By Joshua Long and Susan McNeeley

It is a commonly held belief that people convicted of sex crimes against children are at an increased risk for being targeted for violence in correctional facilities due to their low status in the prison hierarchy, but most of these assumptions are based on anecdotal evidence or extreme cases. The current study is the first quantitative assessment of victimization risk for incarcerated people convicted of sex crimes that separates cases according to the age of the sex crime victim (children 0-12 years old, young teenagers 13-15 years old, teenagers 16-17 years, and adults 18 years old and over). Data were obtained from the administrative records of 1,487 incarcerated men convicted of sex crimes and held in Minnesota state prisons. Cox regression models and negative binomial models found that people convicted of sex crimes against adults were the most likely to suffer prison victimization out of the four groups, contrary to the assumption of incarcerated people committing violence to avenge child sex offense victims. However, only the difference between those with adult victims and those with young teenage victims was statistically significant after controlling for other predictors of prison victimization. Possible explanations and pathways for future research are discussed.

St. Paul: Minnesota Department of Corrections, 2024. 27p.

Edited by Husrev Taha Sencar, Luisa Verdoliva, Nasir Memon

Media forensics has never been more relevant to societal life. Not only media content represents an ever-increasing share of the data traveling on the net and the preferred communications means for most users, it has also become integral part of most innovative applications in the digital information ecosystem that serves various sectors of society, from the entertainment, to journalism, to politics. Undoubtedly, the advances in deep learning and computational imaging contributed significantly to this outcome. The underlying technologies that drive this trend, however, also pose a profound challenge in establishing trust in what we see, hear, and read, and make media content the preferred target of malicious attacks. In this new threat landscape powered by innovative imaging technologies and sophisticated tools, based on autoencoders and generative adversarial networks, this book fills an important gap. It presents a comprehensive review of state-of-the-art forensics capabilities that relate to media attribution, integrity and authenticity verification, and counter forensics. Its content is developed to provide practitioners, researchers, photo and video enthusiasts, and students a holistic view of the field.

Singapore: Springer Nature 2022, 490p.

By Shelby Hickman, Charlotte Lopez-Jauffret, Stephanie Fahy, Vanessa Masick

Abt Global (Abt) conducted a study for the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) to identify and recommend methods for estimating the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States (U.S.). This study supports BJS’s mission to collect, analyze, publish, and disseminate information on crime, criminal offenders, victims of crime, and the operation of justice. As part of the study, Abt completed an environmental scan and held an Advisory Panel Meeting on Human Trafficking Estimation with BJS in February 2024 that included experts invited to serve on the Advisory Panel. The environmental scan yielded 24 research articles that provided or discussed prevalence of any form of human trafficking spanning geographies inside and outside of the U.S. Between 2017 and 2023, seven articles included random sampling to estimate trafficking prevalence, five used link tracking, three used convenience sampling, four used capture-recapture/multiple systems estimation, and four used respondent-driven sampling. A summary of each sampling method is included in the findings for the environmental scan in Volume I, including strengths and limitations for each type of method. Additionally, key recommendations (balancing precision and generalizability, aligning methods to data sources available, and aligning methods to the characteristics of the population of interest) are included from the environmental scan together with considerations for how BJS can develop a methodology that can produce an unbiased prevalence estimate of human trafficking in the U.S. The Advisory Panel Meeting on Human Trafficking Estimation occurred on February 28, 2024, and included subject matter experts, BJS and National Institute of Justice representatives, and Abt Global study team members. The meeting resulted in key decision points for estimating human trafficking victimization in the country, including considerations around trafficking type, geography, methodology, and data access and quality. Possible priority areas for trafficking type and trafficking subpopulations are presented in the meeting summary included in this report. Findings from the environmental scan and the expert panel meeting were used to develop three recommendations for a pilot study to test the feasibility of estimating the prevalence of human trafficking in the U.S. Capture-recapture is the preferred method since it has the strongest capability for estimating the prevalence of hidden populations, including human trafficking. Vincent link-trace sampling is the second recommendation, followed by random sampling. This report is arranged in three volumes: 1) Findings from the Environmental Scan; 2) BJS Advisory Panel Meeting on Human Trafficking Estimation Meeting Summary; and 3) Recommendations for a National Estimate Pilot Study.

Rockville, MD: Abt Global, 2025. 66p

By Benjamin Havers, Kartikeya Tripathi, Alexandra Burton, Sally McManus, Claudia Cooper

Background - Younger people are more likely to report cybercrime than older people. As older people spend more time online, this may change. If similarly exposed, risk factors including social isolation and poor health could make older adults disproportionally susceptible. We aimed to explore whether cybercrime risks and their predictors vary between age groups. Methods - We analysed responses from 35,069 participants aged 16+ in the 2019/20 Crime Survey for England and Wales (CSEW). We investigated, among people who have used the internet in the past year, risks of experiencing any cybercrime, repeat victimisation and associated financial loss across age groups. Results - Despite being at lower risk of reporting any cybercrime in the past year, people aged 75+ were more likely to report financial loss resulting from cybercrime victimisation (OR 4.25, p = 0.037) and repeat cybercrime victimisation (OR 2.03, p = 0.074) than younger people. Men, those from Mixed or Black ethnic groups, more deprived areas, managerial professional groups, and with worse health were at greater cybercrime risk. Discussion - While younger adults are more at risk from cybercrime, older adults disclosed more severe cases (repetitive victimisation and associated financial loss), perhaps due to lesser awareness of scams and reporting options. As most people experience declining health as they age, greater understanding of why poor health predicts cybercrime could inform prevention initiatives that would particularly benefit older age groups and mitigate risks of growing internet use among older adults. Health and social care professionals may be well positioned to support prevention.

PLOS ONE | December 18, 2024

By Isabella Voce and Anthony Morgan

The cost of cybercrime is often expressed in terms of the financial loss to individuals, businesses and governments. This report argues that in order to invest the necessary financial, human and technical resources in prevention and response, perceived harm must be widened to include practical, health, social, financial and legal impacts.

The authors propose a harm index for victims, using a novel approach that draws on victim self-report data collected through the Australian Cybercrime Survey. The index provides a measure of the relative severity of each of 17 types of cybercrime, calculated based on victim reports of the prevalence and severity of each harm.

Key findings

Nearly half of all respondents had been a victim of at least one type of cybercrime in the 12 months prior to the survey.

Cybercrime victims experience a range of harms arising from their victimisation. Practical, social and health impacts were the most common harms experienced, followed by financial and legal difficulties.

Most cybercrime harm (71%) is concentrated among victims who did not lose any money in the most recent incident (82% of victims).

Harm can be reduced when incidents are successfully disrupted or steps are taken to minimise the impact on victims.

Certain groups are over-represented as victims, with this over-representation even more pronounced when the level of harm is taken into account.

Repeat victimisation is also common: 11% of individuals accounted for 58% of the harm reported in the survey.

There was a significant relationship between a victim’s total harm score and their likelihood of seeking help from the police.

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice 706

Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2025. 21p.

By Jacob Phelps, Steven Broad, Jennifer Mailley 

  KEY TAKEAWAYS 1. Illegal wildlife trade (IWT) persists in contravention of laws specifically aimed to address negative impacts of over‐exploitation of nature, one of the most critical threats to the world’s biodiversity. 2. By reducing and otherwise negatively impacting populations of wildlife species, IWT undermines the functioning of ecosystems, with significant potential to harm related natural processes – including those affecting climate.    3. The causal chains that demonstrate and explain these links are diverse, complex, and little researched and they are important to long‐term climate stability and mitigation of climate change impacts.    4. Some key pathways linking IWT, ecosystems and climate:

IWT is both a reflection of weak environmental governance, and an exacerbating factor to it. It is often associated with ineffective regulation, 6. Given the importance of climate stability and the long‐term persistence of carbon stocks, adopting broader time horizons and a more holistic view that considers biodiversity is important to climate mitigation and stability. Adopting this type of longer, broader view that recognizes the centrality of biodiversity to many ecosystem processes highlights the clear need for improved governance of wildlife resources and recognizes the need for strong justice system responses to environmental crimes.   7. It is critical to keep in mind that this relationship works in both directions. As climate change impacts take shape, natural resource conflicts will worsen as people and wild species adapt to evolving living conditions. It is very likely that this will lead to new incentives for and patterns of illegal wildlife trade, and in turn new interventions to contain the resulting environmental harm. 8. The links between IWT, biodiversity and climate are still under researched and not well understood. This Research Brief is the first effort to frame these linkages, which are important to understand how policies aimed at addressing IWT, biodiversity and climate can be better integrated.   

Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Drime. 2022. 20p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Crimes that affect the environment are among the most profitable and fastest growing types of international criminal activity. In resolution 10/6, adopted in 2020, the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime expressed its alarm at research indicating that crimes that affect the environment had become some of the most lucrative transnational criminal activities and were often closely interlinked with different forms of crime and corruption, and that money-laundering and the illicit financial flows derived from them may contribute to the financing of other transnational organized crimes and terrorism. It affirmed that the Organized Crime Convention constitutes an effective tool and an essential part of the legal framework for preventing and combating transnational organized crimes that affect the environment and for strengthening international cooperation in this regard and requested the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, subject to the availability of extrabudgetary resources, and within its mandate, to provide technical assistance and capacity-building to State parties, upon request, for the purposes of supporting their efforts to effectively implement the Convention in preventing and combating transnational organized crimes that affect the environment. In 2019, the Conference of the States Parties to the United Nations Convention against Corruption, in its resolution 8/12, noted with concern the role that corruption can play in crimes that have an impact on the environment and expressed concern that money-laundering may be used to disguise and/or conceal the sources of illegally generated proceeds, as well as to facilitate crimes that have an impact on the environment. In 2021, the Fourteenth United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice adopted the Kyoto Declaration on Advancing Crime Prevention, Criminal Justice and the Rule of Law: Towards the Achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in which it reiterated the United Nations commitment to adopt effective measures to prevent and combat crimes that affect the environment, including, among other crimes, illicit trafficking in hazardous and other wastes, by making the best possible use of relevant international instruments and by strengthening legislation, international cooperation, capacity building, criminal justice responses and law enforcement efforts aimed at, inter alia, dealing with transnational organized crime, corruption and money-laundering linked to such crimes, and illicit financial flows derived from such crimes, while acknowledging the need to deprive criminals of proceeds of crime.2 In the same year, the General Assembly, in its resolution 76/185, urged Member States to take these same measures. 

Vienna: UNODC, 2022. 133p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).  UNODC Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific

  This report presents the results of the twenty-second Myanmar opium survey, covering the 2023/2024 opium growing and harvesting season. The last three surveys in Myanmar covering the 2020/2021, 2021/2022, and the 2022/2023 seasons showed an increase at the national level in both areas under opium poppy cultivation and opium production. The 2023 survey reported an 18% increase in the area under cultivation to an estimated 47,100 hectares. For the first time in three years the 2024 survey shows a modest decline in the area under cultivation by 4% to 45,200 hectares, indicating a possible stabilization at recent high levels. Three consecutive years of expanding cultivation followed by a year of limited decline could indicate some degree of saturation in regional heroin markets supplied by Myanmar. Declining prices of fresh opium in Myanmar and declining purity adjusted prices of heroin in regional markets could have dissuaded a further increase of production in Myanmar in 2024. However, information from the field suggests that the stagnation in productivity could also be related to the ongoing internal conflict. While instability and conflict, and their impact on the rule of law have traditionally been seen as a driver of illicit crop cultivation, the expansion of the conflict and shifts in the territorial control of armed actors, especially in the growing areas of Shan and Kachin, have limited the mobility of rural population, and likely prevented farmers from accessing cultivation areas further away from their villages. The dynamics of internal conflict might also explain the uneven development across Myanmar’s states in regions, with some areas showing declines in cultivation and others continued growth. In October 2024, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimated that there were some 3 million people internally displaced across the country, with Shan and Kachin in particular seeing escalating tensions and clashes in late 2023 and early 2024. The 2024 survey shows decreases in illicit opium cultivation in half of the geographic areas observed, including South Shan which traditionally experienced the most extensive opium cultivation. Eastern Shan, Chin, and Kayah had modest increases between survey years. Overall, cultivation in Shan State, which continues to be the centre of opium production in Myanmar at 88% of total cultivation area, decreased by 4% to 39,700 ha, with decreases in South and North Shan (-9% and -4% respectively) while East Shan increased by 10%. Cultivation in Kachin saw a moderate decrease of 10%, a change from past trends when above-average increases were observed. Estimates for Chin and Kayah, where the overall area remained small in comparison to other areas, showed an 18% and 8% increase, respectively. Overall potential opium production decreased at greater rates than cultivation due to a decline in opium yield. In 2024, average yield declined by 4% from 22.9 kg per hectare to 22kg per hectare, resulting in an estimated opium production of 995 (700-1,580) metric tons, or 8% less than in 2023. Nevertheless, both yield and production remain at high levels across the last decade. The decrease in cultivation and production coincided with a decrease in farmgate prices of both fresh and dry opium in USD terms, by 4% and 8%, respectively. In 2024, fresh opium traded at just over US$300 per kilogram, down from US$317 the year before, although it remained high compared to the last low point in 2021 when it stood at US$131 per kilogram. In combination with lower production, nationally farmers earned slightly less income than the previous year, between US$230 – US$518 million in 2024 (US$271 - US$613 million in 2023). The farmgate value only represents a small share of the overall opiate economy, with heroin manufacture and export making up a larger share. Wholesale prices of heroin in the region declined even more, contributing to a much larger decrease in the value of the total national opiate economy of about 40%, now ranging between US$589 million and US$1.57 billion, representing between 0.9 – 2.4% of Myanmar’s 2023 GDP  

Thailand: UNODC Regional Office for Southeast Asia and the Pacific 2024. 88p.

By The Research and Trend Analysis Branch, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC),

Now entering its second year of enforcement, the ban continues to hold. In 2024, the area under cultivation was estimated at 12,800 ha, or 19% more than in 2023 (10,800 ha) . Despite the increase, opium poppy cultivation is still far below the priorban levels. In 2022 an estimated 232,000 ha were cultivated. The increase in cultivation came with a geographical shift. The South-western provinces of the country were long the center of cultivation up to and including 2023. In 2024, this changed and now 59% of all cultivation took place in the North-east, particularly in Badakhshan. The rapid and currently sustained decline in poppy cultivation and opium production has important and wide-ranging implications for the country and opiate markets long supplied by product from Afghanistan. Questions remain as to how the country will cope with the continued reduction in opiate income and how opiate markets downstream will react. Farmers that lack sustainable alternatives face a more precarious financial and economic situation and need alternative economic opportunities to become resilient against picking up poppy cultivation in the future. Distributors and dealers closer to destination markets, as well as consumers, are likely to experience supply constraints in the coming years, should the ban remain in place. Following a major hike in 2022 and 2023, dry opium prices stabilized slightly in the first half of 2024 to around US$730. These prices are several times higher than the long-running pre-ban average of US$100 per kilogram. Extremely high farmgate prices and questions about dwindling opium stocks may encourage a resumption in poppy cultivation, especially in places outside of traditional cultivation centers, including neighboring countries. 

Vienna: UNODC, 2024. 20p.

By Vasiliki Georgoulas-Sherry & Hanna Hernandez

This report analyzes COVID-19 impacts on criminal justice data. Specifically, it focuses on the differences amongst adult and juvenile arrests, adult sentencing and juvenile dispositions, adult and juvenile carceral admissions between 2020 and previous years. This type of analysis can help support state and federal policymakers in determining potential next steps in addressing the pandemic’s impact on the criminal justice system – both in the short-term and in the long-term. This report will also help future researchers better understand the anomalies and a more accurate assessment of the pandemic that occurred in the criminal justice datasets during the years impacted. The Washington Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) applied for and received the 2021 State Justice Statistics Grant from Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Among other projects, the SAC sought the grant to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on criminal justice data. Main conclusions from this report: 1. Overall, counts of arrests in Washington State, regardless of category, showed mixed findings with increased from 2017 to 2018 and then 2019 to 2020; but decreased from 2018 to 2019 and then again 2020 to 2021. From 2020 to 2021, there was an overall 3% decrease in arrests in Washington State. 2. For adult arrests in Washington State, from 2019 to 2020 and then 2020 to 2021, there was an overall 17.8% and 13.9% decrease, respectively. For juvenile arrests, from 2019 to 2020 and then 2020 to 2021, there was an overall 39.1% and 33.2% decrease, respectively. 3. Superior court filings decreased from 16.2% in 2018-2019, to 21.4% in 2019-2020, to 15.7% in 2020-2021. Additionally, felony jail sentences decreased throughout the years, from 2017 to 2021. Furthermore, while the overall average prison sentences also saw a decrease from 2017 to 2021, in 2019 to 2020, murder, sex crimes, robbery, and drug crimes saw rises. 4. Juvenile dispositions showed substantial decreases from 2019 to 2020 and from 2020 to 2021 by 7.3% and by 28.8%, respectively. 5. Adult prison admissions saw a decline in all admissions (new, re-admit, and other) . from 2019 to 2021 6. From 2019 to 2020,DOC juvenile admissions and new admissions increased by 126.9% and 11.7%, respectively. 2020 to 2021 presented with decreases in all juvenile admissions.

Olympia: Washington State Statistical Analysis Center, 2022. 213p.

By Hanna Hernandez, M.A. & Vasiliki Georgoulas-Sherry

This report analyzes COVID-19 impacts on criminal justice data. Specifically, it focuses on reported National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) offenses and Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs (WASPC) arrests and bookings. This type of analysis supports state and federal policymakers to determine the actions needed to address the pandemic’s impact on the criminal justice system. This will also help future researchers define the anomalies that occurred in the criminal justice datasets, specifically the longitudinal studies that include the years impacted by COVID-19. Researchers can provide a more accurate assessment of the impact that the pandemic may have on the criminal justice system and its associated datasets. The Washington Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) applied for and received the 2021 State Justice Statistics Grant from Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Among other projects, the SAC sought the grant to conduct this report to evaluate the impact of COVID-19 on criminal justice data. Main conclusions: 1. There was a decrease in 2018 to 2019 (3.0%) and 2019 to 2020 (9.3%) in NIBRS incidents reported. 2. There was a decrease in 2018 to 2019 (0.5%) and 2019 to 2020 (19.1%) in WASPC arrests. 3. There was a decrease in 2018 to 2019 (24.7%) and 2019 to 2020 (12.4%) in WASPC bookings.

Olympia: Washington State Statistical Analysis Center, 2022. 23p.

By The United Office on Drugs and Crime

  In the Sahel countries and their neighbours, the high prevalence of infectious diseases, including malaria, coupled with challenges in terms of the availability and affordability of and access to healthcare, creates an environment in which the demand for medical products and services is not fully met through formal channels. The disparity between the demand for and supply of regulated pharmaceutical products leaves room for trafficking, provides an incentive for the involvement of organized criminal groups and fuels the ongoing threat to public safety and public health in the Sahel countries. Between January 2017 and December 2021, at least 605 tons of different medical products were seized in West Africa during international operations.  While there are no reliable estimates of the overall quantities of medical products that are trafficked in different ways and forms in the Sahel countries, studies point to a percentage of substandard and falsified medicines in the medical market of between 19 and 50 per cent. Some 40 per cent of the substandard and falsified medical products reported in the Sahel countries between 2013 and 2021 was discovered in the regulated supply chain. Just as regulated medical products can be diverted, illicitly manufactured medical products can find their way into authorized pharmaceutical outlets, which shows how much the regulated (legal) and unregulated (illicit) supply chains are interconnected. The Sahel countries rely heavily on imports of medical products because their pharmaceutical industries are still in the early stages of development. Of total pharmaceutical expenditure in sub-Saharan Africa in 2019, imports represented as much as 70 to 90 per cent (roughly 14 billion United States dollars ($)). Medical products diverted from the legal supply chain often originate in the main exporting countries of medical products to the Sahel countries, in particular Belgium and France, and to a lesser extent China and India. Others are manufactured in neighbouring countries, including in North Africa and the Gulf of Guinea. The seaports in the Gulf of Guinea, Conakry (Guinea), Tema (Ghana), Lomé (Togo), Cotonou (Benin) and Apapa (Nigeria) can be identified as major entry points for medical products destined for the Sahel countries. Trafficking by air, using postal shipments or carried out by commercial air passengers, is employed for smuggling smaller quantities of medical products. Once in West Africa, trafficked medical products reach the Sahel countries through smugglers who follow traditional trafficking routes using buses, trucks and private cars. Investigations have revealed the involvement of a wide range of opportunistic actors in trafficking in medical products in the Sahel countries, from employees of pharmaceutical companies, public officials, law enforcement officers and health agency workers to street vendors, all motivated by potential financial gain. Despite terrorist groups and non-state armed groups being commonly associated with trafficking in medical products in the Sahel, most reported cases in the region show that the involvement of such groups is limited and mainly revolves around consuming medical products or levying "taxes" on them in the areas under their control. In sub-Saharan Africa, as many as 267,000 deaths per year are linked to falsified and substandard antimalarial medicines. In addition, up to 169,271 are linked to falsified and substandard antibiotics used to treat severe pneumonia in children.     

Vienna: UNODC, 2022. 28p.

By Vasiliki Georgoulas-Sherry. & Hanna Hernandez

The global 2020 coronavirus pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the operations and actions of local, state, and national governments across all areas of criminal justice. The unique characteristics of this pandemic trend toward short- and long-term consequences as significant changes to criminal justice and legal outcomes. To respond to these impacts, the Washington Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) applied for and received the 2022 State Justice Statistics (SJS) grant from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The SAC sought the grant to increase access to statistical data and create new metrics and indicators to enhance the integrated criminal justice database — the Justice Data Warehouse (JDW) — in efforts to strategically and analytically evaluate the pandemic’s impacts in criminal justice. Through this grant, the Washington SAC leveraged and built upon the JDW to expand the data variables by creating COVID-19 metrics and indicators to help assess and account for COVID-19 impacts in the criminal justice and legal system.

Olympia: Washington State Statistical Analysis Center. 2024. 49p.

By Kaitlyn Rines

This report summarizes law enforcement reports of sexual assault offenses for the State of Ohio during the years 2016-2023. We also summarize characteristics of crime incidents, victims and suspects. We provide sexual assault rates throughout this report, and it is important to understand how we calculated them and what they mean. First, we calculate offense totals by counting the number of sexual assault victimizations documented within each law enforcement incident report. Sexual assault victim totals do not necessarily represent unique victims. For example, law enforcement could report that a suspect sexually assaulted an individual more than once during a single incident. Further, a suspect could assault the same individual during a different incident. Therefore, it is almost certain that the sexual assault offense total is larger than the number of individuals who were victims of sexual assaults. Next, we calculate the rate of sexual assault by dividing the sexual assault total by the population total and then multiplying the resulting number (the quotient) by 100,000. This yields a sexual assault crime rate per 100,000 persons. We provide Ohio’s overall sexual assault crime rates over time, and we also compare rates of sexual assault for Ohio’s standard demographic groups (e.g., age, sex, race). Rates can vary significantly depending on how many victimizations a group experienced as well as the size of one group versus another. For example, the sexual assault crime rate is much higher for female Ohioans than males, largely because the number of female sexual assaults is much larger than male. Further, most sexual assault victims are White females because most of Ohio is White. However, Black females have the highest victimization rate because their sexual assault total is large while their overall population size is small.

Columbus:; Ohio Department of Public Safety, Office of Criminal Justice Services. 2024. 62p.

By Jennifer McDonald

Across the country, law enforcement agencies routinely seize currency from individuals using civil forfeiture—a legal process that allows agencies to take and keep property without ever charging owners with a crime, let alone securing a conviction. Studies examining civil forfeiture have found it to be a multibillion-dollar industry that punishes people without proving they have done anything wrong. This study is the first to examine how U.S. Department of Homeland Security agencies—U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the U.S. Secret Service, and the U.S. Coast Guard—use civil forfeiture to take and keep currency from often unsuspecting travelers at airports across the country. DHS agencies are just a few of the many government agencies that conduct airport seizures, but newly available data give fresh insight into their activity. This study, covering 2000 through 2016, quantifies just how often DHS agencies have seized currency at airports—and just how much currency has flowed into the federal government’s coffers as a result.

Arlington, VA: Institute for Justice, 2020. 32p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

The ratio of registered vehicles to people in the Sahel countries is low and per capita daily gasoline consumption is estimated to be among the lowest in the world. Nevertheless, an average at-pump price of $1 per litre would result in a combined annual total market value of at least 5 billion United States dollars ($) for both legal and illegal fuel in the region. Despite some of them producing oil, the Sahel countries rely on fuel imports from Algeria, Libya and Nigeria, where fuel is heavily subsidized. It appears that the low fuel prices in Algeria, Libya and Nigeria are among the most significant drivers of fuel trafficking in the Sahel. In addition to fuel trafficking, cheap gasoline and diesel also fuel the activities of illegal non-state armed groups, including groups deemed “terrorist” by the international community. Moreover, there are some indications that there may be deeper linkages to other forms of smuggling, such as trafficking in medical products, drugs and firearms. There are four major fuel trafficking flows into the Sahel countries: from Nigeria via Benin to Burkina Faso and Mali; from Nigeria via the Niger to Mali; from Algeria to Mali; and from Libya to the Niger and Chad. A large portion of the market for trafficked fuel in the Sahel countries appears to be informally organized. However, recent investigations have revealed the involvement of structured groups with links to prominent individuals with interests in retail fuel companies, financial institutions and corrupt law enforcement officials. This highlights the importance of the formal trade in laundering smuggled fuel. Companies associated with individuals under United Nations Security Council sanctions are also reported to be involved in fuel smuggling from the Niger to Mali. The introduction of fuel subsidies and licensing policies has led to the emergence of powerful business elites in the Sahel countries with sufficient political influence to protect fuel smuggling activities. Opportunities to earn illegal revenue indirectly from fuel trafficking through bribery and other forms of corruption compromise the level of repression that the Sahel countries can exercise on the illicit fuel trade. Issues with, and gaps in, the rule of law in some areas, owing to a combination of a high level of insecurity and vast, porous borders, constitute a key enabling

factor for fuel trafficking in the Sahel. The lack of state presence in remote areas gives room for the proliferation of criminal activities.

Vienna: UNODC, 2022. 24p.

By Natascha Eichinger, Ekaterina Spassova, Murat Yildiz, et al.

The continued global demand for opiates, and the conditions that sustain opiate production in Afghanistan, pose a threat to public health, governance, and security at regional and global

level. This is likely to continue following the change of regime in Afghanistan in August 2021. Afghan opiates are trafficked to almost every continent worldwide. In 2021, the income from opiates in Afghanistan amounted to some USD 1.8–2.7 billion: however, much larger sums are accrued by international Drug Trafficking Organizations (DTOs) along illicit drug supply chains outside Afghanistan. While most opiates trafficked from Afghanistan are trafficked by land methods, a proportion of the opiates produced in South-West Asia are also trafficked by maritime methods to global destinations.

� Some of the opiates produced in Afghanistan and South-West Asia are trafficked via the southern route by maritime means. Seizures of opiates – and methamphetamine – have been increasing in the Indian Ocean, the result of sustained interdictions by national authorities and international maritime coalitions including the Combined Maritime Forces (CMF) and the EU Naval Force – Somalia (EUNAVFOR). � Drug packages seized in the Indian Ocean are marked with a wide range of stamps including hand pressed and hand-written markings. These stamps are made up of several elements consisting of sequential and non-sequential numbers, names, locations, and different objects. The stamps can provide some detail on the manufacturers and traffickers involved in the production and transport of drugs to international markets. � Stamps can often be used for branding purposes in a similar way to brand logos used with legitimate goods or can be used to identify or alternatively conceal the producers of a batch of heroin. The number of different stamps marked on a package of heroin can be an indicator of how many producers or traffickers were involved with that package. � Stamps are chosen by individual Drug Trafficking Organisations (DTOs). They appear to be well known amongst DTOs and usually can not be copied by other traffickers. However, in some cases a “franchising” process is possible, with smaller traffickers purchasing the right to use stamps associated with larger DTOs. � Dates printed on heroin packages generally indicate the production year. However, there is less clarity when two dates are stamped on a package. In some cases, the second year may indicate when heroin manufacture continued by the same lab, or alternatively can be the expiry date of the heroin or the date when the package was distributed to international markets. Printed dates can also be updated by hand-written markings. � Sequential and non-sequential numbers stamped on heroin packages are generally seen as being coded communications between heroin manufacturers and traffickers, although the specific messages are not known. Sequential numbers (for example 555 or 777) have been found in both the Indian Ocean between 2017 and 2021, and in Central Asia and the Russian Federation in 2012. By comparison, nonsequential numbers (for example 355 or 787) seized in the Indian Ocean are not seen in Central Asia and are only infrequently seized in the Indian Ocean. It is possible that sequential numbers may be associated with relative purity of the heroin contained in the packages stamped with these numbers. � Words stamped on heroin packages appear to be an indicator of where the heroin was produced. Heroin produced in southern Afghanistan is reportedly stamped with Pashto words, while heroin produced in northern Afghanistan and the Islamic Republic of Iran is more likely to be stamped with Farsi words. Heroin produced in eastern and western Afghanistan often has words in English, Farsi and Pashto, while heroin produced in Pakistan is labelled with words in English and Urdu. � Heroin and methamphetamine manufactured and trafficked by the same DTO may be stamped with the same or very similar stamps. In some cases, heroin packages are stamped with images of

animals which may be an indicator of relative purity of the heroin or an indicator of the location of the manufacturer. � Although some conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of heroin stamps seized in the Indian Ocean, there is still a lack of clarity on the meaning and purpose of some stamps – even among the drug traffickers interviewed in Afghanistan. Further analysis is required, including the analysis of drug stamps seized in locations outside of the Indian Ocean. It would be advantageous to develop a database of the different markings of heroin stamps to aid such analysis.

Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2022. 36p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Key findings • Hawala is a Money or Value Transfer Service (MVTS) that has been used for centuries, originating in the Middle East and South Asia. It is overwhelmingly used for legitimate purposes, including personal and business financial transactions and for the sending of remittances by migrants and refugees to family members. Cultural preferences, convenience, low-threshold accessibility, low processing fees, reliability, and faster value transfer services are some of the reasons for using hawala, and customers using the service come from all walks of life. • Despite being widely used for legitimate purposes, some attributes of the hawala system also make it vulnerable to use by organised crime for the purposes of transferring illicit funds and values. This includes financial transfers by drug traffickers, migrant smugglers and other criminal actors and organisations, as well as safekeeping of funds obtained from illegal activity. The 113 hawaladars interviewed for this study do not commonly ask about the source of money or the reason for sending and receiving money. Additionally, when they did have doubts about the source of the funds, over half of the interviewed hawaladars reported that they had never refused a hawala transaction. • There is no single global regulatory framework for the hawala system. However, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has produced international standards and recommendations for countries to take measures to regulate the hawala system and ensure regular monitoring and compliance. Specific regulations and monitoring regimes vary by country, but FATF recommends countries take a risk-based approach to regulating the hawala system. Of the 18 countries covered by this study, the hawala system was regulated in most of them. However, in four countries it was not regulated, and in Afghanistan – following the events of August 2021 – the current regulatory status of the hawala system is unclear as of the time of writing. • Of the 113 hawaladars interviewed for this report, 43 per cent of hawaladars declared they had a license to operate. In jurisdictions where it is a requirement, 25 per cent operated without a license and 31 per cent preferred not to respond. 36 per cent of the interviewed hawaladars stated that they provided reports to the Central Bank or other relevant financial authorities about their hawala activities, while 64 per cent either had never reported or preferred not to answer the question. Licensed hawaladars collected more personal information from their customers and require identification documents, while for unlicensed hawaladars a name and contact number is sufficient to process a transaction. • Of the hawaladars interviewed in this

study, over one-third reported that they ran multiple branches within the same country and more than half of them reported having offices in other countries. Regular hawala customers are likely to receive a discount on commission charges by hawaladars. • People engaging in regular and irregular migration constitute one customer base of the hawaladars interviewed in this study. Over half of reported that they had migrants as customers. The findings of this study suggest that hawaladars – knowingly and unknowingly - facilitate irregular migration and migrant smuggling by providing multiple financial services including, but not limited to, money or value transfer, safekeeping of funds and introducing migrants and refugees to migrant smugglers. • There are multiple reasons why migrants and refugees would use hawala before, during and after traveling, and these are broadly linked to the features of the system, and, for some, lack of access to any other financial system, such as banks or mobile money services. Migrants and refugees may be directed to a hawaladar by a friend or relative, smuggler, fellow traveller, shopkeeper or accommodation provider. • The interviewed hawaladars identified the following services they provided to migrants and refugees during their journeys: guiding migrants on their journey; helping with finding work upon arrival; referring migrants to support organizations; providing temporary accommodation or referring migrants to an individual who provides temporary accommodation; and finding local medical aid, as undocumented migrants may not be able to or may be reluctant to access hospitals. • Some hawaladars also assist migrants and refugees by finding, recommending or introducing them to a smuggler; and finding or directly renting out boats and trucks for transportation. • The majority of customers using the services of the 113 hawaladars interviewed for this study sent funds to countries located in the Near and Middle East/ South-West Asia sub region, followed by Western and Central Europe and South-Eastern Europe subregions. Customers in the Near and Middle Eastern sub-regions frequently sent funds to hawaladars in most of the eighteen countries where interviews were conducted. Customers of the interviewed hawaladars in the countries of the North American sub-region only sent funds to hawaladars interviewed in Afghanistan, Denmark, Nigeria, Somalia, and the United Republic of Tanzania. • Hawala is widely associated with transferring money or value - this was the most common type of service provided by the sample group in this study. However, sending and receiving money is just one among several financial services hawaladars provide. Cash savings, currency exchange, short-term lending, safekeeping of funds, and trade guarantees were other services the interviewed hawaladars provided to their customers to varying degrees. Some of them safekeep customers’ funds. The amount of funds kept for safekeeping with the interviewed hawaladars ranged from US$ 20,000 to US$ 500,000. • Hawaladars often operate additional businesses alongside their hawala business. Some of the side businesses mentioned by interviewed hawaladars were grocery store, travel agency, selling mobile top-up cards, construction company and electronics shops. • A hawala transaction does not always proceed directly from country A to country B. Depending on the source and destination, sometimes a transaction is carried out through one or more intermediary hawaladars located in at least one other country. Hawaladars interviewed for this study reported that there are multiple hawala hubs located in several regions of the world where such intermediary hawaladars operate. • Hawaladars interviewed in this study reported processing both domestic and international transactions, however, nearly three out of four processed mostly international transactions. The amount of a single hawala transaction varies substantially. Transactions handled by the interviewed hawaladars ranged from as low as US$50 and as high

as US$200,000. To keep a record of these transactions, most hawaladars interviewed in this research reported that they keep a paper (ledger book) as well as an electronic (digital) record of hawala transactions and other services provided. • Hawaladars use a variety of methods to settle their accounts including through cash, reverse transaction, bank transfer or trading in goods and services. Reverse transaction was the most often used method of account settlement among the hawaladars interviewed in this study, followed by settlement through bank transfer. Misuse of the hawala service • In addition to its widespread legitimate use, hawala is vulnerable to misuse by organized crime groups and other criminal actors. More than one-third of the interviewed hawaladars judged the hawala system to be more vulnerable to illegal transactions compared to the formal banking system, while some perceived an equal vulnerability in both systems. A lack of proper oversight by national authorities, a lack of reporting by hawaladars, a lack of regulation, policy, or guidelines for hawaladars to follow, the operation of unlicensed hawaladars, and the closed nature of the hawala system are all potential reasons for vulnerability. • There are no exact estimates as to the extent to which hawaladars, knowingly or unknowingly, facilitate the misuse of their financial services for criminal purposes. Some hawaladars interviewed for this research reported the direct involvement of other hawaladars in transferring funds associated with illegal activities. Additionally, some criminal groups have hawaladars, who may be relatives, working specifically for them for the purposes of transferring funds linked to organised crime. • Several of the interviewed hawaladars reported that they do not ask the purpose of transactions from their customers. As a result, it is possible that hawaladars involved in handling transactions of illicit proceeds are not aware of the nature and source of the money they are transferring or safekeeping. This is particularly the case with hawaladars who are dealing with smaller transactions which usually do not arouse suspicions. However, some hawaladars reported that they could not refuse a transaction from customers connected with Organized Crime Groups (OCGs) due to the risk of negative consequences for themselves and their businesses. • It remains a challenge to precisely document the degree to which hawaladars are transferring illicit funds; it is also difficult to trace illicit financial flows, to separate them from licit flows, and to establish concrete financial links to criminal activities. Law enforcement agencies face challenges in investigating crimes linked to hawala systems, because of the closed nature of the business and, in some cases, the kinship ties of the actors.

Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2023. 91p.

By The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime

Sahel countries are some of the largest gold producers in Africa. While gold production data can be unreliable, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania and the Niger are estimated to have produced 228 tons of gold in 2021, worth over 12.6 billion United States dollars ($). The gold sector is a major economic driver in the Sahel countries. Artisanal and small-scale gold mining (ASGM) production is estimated at 108 tons per year in Sahel countries, although official ASGM production data is largely unreliable due to the informal nature of the sector. ASGM provides a livelihood to over 1.8 million people in areas where income-generating activities are limited. The sector is characterized by high levels of informality because it often takes place on unlicensed and undeclared mining sites. Gold mining without licenses is illegal in all Sahel countries, although Member States have taken measures to formalize ASGM. Barriers to accessing mining licences often push communities involved in ASGM into a vicious cycle of illegality. Without protection of the law, they depend on a local economy often controlled by transnational organized crime (TOC) groups to fund their operations and to sell their gold production, with limited opportunities for structural investments. These communities are potentially susceptible to

recruitment by armed groups, including violent extremist groups. Porous borders enable gold to be easily moved within the Sahel countries and smuggled out of the region, including to the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Vienna: UNODC, 2023. 36p.

By United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UN Women

In this publication, the term “femicide” is used to refer to all types of gender-related killings of women and girls as described in the “Statistical framework for measuring the gender-related killing of women and girls (also referred to as “femicide/feminicide”)”.

Globally, approximately 51,100 women and girls were killed by their intimate partners or other family members during 2023. Higher than the 2022 estimate of 48,800 victims, this change is not indicative of an actual increase as it is largely due to differences in data availability at the country level. The 2023 figure means that 60 per cent of the almost 85,000 women and girls killed intentionally during the year were murdered by their intimate partners or other family members. In other words, an average of 140 women and girls worldwide lost their lives every day at the hands of their partner or a close relative...

P.18 When considering possible risk factors, it should be noted that fewer victims (11 per cent) and perpetrators (20 per cent) of femicides are under the influence of alcohol than in the case of male homicides (25 and 30 per cent respectively). Some studies point to the drug intoxication of victims as a homicidal risk factor,13 but in the case of femicides in France, this does not seem to be the case, with 3 per cent of victims and 5 per cent of perpetrators of femicide being under the influence of drugs at the time of the crime.

Vienna: UNODC, 2024. 36p.