug trade has expanded the market for synthetic drugs and has destabilized Mexico’s criminal landscape. The Chinese government’s response to the export of massive quantities of illegal drugs and precursor chemicals is largely driven by external pressure and characterized by a lack of credible commitment to reduce the flow of illegal drugs and precursor chemicals. This paper will start by delving into the existing literature on great power competition and illicit drug economies before exploring China’s approach to drug control. It will then dissect trafficking patterns in two synthetic drugs, methamphetamine and fentanyl. After that, it will explain how Beijing’s incentives in the pharmaceutical and chemical sectors impact methamphetamine and fentanyl export volumes. This paper will conclude by comparing time series data on methamphetamine and fentanyl seizures at the U.S.-Mexico border with the progression of China’s enforcement efforts.  

Washington, DC: William J. Perry Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies, 2020. 28p.

By Vanda Felbab-Brown

Synthetic opioids remain the source of the deadliest U.S. drug epidemic ever. Since 1999, drug overdoses have killed approximately 1 million Americans,[1] an overdose lethality that has increased significantly since 2012 when synthetic opioids from China began supplying the U.S. demand for illicit opioids. Even though China placed the entire class of fentanyl-type drugs and two key fentanyl precursors under a controlled regulatory regime in May 2019, it remains the principal (if indirect) source of U.S. fentanyl. Fentanyl scheduling and China’s adoption of stricter mail monitoring has created some deterrence effects. Instead of finished fentanyl being shipped directly to the United States, most smuggling now takes place via Mexico. Mexican criminal groups source fentanyl precursors — and increasingly pre-precursors — from China, and then traffic finished fentanyl from Mexico to the United States. Scheduling of fentanyl and its precursors in China is not sufficient to stem flows to the United States.

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  There is little visibility into China’s enforcement of its fentanyl regulations, but it clearly remains limited. U.S.-China counternarcotics cooperation remains fraught, and from the U.S. perspective inadequate. Rejecting U.S. blame of China for the opioid epidemic and emphasizing U.S. responsibilities for that calamity, Beijing points to its benevolence in anti-drug cooperation. But China’s cooperation with the U.S. in the global counternarcotics campaign has been subordinated to the overall deteriorated geostrategic relationship between the two superpowers. There is little prospect that in the absence of significant warming of the overall U.S.-China bilateral relationship, China would significantly intensify its anti-drug cooperation with the United States. U.S. punitive measures, such as sanctions and drug indictments, are unlikely to change that. Structural characteristics of synthetic drugs, including the ease of developing similar, but not scheduled synthetic drugs and their new precursors — increasingly a wide array of dual-use chemicals — pose immense structural obstacles to controlling supply, irrespective of political will to prohibit and regulate their use and enforce the regulations.

New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2022. 84p.

By The IUCN National Committee of The Netherlands

On behalf of the IUCN National Committee of the Netherlands (IUCN NL), Earth League International (ELI) conducted undercover investigations on jaguar poaching and trafficking in Bolivia. ELI investigated the criminal networks behind this illegal wildlife trade from 2018 to 2020 and unveiled the traffickers’ modus operandi and transport methods, routes and geographical hotspots. The investigations showed that the demand for jaguar parts comes from Asia and the trade is generally run by Chinese residents in Bolivia. The jaguar is the only member of the panthera family in the Americas and is by far the biggest cat on the continent. Scientists estimate there are between 130,000 and 208,000 jaguars left in the wild, mostly concentrated in the Amazon basin. The jaguar is classified by IUCN as ‘near threatened’. According to local experts, today there are an estimated 2,000-3,000 jaguars left in the wild in Bolivia.

Amsterdam: IUCN National Committee of The Netherlands, 2021. 24p.

By Andrea Crosta, Chiara Talerico, Allison Joseph, Liliana Jauregui, Marc Hoogeslag

  The jaguar (Panthera onca) is listed on CITES Appendix I and is classified on the IUCN Red List as ‘near threatened.’ Scientists estimate that the size of the global jaguar population varies greatly. A study by De la Torre et al (2018) estimated the global population of jaguars to be 64,000 individuals, while Jędrzejewski et al (2018) estimate that there are 173,000 (138,000±208,000) jaguars left in the wild, mostly concentrated in the Amazon basin. To tackle jaguar trafficking, more information on the trade's scale, nature and dynamics is needed. One of the objectives of ‘Operation Jaguar’ was exactly that. Operation Jaguar is a joint project between IUCN NL, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), and Earth League International (ELI) and is made possible by the Dutch Postcode Lottery. ELI has conducted undercover investigations on jaguar trafficking in Latin America as part of Operation Jaguar. Multiple missions have been undertaken to four Latin American countries: Bolivia, Suriname, Peru, and Ecuador. The focus of the intelligence-led operation was to unveil the central nodes, mechanisms, and structure of the entire criminal supply chain, with a bottom-up – top-down approach focusing on the illegal wildlife goods providers, the traders, the transporters, and the sellers in China. Through Operation Jaguar we have identified and investigated the most important jaguar trafficking networks in these four South American countries. ELI has researched the illegal wildlife supply chain to unveil the dynamics underneath jaguar trafficking in the region and identify the main players, trafficking routes, and destinations. Over the years more than a dozen trafficking networks operating regionally and internationally have been unveiled. Confidential Intelligence Briefs (CIBs) regarding these jaguar trafficking networks have been shared with several governmental and intergovernmental agencies.   

San Francisco: Earth League International, 2022. 19p.

By Ramacandra Wong, Kanitha Krishnasamy

Overall, whole tigers, dead and live, as well as a variety of tiger parts equal to a conservative estimate of 3,377 tigers were confiscated between January 2000 and June 2022 across 50 countries and territories, with data showing an increasing trend. According to Skin and Bones: Tiger Trafficking Analysis from January 2000–June 2022, the tigers and their parts were seized in 2,205 incidents, mostly in the 13 Tiger Range Countries (TRCs). India, home to more than half of the global wild tiger population, remains the top-ranked country with the most incidents and number of tigers confiscated. Data from the first half of 2022, the Year of the Tiger, stood out for several reasons: Indonesia, Thailand, and Russia recorded significant increases in the number of seizure incidents compared to the January-to-June period of the previous two decades.  This recent period was also particularly significant for Indonesia, home to the Critically Endangered Sumatran Tiger. It has already seized more tigers in the first half of 2022 (18 tigers) compared to all confiscations in 2021 (totalling 16 tigers). 

Selangor, Malaysia: TRAFFIC, Southeast Asia Regional Office, 2022. 52p.

By Emerson Y. Sy, Josef Job G. Raymundo, Serene C.L. Chng

A new TRAFFIC study recorded more than 800 Indonesian birds¹ for sale online in the Philippines between January 2018 and December 2019. Since the survey, all 20 of the original groups have been deactivated by Facebook, but surveillance by the authors in January 2022 found 144 new active groups offering various Indonesian species for sale, which continues to date. Almost 1,300 Indonesian birds of at least 28 species were also confiscated from illegal trade in the Philippines between 2010 and 2020, according to the report Farmed or Poached? The trade of live Indonesian Bird Species in the Philippines. Scrutiny of international trade records uncovered discrepancies: a majority of the Indonesian bird species listed on CITES² exported from the Philippines had questionable or no records of legal import into the Philippines. The records show that the Philippines had severely underreported their imports of Indonesian bird species compared to the numbers reported by exporters. In some cases, the export of Indonesian birds from the Philippines took place before the first reported legal importation.

Selangor, Malaysia , TRAFFIC Southeast Asia Regional Office, 2022. 55p.

By Anne-Lise Chaber, Philippe Gaubert, Claude Saegerman, Valéria Busoni, Mélodie Dieudonné, Harriet Green

The hunting for and consumption of bushmeat is traditional and vital for many communities around the world; it provides food and income as well as holding traditional value. Historically subsistence hunting was sustainable, however increased demand, improved access to forests and more efficient methods of hunting are resulting in unsustainable offtakes of wildlife. The growth in human population and ease with which people can move around the globe are causing an increase in demand, within range countries and internationally. Hunting unsustainably has the potential to cause a species to go extinct, locally or globally. The decrease or complete loss of a population has wider impacts on the ecosystem and so the people who depend on it. The international bushmeat trade is not fully understood and as such, it is unknown what impact this may be having on wildlife populations. This study aimed to gain a better understanding of the international bushmeat trade by estimating an average monthly weight of bushmeat being imported and determining which species are predominantly involved. Working with customs officers at Brussels airport, flights from Sub-Saharan Africa were targeted and all passengers’ luggage searched for both bushmeat and domestic meat (livestock). Visual identification, radiographs and genetic analysis were conducted to determine the species involved and any further information such as the age of the animal and hunting method used. Using the information of bushmeat seized and an estimate of the number of people entering Brussels from West and Central Africa each month, it was estimated that an average of 3.7 tonnes of bushmeat was being brought through Brussels airport each month. A range of species were identified, some of which were CITES listed. Some suggestions are made in order to reduce this importation by raising awareness on penalties and better enforcing those penalties. Besides, reinforcement of routine customs controls and more random schedules for specific actions of reinforced controls should be favoured by adequate budgets, allowing also a good, reiterated information and sensitization of custom’s officers. It would be justified that European budgets should be accorded for customs controls to Member States that are main and specific entry gates on the EU and its market. This would also allow the raising and presence of sniffling dogs to detect meat and other illegal products in passengers’ luggage, and the use of mini-technical devices to analyse DNA sequences on the spot.

Brussels: Federal Public Service Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment, 2018. 58p.

By Felipe Thomas

This brief gives an overview of the online illicit wildlife trade (IWT), and analyzes the current state of this market, and speculates on its likely developments. Although there is currently very little IWT activity on the dark web, we expect this to change as enforcement steps up, and this brief explores how that process might evolve.The online market for illicit wildlife trade appears to be disaggregated and characterized by ‘blurred channels’, yet, at the same time, it is relatively ‘out in the open’, which points either to a lack of enforcement or challenges that stymie effective enforcement.However, as and when enforcement activities are stepped up, it is probable that the IWT will respond by moving along a specific pathway. This trajectory would first see a move to centralized dark-web markets, then to specialist, and smaller, dark-web ‘shops’. These market shifts would be followed by ‘markets by invitation’ and then distributed, peer-to-peer marketplaces. Under this scenario of a changing market, each step would be accompanied by a decline in market size caused by a decrease in potential consumers (and vendors), but this market loss would be counteracted by an increase in marketing efficiencies and organization on the part of the vendors.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2018. 15p.

By InSight Crime and Igarape

Environmental crime respects no borders. This investigation – conducted with Igarapé Institute – reveals how wildlife trafficking, illegal logging, illicit gold mining, and slash-and-burn land clearance are spreading across five Amazonian countries: Ecuador, Venezuela, Bolivia, Guyana, and Suriname. These countries account for some 20 percent of the Amazon Basin and have collectively lost 10 million hectares of forest over the last two decades -- an area the size of Portugal. This in-depth report traces the chain of actors involved in the plunder, from the labor force harvesting trees and digging up gold to the brokers and corrupt officials that launder the ill-gotten materials. It also uncovers the land trafficking schemes that serve settlers who invade forests to sow palm oil and soy, as well as raise cattle, for the benefit of large-scale agribusiness.

Washington, DC: InSight Crime and Rio de Janeiro - RJ - Brasil, Igarape: 2022. 83p.

By Jason Eligh

The purpose of this report is to examine the existing retail markets for meth across several countries in eastern and southern Africa. This will be achieved through an analysis of meth availability, retail meth prices, distribution systems and domestic marketplaces. The report provides an analytical summary of meth markets that is grounded in data collected in 10 countries across the region with details of specific retail price points, commentary on domestic meth distribution systems and structures, and discussion of common structural characteristics across the region that enable and sustain these markets. Furthermore, the data generated from research undertaken for this report is intended to contribute to the broader regional objective of constructing an open-source database of time-series, country-specific illicit commodity price data, where applicable and practicable.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2020. 104p.

By Gianmarco Daniele, Marco Le Moglie, Federico Masera

The opioid epidemic and migration along the US–Mexico border are two of the most-debated policy issues in recent US politics. We show how these two topics are interlinked: the US opioid epidemic generated large Mexican migration flows. We exploit the fact that in 2010, a series of reforms to the US health care system resulted in a shift in demand from legal opiates to heroin. This demand shock had considerable effects on Mexico, the main supplier of heroin consumed in the US. Violence and conflicts increased in Mexican municipalities suitable for opium production, as they became highly valuable to drug cartels. People migrated out of these municipalities to escape this violence, mostly to areas close to the US border and into the US. The rise in US demand for heroin increased internal migration by an estimated 90,000 individuals and migration across the border at least by 12,000

BAFFI CAREFIN Centre Research Paper No. 2020-141, 2020. 60p.

By Harvey Slade

Drug-related deaths fell after the reform of Portugal’s drug policy, and have remained below the EU average since 2001 The proportion of the prison population sentenced for drug offences has fallen from over 40% to 15% Rates of drug use have remained consistently below the EU average Portugal has gone from accounting for over 50% of yearly HIV diagnoses linked to injecting drug use in the EU to 1.7%

London: Transform Drug Policy Foundation, 2021. 10p.

By Geoff Ramsey and David Smilde

While corruption and organized crime are thriving amid Venezuela’s political and economic crisis, previously unpublished U.S. government drug trade monitoring data suggests that Venezuela is not a primary transit country for U.S.-bound cocaine. In “Beyond the Narcostate Narrative,” the authors assess the implications of official U.S. drug control data for prospects at advancing a peaceful, negotiated return to democracy in Venezuela.  When U.S. policymakers talk about Venezuela’s crisis, the flow of cocaine through the country is a frequent talking point. And there is no question that organized crime and corruption have flourished in the midst of Venezuela’s crisis. Yet the true extent of drug trafficking is often magnified by actors who suggest that a negotiated, democratic solution in Venezuela is impossible. The authors have heard some version of “you can’t negotiate with a narcostate” countless times in recent years.

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  This paper uses the U.S. government’s own best estimates of transnational illegal cocaine shipments to gauge the scale and relative importance of Venezuela’s role as a transit country. In particular, we draw on recent data from the U.S. interagency Consolidated Counterdrug Database (CCDB), a multi-source collection of global illegal drug trafficking events that is gathered from intelligence data such as detection and surveillance, as well as interdiction and law enforcement data. According to the Department of Defense, “The CCDB event-based estimates are the best available authoritative source for estimating known illicit drug flow through the Transit Zone. All the event data contained in the CCDB is deemed to be high confidence (accurate, complete and unbiased in presentation and substance as possible).” We have supplemented CCDB estimates with public statements and presentations made by officials at the Drug Enforcement Administration, Department of Defense, and Department of State regarding drug trafficking trends in the Americas. 

Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America, 2020. 20p.

By Anne T. Gallagher and Fiona David

Whether forced into relocation by fear of persecution, civil war, or humanitarian crisis, or pulled toward the prospect of better economic opportunities, more people are on the move than ever before. Opportunities for lawful entry into preferred destinations are decreasing rapidly, creating demand for a range of services that is increasingly being met by migrant smugglers: individuals or criminal groups who facilitate unauthorized entry into in another country for profit. This book, a companion volume to the award-winning The International Law of Human Trafficking, presents the first-ever comprehensive and in-depth analysis of the international law of migrant smuggling. The authors call on their direct experience of working with the United Nations to chart the development of new international laws and to link these specialist rules to other relevant areas of international law, including law of the sea, human rights law, and international refugee law. Through this analysis, the authors identify and explain the major legal obligations of States with respect to migrant smuggling, including those related to criminalization, interdiction and rescue at sea, protection, prevention, detention, and return.

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2014. 840p.

By Jens Beckert and Matías Dewey

From illegal drugs, stolen artwork, and forged trademarks, to fraud in financial markets - the phenomenon of illegality in market exchanges is pervasive. Illegal markets have great economic significance, have relevant social and political consequences, and shape economic and political structures.Despite the importance of illegality in the economy, the field of economic sociology unquestioningly accepts the premise that the institutional structures and exchanges taking place in markets are law-abiding in nature. This volume makes a contribution to changing this. Questions that stand at the centre of the chapters are: What are the interfaces between legal and illegal markets? How do demand and supply in illegal markets interact? What role do criminal organizations play in illegal markets? What is the relationship between illegality and governments? Is illegality a phenomenon central to capitalism? Anchored in economic sociology, this book contributes to the analysis and understanding of market exchanges in conditions of illegality from a perspective that focuses on the social organization of markets. Offering both theoretical reflections and case studies, the chapters assembled in the volume address the consequences of the illegal production, distribution, and consumption of products for the architecture of markets. It also focuses on the underlying causes and the political and social concerns stemming from the infringement of the law.

Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2017. 315p.

By Christopher Harding

This is a study of agency in the field of criminal liability, considering the respective roles of individuals and organisations and the allocation of criminal responsibility to these different kinds of actor. The issue of criminal responsibility, which is informed by both the sociological analysis of conduct and by ethical considerations of responsibility, provides an important and revealing focus for discussion. Criminal Enterprise analyses criminal responsibility through three main types of organisation: corporate actors in the field of business activity, states and governments, and delinque. Read more... Cover; Copyright Page; Contents; Preface; 1 Introduction: searching for the responsible criminal actor; Part I; 2 The organisation in contemporary society; 3 Agency: the philosophy of the collective; 4 Legal routes to responsibility; 5 Models of responsibility; Part II; 6 Human or corporate? Allocating responsibility for business conspiracy; 7 Delinquency within structures of governance; 8 The legal control of criminal organisations; Part III; 9 The organisation as an autonomous criminal actor; 10 The criminal enterprise as a facilitating framework.

Collumpton, Devon, UK: Willan Publishing, 2007. 284p.

By Nadia Campaniello

In recent decades, women's participation in the labor market has increased considerably in most countries and is converging toward the participation rate of men. Though on a lesser scale, a similar movement toward gender convergence seems to be occurring in the criminal world, though many more men than women still engage in criminal activity. Technological progress and social norms have freed women from the home, increasing their participation in both the labor and the crime market. With crime no longer just men's business, it is important to investigate female criminal behavior to determine whether the policy prescriptions to reduce crime should differ for women.

Bonn: IZA World of Labor, 2019. 11p.

Edited by Richard F. Wetzell.

”There is a notable asymmetry between the early modern and modern German historiographies of crime and criminal justice. Whereas most early modern studies have focused on the criminals themselves, their socioeconomic situations, and the meanings of crime in a particular urban or rural milieu, late modern studies have tended to focus on penal institutions and the discourses of prison reformers, criminal law reformers, criminologists, and psychiatrists.”

Open Access Book (2018) 325p.