By Laura Ávila and Alicia Flórez
This investigation exposes gender-based violence in Tibú, a Colombian town located on the border with Venezuela that serves as a drug trafficking corridor for several illegal armed groups. In 2021, at least 13 women were killed and dozens more were forced to flee the municipality amid one of the worst waves of violence ever seen in the area.
Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2022. 30p.
By Sebastian Dahlström,
In a world where drug use is on the rise and new variants are frequently discovered and produced, the need for effective prevention is stronger than ever. At the same time, preventive strategies and initiatives for battling the crisis are not in short supply. The challenge, however, is to choose the right initiatives.To strengthen collaboration within the research field and to present new research and new prevention initiatives, Nordic organisations and experts met in Oslo, Norway, on 28 September 2022, under the heading of Alcohol and drug prevention in the Nordic countries.The first half of the conference centred around the meaning of substance use today, and why prevention is needed. The latter half of the conference focused on the characteristics and practical implementations of evidence-based prevention initiatives. Both theory and practical examples were presented. This report summarises the main themes and ideas presented at the conference.
Helsinki: Nordic Welfare Centre, 2023. 25p.
By Thomas Grisaffi
Bolivia is a centre for drug production and trafficking and yet it experiences far less drug-related violence than other countries in Latin America that form part of cocaine’s commodity chain. Drawing upon more than three years of ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2005 and 2019, this article presents evidence from the Chapare, a coca-growing and drug processing region in central Bolivia, to consider why this is the case. Building from the literature on embedded economies and the subsistence ethic of peasant communities, the article demonstrates that the drug trade is part of a local moral order that prioritizes kinship, reciprocal relations and community well-being, facilitated by the cultural significance of the coca leaf. This has served to limit possibilities for the violence that is often associated with drug production and trafficking. In addition, coca grower agricultural unions act as a parallel form of governance, providing a framework for the peaceful resolution of disputes and working actively to exclude the state and criminal actors.
Development and Change Volume53, Issue3: 576-599, 2022.
By Elizabeth Eggins, Lorelei Hine, Angela Higginson and Lorraine Mazerolle
Drawing on the Global Policing Database (GPD), this review assesses the impact of supplier arrests and seizures on drug crime, drug use, drug price, drug purity, and drug harm outcomes. Just 13 impact evaluation studies (reported in 18 documents) met inclusion criteria. An evidence and gap map was constructed, showing that research to date relates primarily to drug harms, followed by drug crime and drug price, and that there are significant gaps in the impact evaluation literature. The results of this review demonstrate the limited amount of high-quality scientific evidence that can be used to examine the impact of supplier arrest and seizure on a range of drug-related outcomes.
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 16p.
By Lorraine Mazerolle, Elizabeth Eggins and Angela Higginson
The Global Policing Database is used to update a 2007 systematic review of the impact of street-level law enforcement interventions on drug crime and drug-related calls-for-service. A total of 26 studies (reported in 29 documents) were eligible for this updated review. Eighteen of the 26 studies reported sufficient data to calculate effect sizes.
We find that, overall, street-level policing approaches are effective in reducing drug crime, particularly those involving partnerships. We also find that geographically targeted law enforcement interventions are more effective in reducing drug crime than standard, unfocused approaches. Approaches that target larger problem areas for intervention are more effective for reducing drug crime (but not calls-for-service) than approaches that focus on micro problem places.
Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology, 2020. 20p.
By Beatriz Magaloni, Gustavo Robles, Aila M. Matanock, Alberto Díaz-Cayeros, Vidal Romero
Why do drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) sometimes prey on the communities in which they operate but sometimes provide assistance to these communities? What explains their strategies of extortion and cooptation toward civil society? Using new survey data from Mexico, including list experiments to elicit responses about potentially illegal behavior, this article measures the prevalence of extortion and assistance among DTOs. In support of our theory, these data show that territorial contestation among rival organizations produces more extortion and, in contrast, DTOs provide more assistance when they have monopoly control over a turf. The article uncovers other factors that also shape DTOs’ strategies toward the population, including the degree of collaboration with the state, leadership stability and DTO organization, and the value and logistics of the local criminal enterprise.
Comparative Political Studies 1–51 © The Author(s) 2019
By Itzel De Haro Lopez
The global increase in the demand for avocados has attracted the attention of rent-seeking criminal organizations in Mexico. As a result, farmers and packing houses have become the targets of drug trafficking organizations (DTOs). This paper aims to answer whether declining drug revenues have motivated cartels to target licit businesses, such as avocado farms, rather than continue specializing in the production and distribution of illicit drugs. To do this, I exploit exogenous variation in the demand for pure heroin in the U.S. between 2011 and 2019. In particular, I use the introduction of Fentanyl in the U.S. as a proxy for the reduction in the demand for pure heroin in Mexico to answer whether this led to an increase in homicides and cartel presence in avocado- and poppy-growing municipalities. Using municipal level data, I show that the decrease in the demand for heroin increased homicide rates (including those of agricultural workers) in avocado-growing municipalities. I find no evidence of higher cartel presence in these municipalities, suggesting that, while DTOs do not seem to be moving into these municipalities, they have become more violent toward civilians. Furthermore, I find that the fall in the demand for heroin led to a decrease in cartel presence and homicide rates in poppy-growing municipalities. Overall, this paper provides evidence of inter-sector spillovers resulting from drug demand changes.
Madison, WI: Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wisconsin–Madison: 2022. 58p. Working Paper.
By John Walsh
More than half a century after the advent of a global drug prohibition regime and the launch of the U.S. “war on drugs,” the results have been disastrous for Latin America and the Caribbean, and for the United States itself. Even worse, prohibition’s consequences are exacerbating other grave problems—corruption and organized crime, violence perpetrated with impunity, forest loss and climate change, and displacement and migration—making solutions to these challenges even more difficult to achieve. The Biden administration’s historic embrace of harm reduction represents an enormous, lifesaving advance for U.S. drug policy. But even with harm reduction services, moves to decriminalize drug possession, and shifts underway to legally regulate recreational cannabis, the brunt of drug prohibition remains intact and the drug war rages on in the Americas. The principal victims of government repression in the name of drug control and of the predations of organized crime have always been and continue to be the most impoverished and marginalized communities. At the same time, the illegal drug trade constitutes an economic survival strategy for millions of people in Latin America and around the world—a de facto social safety net of the sort that national elites and governments themselves have proven unwilling or incapable of providing.
Washington, DC: Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), 2022. 28p.
This article explores the factors contributing to drug-related deaths in English and Welsh prisons between 2015 and 2020. Based on content analysis of all Prison and Probation Ombudsman ‘other non-natural’ fatal incident investigation reports, descriptive statistics were generated. Qualitative analysis explored the circumstances surrounding deaths and key risk factors. Most deaths were of men, whose mean age was 39 years. Drug toxicity was the main factor in causing death, exacerbated by underlying physical health conditions and risk-taking behaviours. A variety of substances were involved. New psychoactive substances became more important over time. A high proportion had recorded histories of substance use and mental illness. During this period, the prison system was under considerable stress creating dangerous environments for drug-related harm. This study highlights the process of complex interaction between substances used, individual characteristics, situational features and the wider environment in explaining drug-related deaths in prisons. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.
J Community Psychol. 2023;1–22
By Jason ElighBy Jason Eligh
Despite the extensive population containment and control measures put into place across the globe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the flow of cocaine powder from Latin America to global markets appears to have been largely uninterrupted. This is despite the fact that measures to significantly reduce supply have been put in place by the governments of Colombia – a country that is still the primary cultivator of coca – and the United States, the primary progenitor of and ally in the war on drugs.
The markets and supply chains for cocaine, as well as other illicit drugs, have proven to be remarkably resilient in the face of the growing patchwork of restrictions on movement and transport since March 2020 in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The many predictions by experts of supply chain disruption to drug flows and the potentially disruptive impact of this on consumer markets have not come to pass. Cocaine distribution networks and related agents quickly found ways to bypass challenges raised by lockdowns and restrictions. Coca cultivation and potential cocaine production even expanded during the first year of the pandemic, reaching record or near-record levels in the three primary cultivation countries of the Andean production region.
Geneva: Global Organization Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2022. 64p.
By Harsha Moraliyage; Vidura Sumanasena; Daswin De Silva; Rashmika Nawaratne; Lina Sun; Damminda Alahakoon
The dark web has been confronted with a significant increase in the number and variety of onion services of illegitimate and criminal intent. Anonymity, encryption, and the technical complexity of the Tor network are key challenges in detecting, disabling, and regulating such services. Instead of tracking an operational location, cyber threat intelligence can become more proactive by utilizing recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect and classify onion services based on the content, as well as provide an interpretation of the classification outcome. In this paper, we propose a novel multimodal classification approach based on explainable deep learning that classifies onion services based on the image and text content of each site. A Convolutional Neural Network with Gradient-weighted Class Activation Mapping (Grad-CAM) and a pre-trained word embedding with Bahdanau additive attention are the core capabilities of this approach that classify and contextualize the representative features of an onion service. We demonstrate the superior classification accuracy of this approach as well as the role of explainability in decision-making that collectively enables proactive cyber threat intelligence in the dark web.
IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 56044-56056, 2022,
By Saiba Nazah; Shamsul Huda; Jemal Abawajy; Mohammad Mehedi Hassan
The Dark Web is one of the most challenging and untraceable mediums adopted by the cyber criminals, terrorists, and state-sponsored spies to fulfil their illicit motives. Cyber-crimes happening inside the Dark Web are like real world crimes. However, the sheer size, unpredictable ecosystem and anonymity provided by the Dark Web services are the essential confrontations to trace the criminals. To discover the potential solutions towards cyber-crimes evaluating the sailing Dark Web crime threats is a crucial step. In this paper, we will appraise the Dark Web by analysing the crimes with their consequences and enforced methods as well as future manoeuvres to lessen the crime threats. We used Systematic Literature Review (SLR) method with the aspiration to provide the direction and aspect of emerging crime threats in the Dark Web for the researchers and specialist in Cyber security field. For this SLR 65 most relevant articles from leading electronic databases were selected for data extraction and synthesis to answer our predefined research questions. The result of this systematic literature review provides (i) comprehensive knowledge on the growing crimes proceeding with Dark Web (ii) assessing the social, economic and ethical impacts of the cyber-crimes happening inside the Dark Web and (iii) analysing the challenges, established techniques and methods to locate the criminals and their drawbacks. Our study reveals that more in depth researches are required to identify criminals in the Dark Web with new prominent way, the crypto markets and Dark Web discussion forums analysis is crucial for forensic investigations, the anonymity provided by Dark Web services can be used as a weapon to catch the criminals and digital evidences should be analysed and processed in a way that follows the law enforcement to make the seizure of the criminals and shutting down the illicit sites in the Dark Web.
IEEE Access, vol. 8, pp. 171796-171819, 2020,
Javeriah Saleem, Rafiqul Islam and Muhammad Ashad Kabir
The dark web is a section of the Internet that is not accessible to search engines and requires an anonymizing browser called Tor. Its hidden network and anonymity pave the way for illegal activities and help cybercriminals to execute well-planned, coordinated, and malicious cyberattacks. Cyber security experts agree that online criminal activities are increasing exponentially, and they are also becoming more rampant and intensified. These illegal cyber activities include various destructive crimes that may target a single person or a whole nation, for example, data breaches, ransomware attacks, black markets, mafias, and terrorist attacks. So, maintaining data privacy and secrecy is the new dilemma of the era. This paper has extensively reviewed various attacks and attack patterns commonly applied in the dark web. We have also classified these attacks in our unique trilogies classification system. Furthermore, a detailed overview of existing threat detection techniques and their limitations is discussed for anonymity providing services like Tor, I2P, and Freenet. Finally, the paper has identified significant weaknesses that make the dark web vulnerable to different attacks.
IEEE Access, vol. 10, pp. 33628-33660, 2022
By Abhineet Gupta
The internet can broadly be divided into three parts: surface, deep and dark among which the latter offers anonymity to its users and hosts. The dark web has become notorious in the media for being a hidden part of the web where all manner of illegal activities take place. The more restrictions placed upon the free exchange of information, goods and services between people the more likely there exist hidden spaces for it to take place. The ‘black market’ of the internet – the dark web - represents such a hidden space. This review looks at the purposes it is widely used for with an emphasis on cybercrime, and how the law enforcement plays the role of its adversary. The review describes these hidden spaces, sheds light on their history, the activities that they harbour – including cybercrime, the nature of attention they receive, and methodologies employed by law enforcement in an attempt to defeat their purpose. More importantly, it is argued that these spaces should be considered a phenomenon and not an isolated occurrence to be taken as merely a natural consequence of technology. The review is conducted by looking at existing literature in academic journal databases. It contributes to the area of the dark web by serving as a reference document and by proposing a research agenda.
Melbourne: University of Melbourne, 2018. 46p.
By Tracit
In pursuit of various social, religious, health, or economic objectives governments have imposed a long history of regulatory controls on the producers and consumers of alcoholic beverages. Minimum age purchase restrictions are probably the most renowned and common. Dry laws and other forms of supply restrictions are probably the most notorious. For the most part, the failure of America’s experiment with Prohibition has discouraged governments from imposing them. That is until the onset of the global COVID19 pandemic, when several countries opted for some form of dry law on alcoholic beverages as a tool to mitigate the impact of the virus. Whether or not dry laws were effective in addressing the pandemic itself is not the purpose of this report. The ambition here is to analyze the economic and social impacts of dry laws beyond public health objectives, specifically those consequences associated with illicit trade. The findings are intended to yield valuable lessons from the experience with COVID19 prohibitions, which can be applied to shaping future policymaking at the intersection of alcohol regulation, illicit trade and public welfare.
New York: Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (Tracit), 2021. 34p.
By Louise Manning and Aleksandra Kowalska
Illicit (unrecorded) alcohol is a critical global public health issue because it is produced without regulatory and market oversight with increased risk of safety, quality and adulteration issues. Undertaking iterative research to draw together academic, contemporary and historic evidence, this paper reviews one specific toxicological issue, methanol, in order to identify the policy mitigation strategies of interest. A typology of illicit alcohol products, including legal products, illegal products and surrogate products, is created. A policy landscape matrix is produced that synthesizes the drivers of illicit alcohol production, distribution, sale and consumption, policy measures and activity related signals in order to inform policy development. The matrix illustrates the interaction between capabilities, motivations and opportunities and factors such as access, culture, community norms and behavior, economic drivers and knowledge and information and gives insight into mitigation strategies against illicit alcohol sale and consumption, which may prove of value for policymakers in various parts of the world.
Foods 10(7), 2021. 17p.
By The International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD)
Alcohol production and trade exist both within and outside of government regulation; the relative size of each depends on the region of the world and social, cultural, and economic factors. Both segments are well established and people often – knowingly and unknowingly – interact fluidly with both of them. The regulated alcohol market is recorded in government statistics; unregulated alcohol, which is largely illegal, is more difficult to assess and falls into the “unrecorded” sphere (see Taxonomy of Unregulated and Unrecorded Alcohol). This segment is complex and diverse and includes everything from high-quality artisanal homebrew to illicit drinks that may contain methanol or other toxic ingredients. In 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) issued its Global Status Report on Alcohol and Health and estimated, based on 2010 figures, that unrecorded alcohol made up an average 25% of all alcohol consumed worldwide [2]. Alcohol produced and sold illegally outside of government regulation is the most problematic part of unrecorded alcohol; it is untaxed, circumvents restrictions around availability, is of inconsistent quality, and, depending on the ingredients used to make it, is even potentially toxic. This report considers these wide-reaching implications and brings together recent data on the illicit market, compiled by the global market research firm Euromonitor International. While illicit alcohol is also widespread across Asia and parts of Europe, this report focuses on data from Africa and Latin America. Unregulated alcohol is more widespread in lower-income countries than in more affluent ones. Yet, whether in mature or emerging economies, it is largely consumed in some of the world’s poorest communities and, because it lacks quality and production standards, may contribute to an already significant problem of ill health. While home-produced artisanal alcohol may be part of cultural heritage and largely unproblematic, the illicit sector is not only large but also comes at a significant cost. HUMAN COST: The deaths in early 2018 of almost 150 people in Indonesia from poisoning by adulterated alcohol serve as a reminder that unregulated alcohol can cost lives
Washington, DC: The International Alliance for Responsible Drinking (IARD), 2018. 16p.
26% of alcohol consumption is illicit, with serious consequences for consumers – including health risks stemming from the consumption of unsafe products, governments – with an estimated loss in fiscal revenues of at least US $8.9 billion per year – and for legitimate businesses. The World Spirits Alliance’s roadmap on illicit alcohol examines the issue of illicit trade in alcohol, its root causes and potential solution. It also contains case studies, information about the impact of the COVID crisis & alcohol restrictions on illicit trade in alcohol, a perspective on the role of the WTO in the fight against illicit trade, and information on the role that public-private partnerships can play.
Brussels: World Spirits Alliance, 2022. 16p.
By Andrés Ham, Darío Maldonado, Michael Weintraub, Andres Felipe Camacho, Daniela Gualtero
This paper studies whether bartenders that adopt standardized practices can promote responsible alcohol consumption and subsequently reduce alcohol-attributable violence. We conducted a randomized experiment in four localities of Bogotá in cooperation with Colombia's largest brewery and Bogotá's Secretariat of Security, Coexistence, and Justice. Our design allows estimating direct and spillover effects on reported incidents within and around bars. Results show that bartenders in treatment locations sell more water and food, thus contributing to more responsible alcohol consumption by patrons. We find no direct or spillover effects of these changes in consumption on brawls, but some improvement on other alcohol-related incidents.
Bogotá, Colombia: Universidad de los Andes, 2019. 61p.
By Ria Ivandić, Tom Kirchmaier and Neus Torres-Blas
We study the role of alcohol and emotions in explaining the dynamics in domestic abuse following major football games. We match confidential and uniquely detailed individual call data from Greater Manchester with the timing of football matches over a period of eight years to estimate the effect on domestic abuse. We first observe a 5% decrease in incidents during the 2-hour duration of the game suggesting a substitution effect of football and domestic abuse. However, following the initial decrease, after the game, domestic abuse starts increasing and peaks about ten hours after the game, leading to a positive cumulative effect. We find that all increases are driven by perpetrators that had consumed alcohol, and when games were played before 7pm. Unexpected game results are not found to have a significant effect.
London: Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics, 2021. 66p.
