Edited by Enrique Desmond Arias and Thomas Grisaffi.

The contributors to Cocaine analyze the contemporary production, transit, and consumption of cocaine throughout the Americas and the illicit economy's entanglement with local communities. Based on in-depth interviews and archival research, these essays examine how government agents, acting both within and outside the law, and criminal actors seek to manage the flow of illicit drugs to both maintain order and earn profits. Whether discussing the moral economy of coca cultivation in Bolivia, criminal organizations and drug traffickers in Mexico, or the routes cocaine takes as it travels into and through Guatemala, the contributors demonstrate how entire ways of life are built around cocaine commodification. They consider how the authority of state actors is coupled with the self-regulating practices of drug producers, traffickers, and dealers, complicating notions of governance and of the relationships between economic and moral economies. The collection also outlines a more progressive drug policy that acknowledges the important role drugs play in the lives of those at the urban and rural margins. Contributors. Enrique Desmond Arias, Lilian Bobea, Philippe Bourgois, Anthony W. Fontes, Robert Gay, Paul Gootenberg, Romain Le Cour Grandmaison, Thomas Grisaffi, Laurie Kain Hart, Annette Idler, George Karandinos, Fernando Montero, Dennis Rodgers, Taniele Rui, Cyrus Veeser, Autumn Zellers-León.

Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2021. 377p.

Edited by Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung and Regine Schönenberg.

Analyses of a Global Challenge to Democracy. ”In June 2011, the Heinrich Böll Foundation hosted an international conference on transnational organized crime (TOC). It was the first time that the Foundation addressed the issue of transnational organized crime in such a comprehensive manner. The intention of this event was to raise awareness about the interdependency of international criminal structures, legal economic processes, and the respective political orders. A further aspect that was addressed was the interwovenness of drug, arms, human and organ trafficking, and money laundering.”

Creative Commons (2013) 309p.

By Craig A. Zendzian.

Written by a former NYPD cop, this book gives a behind the scenes look at the hidden interests that lie behind casino gambling from Nevada to New Jersey. Provides a concise analysis of how politics, organized crime and special interests created one of the greatest gambling empires in the United States. CONTENTS: 1. Introduction, 2.Nevada and Earlier Gambling Movements in America, 3. The Bahamas and Casino Gambling, 4. Gambling Comes to New Jersey, 5. Let's Do Business: The Corporate Way That is, 6. Who Investigates Racketeers?, 7. Where Does It End?

NY. Harrow and Heston Publishers. 2012.

By Fabio Armao.

The post-Cold War era was characterised by both the recurrence of state wars and the spread of forms of organised violence other than wars. Asymmetric warfare between alliances led by the USA and groups of insurgents, such as those witnessed in Afghanistan and Iraq, coexist alongside domestic conflicts, such as that of former Yugoslavia and, more recently, Libya and Syria; and still other conflicts involving gangs, mafias or narco-traffickers. The massive military-industrial complexes conceived in the context of the threat of nuclear Armageddon are still there of course, but they now coexist with irregular armies of insurgents carrying out massacres through the use of light weapons and improvised explosives devices. This book oppose the idea that this situation prefigures the return to an anarchical, pre-political condition, by assuming that new wars are rather the product of the blurring of the public-private divide, induced by the end of the Cold War, together with globalisation. As a consequence, also the internal and external factors are blurred; and ever more permeable and elusive is becoming even the border between war and crime. Inside War goes beyond a state-centered analysis and adopts an interdisciplinary and multilayered approach, and is intended to foster the dialogue among researchers from different fields. It places war at the core of analysis, assuming that the reality of war is what we make of it; and that the only insurmountable limit to our comprehension of war is our way of knowing and representing it. Fabio Armao teaches courses in Politics and Globalisation Processes, and Criminal Systems. He has been Visiting Professor at Cornell University, and co-convenor of the Standing Group on Organized Crime, European Consortium for Political Research. Founding member of T.wai (Torino World Affair Institute), he is also member of the Editorial Board of ‘Global Crime’. His research interests and publications focus on international wars and geopolitics, on violent non-state actors and transnational organised crime, and on urban security.

Warsaw, Poland: deGruyter, 2015. 224p.

By West Africa Commission on Drugs.

After looking at the evidence, consulting experts from the region and around the world, and visiting some of the most affected countries and communities in West Africa, the Commissioners of the West Africa Commission on Drugs detail their conclusions in this report about how the problems of drug trafficking and consumption in the region should be tackled.

Geneva: WACD, 2014. 64p.

By A Joint Effort Between EU-ABC & TRACIT.

TRACIT has joined with the EU-ASEAN Business Council (EU-ABC) to issue a report that sheds light on the growing problem of illicit trade in the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). The report, titled, “Tackling Illicit Trade in ASEAN”, comes at a time when illicit trade is gaining momentum in ASEAN and as officials prepare for the upcoming 14th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Transnational Crime (AMMTC). The paper investigates various forms of illicit trade in the region, the affected industry sectors and provides critical insight on how government and industry leaders can work together to introduce regulatory changes to confront this pressing issue.

NY: TRACIT. Advocacy Paper, 2020. 35p.

By The Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (TRACIT).

The TRACIT report, "Examining the negative impacts of illicit trade on SDG 16", is part of TRACIT’s contribution to the partnership approach embodied in SDG 17 and a means by which business, the public sector and civil society can more effectively achieve the SDGs. The report updates key findings from the 2019 Mapping the Impact of Illicit Trade on the Sustainable Development Goals to focus on the criminal elements underpinning illicit trade and their relationship to SDG 16. Additionally, it incorporates observations during the COVID-19 pandemic, which show that criminal groups have swiftly exploited the situation and entrenched their positions in illicit trade.

TRACIT.ORG. 2021. 37p.

By Jon Spencer, Rose Broad, Kauko Aromaa et. al.

This report was completed some time ago but for reasons beyond our control its publication has been delayed until now. The issue of the illegal movement of people retains its topicality and continues to be equally relevant as it was at the time of the project fieldwork. For example, recently, HEUNI has completed a further report on the FLEX project (Trafficking for Forced Labour and Labour Exploitation in Finland, Poland and Estonia, HEUNI Publication No. 68), and the report on trafficking for sexual exploitation published by The Swedish Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), accompanied by a Finnish country report published as HEUNI report No. 62 also indicate the importance of this area of research. The research reported on here was innovative as it included law enforcement practitioners and authority representatives in a constant dialogue with researchers. The aim was that this would allow for discussion of the data as it was gathered throughout the project. The intention was that data collection and interpretation formed a permanently iterative, self-correcting process and to some extent this was achieved. It was also an aim that the Expert Groups created for the project would continue once the research phase was completed in order to maximise the sharing of information and to sustain a dialogue between different professional groups. This aim proved to be over optimistic as there were too many problems caused by information sharing. It would seem that without external pressure and support, such formal cross-authority forms of co-operation do not survive spontaneously. The same could be observed in the context of the FLEX project. Our conclusion is that should such “horizontal” groups be created they will only continue if there is a budget and a responsible coordinating body established on a permanent basis. If not, the sustainability of such co-operative relationships is low.

Helsinki: European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control (HEUNI), 2011. 110p.

National Research Council.

Despite efforts to reduce drug consumption in the United States over the past 35 years, drugs are just as cheap and available as they have ever been. Cocaine, heroin, and methamphetamines continue to cause great harm in the country, particularly in minority communities in the major cities. Marijuana use remains a part of adolescent development for about half of the country's young people, although there is controversy about the extent of its harm.

Given the persistence of drug demand in the face of lengthy and expensive efforts to control the markets, the National Institute of Justice asked the National Research Council to undertake a study of current research on the demand for drugs in order to help better focus national efforts to reduce that demand.

This study complements the 2003 book, Informing America's Policy on Illegal Drugs by giving more attention to the sources of demand and assessing the potential of demand-side interventions to make a substantial difference to the nation's drug problems. Understanding the Demand for Illegal Drugs therefore focuses tightly on demand models in the field of economics and evaluates the data needs for advancing this relatively undeveloped area of investigation.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2010. 124p.

By Marina Foltea. This book assesses the consequences of Brexit for the control of illicit trade in tobacco products in the UK and EU. Based on the currently applicable legal framework, it examines the significance of a possible non-application of the acquis communautaire in the UK in matters relating to anti-illicit trade in tobacco legislation. It also analyses the modes of future cooperation between the UK and the EU in this area, as well as possible regulatory scenarios and their consequences. The book comprises six main sections. After the introduction (Section 1), Section 2 discusses the state of play of Brexit and possible outcomes of Article 50 of the Treaty of European Union procedure. Section 3 illustrates the data and trends of illicit tobacco trade in the UK. Section 4 describes the relevant legal (e.g. trade and fiscal measures) and enforcement frameworks in the UK and suggests possible post-Brexit scenarios in control of tobacco illicit trade. Section 5 focuses on the relevance of arrangements between governments and the tobacco industry in the control of illicit trade. Section 6 then analyses the relevance of key EU and global anti-illicit trade initiatives. Lastly, Section 7 the book offers some recommendations and conclusions on how the UK could control illicit trade in tobacco after Brexit Cham: Springer, 2020. 89p.

A Comparative Perspective. Edited by Celina Nowak. This chapter outlines the framework of the research presented in this volume. It starts with a notion that national criminal policies on illicit tobacco trade are a part of the national tobacco control policy, and at the same time a part of a general national criminal policy and points to the need for an in-depth research of national criminal laws in this regard. It presents the scope of the research, which consists in a comparative analysis about the illicit tobacco trade and about efforts to counteract that trade in six EU Member States—four post-communist states (Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Romania), on the Eastern border of the Union and two “old” EU Member States (Germany, Italy). Springer. (2021) 283p.