By Gina Bou Serhal, Kristian Alexander and Rahaf Alkhazraji

This issue brief delves into the changing landscape of Italian organized crime, focusing on the ‘Ndrangheta, a potent criminal group originating from Calabria. It explores how the ‘Ndrangheta has diversified its criminal activities, including drug trafficking and environmental crimes, and its alleged connections with international criminal and terrorist organizations. The brief also sheds light on the emergence of the youthful “Baby Mafia,” or Camorra in Naples, known for its decentralized structure and social media presence glamorizing criminal life. It emphasizes Italy’s efforts to combat organized crime and the necessity for a united European approach to address the mafia’s global influence and adaptability across borders.

Stockholm: Institute for Security and Development Policy, 2023. 6p.

By Jennifer J. Carroll

Against the backdrop of a post-Soviet state set aflame by geopolitical conflict and violent revolution, Narkomania considers whether substance use disorders are everywhere the same and whether our responses to drug use presuppose what kind of people those who use drugs really are. Jennifer J. Carroll's ethnography is a story about public health and international efforts to quell the spread of HIV. Carroll focuses on Ukraine where the prevalence of HIV among people who use drugs is higher than in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and unpacks the arguments and myths surrounding medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in Ukraine. What she presents in Narkomania forces us to question drug policy, its uses, and its effects on "normal" citizens. Carroll uses her findings to explore what people who use drugs can teach us about the contemporary societies emerging in post-Soviet space. With examples of how MAT has been politicized, how drug use has been tied to ideas of "good" citizenship, and how vigilantism towards people who use drugs has occurred, Narkomania details the cultural and historical backstory of the situation in Ukraine. Carroll reveals how global efforts supporting MAT in Ukraine allow the ideas surrounding MAT, drug use, and HIV to resonate more broadly into international politics and echo into the heart of the Ukrainian public.

Ithaca, NY; London: Cornell University Press Ithaca and London, 2019. 251p.

By The European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA)

This report is based on information provided to the EMCDDA by the EU Member States, the candidate country Türkiye, and Norway, in an annual reporting process.

The purpose of the current report is to provide an overview and summary of the European drug situation up to the end of 2022. All grouping, aggregates and labels therefore reflect the situation based on the available data in 2022 in respect to the composition of the European Union and the countries participating in EMCDDA reporting exercises. However, not all data will cover the full period. Due to the time needed to compile and submit data, many of the annual national data sets included here are from the reference year January to December 2021. Analysis of trends is based only on those countries providing sufficient data to describe changes over the period specified. The reader should also be aware that monitoring patterns and trends in a hidden and stigmatised behaviour like drug use is both practically and methodologically challenging. For this reason, multiple sources of data are used for the purposes of analysis in this report. Although considerable improvements can be noted, both nationally and in respect to what is possible to achieve in a European level analysis, the methodological difficulties in this area must be acknowledged. Caution is therefore required in interpretation, in particular when countries are compared on any single measure. Caveats relating to the data are to be found in the online Statistical Bulletin, which contains detailed information on methodology, qualifications on analysis and comments on the limitations in the information set available. Information is also available there on the methods and data used for European level estimates, where interpolation may be used.

Lisbon: EMCDDA, 2023.

By Harm Reduction International

This report follows development aid being spent on narcotics control around the world. It calls on governments and donors to divest from punitive and prohibitionist drug control regimes which undermine their other health and human rights commitments, and invest in programmes which prioritise community, health and justice.

Mass incarceration and overpopulated prisons. Death sentences. Civilians killed during counter-narcotics operations by specialised police units. Poor farmers’ livelihoods destroyed by aerial spraying and other ‘forced eradication’ of crops they keep. Rights violated by forced treatment programmes, discrimination, and barriers to health care. These are among the consequences of the global war on drugs that has particularly impacted poor, marginalised, and racialised communities around the world.

The evidence base for such negative impacts is now vast and widely recognised internationally, including by United Nations (UN) agencies and in reports published by the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Also well-documented internationally are the benefits of alternative approaches to drug policy – including harm reduction initiatives that advance, rather than undermine, public health and human rights – and the lack of evidence that punitive and prohibitionist approaches to drugs have actually curbed drug use. Despite this, vast amounts of international funding continue to flow to punitive drug control activities, while harm reduction remains vastly underfunded.

There is a long history of drug policy being used by world powers to strengthen and enforce their control over other populations, and to target specific communities. Racist and colonial dynamics continue to this day, with wealthier governments, led by the US, spending billions of taxpayer dollars around the world to bolster or expand punitive drug control regimes and related law enforcement. These funding flows are out of pace with existing evidence, as well as international development, health, and human rights commitments, including the goal to end AIDS by 2030. They rely on and reinforce systems that disproportionately harm Black, Brown and Indigenous people worldwide.

In order to decolonise drug policy and advance health- and human rights-based approaches, the material and financial bases of punitive drug control must be revealed and redirected. This report contributes to these goals by synthesising existing research on international financial flows for punitive drug control, and adding new analysis of data on official development assistance (ODA) spent by aid donors and institutions on “narcotics control”. These specific, public budgets are supposed to support international development, including health goals and global poverty reduction. This spending is more commonly associated with initiatives to vaccinate and educate children, for instance – but project-level data included in this report shows that some of it has also gone to supporting things like undercover policing, “intelligence-led profiling”, and efforts to increase arrests and prosecutions for drug-related offences.

LACK OF TRANSPARENCY

Each year, aid donors report their spending to the OECD which maintains what is called its Creditor Reporting System (CRS). According to the most recent update of the data in this system (from mid-December 2022, covering spending through the end of 2021), more than USD 930 million of aid money was spent on “narcotics control” projects in countries around the world in the ten years from 2012-2021. This includes spending by dozens of donors – led by the US, EU, Japan, and the UK. Tens of millions of dollars of this total (at least USD 68 million over the period studied) were spent in countries that have the death penalty for drug-related offences. This raises particularly serious concerns about whether and how aid budgets have bolstered regimes that execute people, building upon previous HRI research in this area. While some donors, such as the UK, have spent less aid this way in recent years, others have increased it – most notably the US, where such spending rose significantly in 2021, in the first year of President Joe Biden’s administration.

Though data availability and transparency vary across projects and donors, this analysis reveals how aid money has supported approaches that undermine global development goals and “do no harm” principles. Put simply: aid funding is supposed to help poor and marginalised communities, while punitive drug control regimes have been shown to disproportionately negatively affect them. This makes such regimes a poor fit for such important yet limited development budgets. This research also shows how these donors have numerous opportunities – as well as obligations – to change how they invest in global drug policy by funding under-resourced, evidence-based, and health- and human rights-centred harm reduction efforts instead, worldwide.

London: HRI, 2023. 38p.

By The United Nations General Assembly. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

The present report outlines human rights challenges in addressing and countering key aspects of the world drug problem. It also offers an overview of recent positive developments to shift towards more human rights-centred drug policies, and provides recommendations on the way forward in view of the upcoming midterm review of the 2019 Ministerial Declaration and to contribute to the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

United Nations, 2023. 19p.

By The International Drug Policy Consortium (IDPC)

In September 2023, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released a landmark report on human rights in drug policy. Prepared at the request of the Human Rights Council as a contribution to the mid-term review of the 2019 Ministerial Declaration on drugs, this report constitutes the most ambitious and comprehensive UN document to date on the alignment of drug policies with human rights. The report consolidates existing human rights standards, develops new recommendations, and proposes a blueprint for transformative change, from a global punitive paradigm to drug policies based on health and human rights.

This IDPC advocacy note focuses on three key issues. First, the new standards and recommendations developed in the OHCHR report, which update our understanding of the human rights dimension of drug policies. Secondly, the consolidation of prior human rights standards developed by other UN bodies. Lastly, we lay down our recommendations for an effective implementation of the vision proposed by the report.

London: IDPC, 2023. 7p.

By UK Parliament, House of Commons, Home Affairs Committee

Drugs can have a significant and negative impact on people who use drugs, their loved ones and society. Trends in drugs may vary over time but this consequence is constant. Concerningly, drug misuse deaths across the UK continue to increase with opiates playing a significant role in this, and ‘street’ benzodiazepines and polydrug use also playing an increasing role. There were 250 drug misuse deaths per million population in Scotland in 2022—significantly higher than in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In her Independent Review of Drugs, Professor Dame Carol Black estimated the total cost of drugs to society to be more than £19 billion per year—more than twice the value of the illicit drugs market (an estimated £9.4 billion).

In recent years, the response by the international community and devolved nations to drugs has increasingly focused on responding to drugs through a public health lens. UK policy should ensure that an approach originally and primarily based on criminal justice principles continues to adapt to achieve a proper balance of public health interventions that may reduce illicit drug use in the longer term rather than aiming simply to disrupt demand. We believe that this approach would be best supported by making drug policy the joint responsibility of the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Care, with a minister sitting across both departments.

The main piece of legislation controlling drugs in the UK—the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971—is more than 50 years old. It is in need of review. Further, a full review by the Advisory Council is required on whether the most commonly controlled drugs in the UK are correctly classified and scheduled (under the Misuse of Drugs Regulations 2001), based on the evidence of their harms.

The Government’s latest drugs strategy, ‘From Harm to Hope: A 10-Year drugs plan to cut crime and save lives’ (the 10-Year Drugs Strategy) signals a shift towards recognising the need for a holistic response to drugs that not only aims to tackle the illicit drug market but also supports people who use drugs, their loved ones and society. However, the Government’s response could go further by adopting a broader range of public health-based harm reduction methods in tandem with its support of law enforcement efforts to tackle the illicit drugs market.

We support the use of diamorphine assisted treatment supported by psychosocial support as a second-line treatment for people with a chronic heroin dependency. We visited a centre in Middlesbrough and saw the dramatic and positive effect this treatment had on the lives of a small group of people who had used drugs and, albeit on a small scale, to local crime reduction. Disappointingly, such treatment programmes are few and controversial, and the Middlesbrough programme lost its funding. The Government should provide centralised funding for such programmes.

Safe consumption facilities, where people who use drugs may do so in safe, secure surroundings, may also reduce harm and deaths, but the status of such facilities is uncertain because of the restrictive regime in place under the 1971 Act. We recommend that the Government support a pilot facility in Glasgow and create a legislative pathway to enable more.

A national drug checking service in England could enable people to anonymously test samples of drugs, again preventing harm and potentially death. We recommend the Government establish a drug checking service, taking into account the experience of Wales. We also recommend the expansion of on-site drug checking services at temporary events such as music festivals and in the night-time economy through the creation of a dedicated licensing scheme. The power to issue such licences could include the devolution of power to grant licences to local authorities.

These public health and harm reduction interventions must be balanced with the role of police in applying the law. The police can also have a role in aiding prevention of drug use and treatment of harms. Scotland’s pioneering programme of having all police officers carry naloxone (a nasal spray or injection that can be administered immediately to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose) should be rolled out elsewhere in the UK as a straightforward means of saving lives. The police can also play an important role in diverting young people who have committed low-level drug-related offences away from the criminal justice system. We support greater standardisation of police-led diversion across England and Wales, to avoid a ‘postcode lottery’ in the treatment of such offenders.

London: House of Commons, 2023. 98p.

By Amanda Doggett, ; Kyla Belisario,; André J. McDonald,; et al

Importance A key concern about recreational cannabis legalization is increases in use and adverse consequences, particularly among young adults (aged 18-29 years) who have the highest prevalence of cannabis use, and especially in higher-risk, more vulnerable young adults. However, few longitudinal studies have examined patterns of cannabis consumption in high-risk young adults over the course of legalization.

Objective To examine changes in cannabis use frequency and cannabis-related consequences over recreational cannabis legalization in Canada in a longitudinal sample of high-risk young adults.

Design, Setting, and Participants Longitudinal observational cohort study following young adults in Ontario, Canada, aged 19.5 to 23.0 years who reported regular heavy episodic drinking (65% past-month cannabis use) at enrollment. Participants were surveyed every 4 months for 3 years between February 2017 and February 2020 (3 prelegalization waves, 4 postlegalization waves). Data were analyzed from March to May 2023.

Exposures Recreational cannabis legalization in Canada and 4 potential moderators of change: sex, income, education, and prelegalization cannabis use frequency.

Main Outcomes and Measures Cannabis use frequency and cannabis-related adverse consequences.

Results In a cohort of 619 high-risk young adults (baseline mean [SD] age, 21.0 [1.2] years; 346 female participants [55.9%]), omnibus model testing revealed significant overall decreases in both cannabis use frequency (F = 2.276, 3000.96; P = .03) and cannabis-related consequences (F = 10.436, 3002.21; P < .001) over time, but these changes were substantially moderated by prelegalization frequency (frequency: F = 7.5224, 3021.88; P < .001; consequences: F = 7.2424, 2986.98; P < .001). Follow-up tests showed individuals who used cannabis more frequently prelegalization significantly decreased their use and cannabis-related consequences postlegalization. In contrast, individuals who did not use cannabis prelegalization exhibited a small magnitude increase in frequency over time but nonsignificant changes in cannabis-related consequences. Sex, income, and education did not moderate changes over time.

Conclusions and Relevance In this cohort study of high-risk young adults, individuals using cannabis frequently prelegalization showed significant reductions in use and consequences over time, reflecting an aging out pattern. Small increases in use among participants with no prelegalization use were observed over time, but without parallel changes in cannabis-related consequences. The results did not reveal substantive adverse near-term outcomes across the legalization period, although a within-participants design cannot rule out the possibility of alternative trajectories in the absence of legalization.

JAMA Netw 5 September 2023Open; 6(9); 2023

By Kathii Lynn Austin and Brian Freskos

The U.S. and Mexico are grappling with daunting security crises stemming from the trafficking of hundreds of thousands of guns over the U.S. southern border every year. These weapons are empowering Mexican transnational criminal organizations and inflicting substantial suffering in both countries. This report underscores how reducing cross-border gun trafficking is crucial for achieving the goals of the U.S.-Mexico Bicentennial Framework for Security, Public Health, and Safe Communities — a bilateral security agreement announced nearly two years ago. By implementing our recommendations, the U.S. and Mexico can more effectively combat illicit gun flows, saving lives, and improving prosperity.

California: Pacific Council on International Policy, 2023. 85p.

By Kingsley L Madueke

Cattle rustling in Nigeria has evolved from a sustainable community practice into a significant illicit economy, delivering material profits to conflict actors and multiplying harms. Since 2011, the country has experienced a surge in the number of rustling incidents, resulting in thousands of deaths, loss of livelihoods, widespread destruction and displacement of people. This has had a debilitating impact on the country’s stability.

In Nigeria’s North-West and North-Central regions, in particular, cattle rustling has contributed to growing instability by increasing levels of violent crime. The Nigerian press is awash with stories of heavily armed groups raiding communities, killing people and stealing large herds of cattle. Also of note are the violent activities of the self-defense groups that have emerged in response. Additionally, in some of Nigeria’s most volatile regions, including Northern Plateau and Southern Kaduna, cattle rustling has fed into longstanding conflicts between farmers and herders, fuelling violence and deepening polarization.

Cattle rustling deserves attention because it is among the illicit economies most clearly driving instability in Nigeria, more so than others traditionally focused on as sources of instability, such as armed robbery and drug trafficking. The relationship between cattle rustling and instability is multifaceted: not only has the phenomenon been the cause of thousands of deaths, large-scale displacement of communities and destruction of livelihoods, but it has also repeatedly operated as a significant source of financing for armed groups, including regional insurgent groups operating in north-eastern Nigeria and northern and central Mali. Cattle rustling is also interwoven with longstanding tensions between ethnicities, amplifying these and catalyzing further conflict.

This report focuses on Zamfara and Plateau states, where cattle rustling has fuelled large-scale violence and instability over the past decade. The report also explores the concerning southward diffusion of cattle rustling, with an emphasis on Kwara and Oyo states. While some underlying causes of cattle rustling cut across regions, this research highlights that local drivers of cattle rustling and instability are often distinct and therefore require context-specific responses.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime,2023. 46p.

By Flore Berger

Cattle rustling in Mali surged in 2021 and continues at unprecedented levels, with the dominant perpetrators being violent extremist groups operating in the country. The scale of cattle rustling in Mali is the climax of a decade of growth of the practice, and cattle rustling is now a central and under-reported element of the country’s security crisis variously as a driver of conflict, as a governance and intimidation mechanism, and as a key source of revenue for non-state armed groups. This has dramatic humanitarian, social and economic effects on communities. Cattle rustling has since the very start of the crisis been at the heart of Mali’s war economy, with Tuareg rebel groups (since the 1990s) and violent extremist groups (since 2012) financing themselves by looting livestock and relying on a broader network to sell it, using its proceeds to finance their operations (e.g. buying fuel, vehicles and weapons). Cattle rustling, understood in this report to mean the whole range of livestock appropriation,1 has rarely been considered as a criminal economy, yet its impacts on communities and conflict dynamics across West Africa are arguably unrivalled by other more traditional organized markets, such as high-value narcotics. It is sustained by a complex network and supply chain, and perpetrated through ever-increasing violence. Furthermore, while a range of illicit economies have been used by violent extremist groups for resourcing – including trafficking of cigarettes, fuel and drugs; artisanal gold mining; and kidnapping for ransom – cattle rustling has proven to be a particularly resilient and broadly stable source of income. Cattle rustling also stands out regarding the degree to which it intersects with a long-standing history of frustration and resentment by pastoralist communities, and is therefore integral to understanding regional conflict. Cattle rustling, and reprisals for theft, spark cycles of violence as herders protect themselves by joining armed groups and arming themselves. Other communities then respond by creating more armed groups for self-protection, many of which become predatory. Cattle rustling also operates as a mechanism wielded by armed groups to terrorize the population and deprive them of a central element of livelihoods. Hundreds of villages have been pillaged and burnt down, and cattle looted.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2023. 54p.

By Matt Herbert and Lucia Bird Ruiz-Benitez de Lugo i

Since the turn of the millennium, organized crime has surged from a small number of locally or regionally active organizations into a plethora of syndicates operating throughout the globe. Their operations are now often transnational, either active in multiple countries or involved with illicit commodity chains that extend across borders and interlink different regions.

Organized crime players are increasingly active in criminal markets, from human trafficking to cybercrime to illicit fuel sales. Although the value of global organized crime activity is unknown – and likely unknowable with any real precision because of its nature – it is huge. Individual markets such as drug trafficking or timber extraction are estimated to generate hundreds of billions of dollars annually.

The rising prevalence and profitability of organized crime have had a substantial impact in many of the states in which networks operate. In part, this is through the corruption and/or coercion of state officials to allow criminal activity or purchasing impunity.

Such official complicity is now the most important factor enabling the spread and operations of organized crime and also a key impediment to efforts to design solutions and build resilience to it.

Criminal groups have been important sponsors of armed groups seeking to control, in full or in part, the territory of states across the world. Increasingly, organized crime actors have developed autonomous military capacity, becoming key threats to peace and security in their own right. Impacts of organized crime on governance also manifest from the bottom up, with local communities highly vulnerable to criminal actors’ attempts to violently seize de facto control, limit access to public services or establish alternative governance structures.

Because of this profusion of impacts, the international community is devoting increasing resources to counter the phenomena of rising organized crime. At a national level, this has seen greater funding of security force and criminal justice actors, an expansion that is mirrored in international aid, with heightened donor focus on security sector reform and governance, judicial sector training and programmes to build binational and multinational coordination on security challenges, including organized crime.

The international community has also sought to build arrangements for multilateral reciprocal cooperation, such as the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (UNTOC), also known as the Palermo Convention. However, these have struggled to achieve the necessary effects and are often outpaced by criminal evolution, leading many states to prefer unilateral or ad hoc initiatives to address transnational organized crime. Further, many governments are shifting their approach to organized crime, assessing it as a national security threat rather than purely as a criminal justice challenge. The result has been that, while criminal justice tools such as multilateral arrangements con-tinue to be relied upon, other approaches – involving military, financial and diplomatic tools – are becoming increasingly common. The use of targeted sanctions has emerged as part of this expanding international toolkit to address organized crime.

Such sanctions can be defined as legal authorities that prohibit certain forms of otherwise licit activity, including financial access or travel, for a specific entity in order to hamper their pursuit of a specific goal. Historically, they have mostly been used against countries whose activities were interpreted as threats to peace and security or individuals who had breached international law or norms. Despite the growing use, there has been limited tracing of why and how different international actors have converged in their use of targeted sanctions, how they have developed processes to issue and implement sanctions regimes and their impact and effectiveness. This report series focuses on the use of targeted sanctions against criminal actors. The series encompasses both global reports and country-specific and thematic studies.

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2023. 75p.

By Shehryar Fazli

The Taliban’s 3 April 2022 edict prohibiting poppy cultivation and the use and trade of all types of narcotics across Afghanistan could have grave implications for a collapsing economy. Poppy is the country’s most valuable cash crop, and its labour-intensive cultivation employs several hundred thousand people, pushing up wages and living standards of those directly and indirectly involved. Requiring little water, the poppy’s resilience in adverse agricultural conditions makes it an attractive long-term investment, especially during one of the worst droughts in decades. The new ban would affect farmers in the rural southwest region, where many Taliban leaders are from, as well as influential players across the opium and heroin supply chain. In the absence of significant financial incentives to these constituencies, the risks of a major backlash probably outweigh any benefits of enforcing a poppy ban. Providing such financial incentives would be dependent on significant foreign assistance. Some prominent experts and commentators infer that international legitimacy and funding was the Taliban’s primary motivation in announcing the edict. If so, there are no signs yet that the move will generate the desired response. Afghanistan has been politically and economically isolated since the Taliban’s August 2021 forceful seizure of power. The freezing of around $9 billion in central bank foreign reserves, held mostly in the US, triggered a collapse of the local currency and major liquidity crisis, while aid cut-offs and sanctions triggered hyper-inflation and impeded trade and other business. There are indications that the international community, led by the US, is softening its position to prevent an economic collapse affecting millions of Afghans who face starvation. Without tangible Taliban commitments to basic rights and equality, however, especially of girls and women, deeper international engagement, including on counter-narcotics, is unlikely. How willing and able the Taliban will be to enforce its edict may remain unclear for several months. The ban came amid the poppy harvest in the southwestern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, bastions of both poppy cultivation and Taliban support. Significant quantities, therefore, may have already been harvested. Transporting them up the supply chain, and to western destinations, will depend on resourceful transnational crime groups. The most important of these are arguably in Pakistan, which shares Afghanistan’s longest border and most of the routes for westward movement of illicit goods, people, and cash from Afghanistan. Criminal networks here traverse the Indian and Iranian borders, and also move their product by sea off the southern Makran coast and Karachi port, to European, African, Asian and Australian markets. These networks, and the geography in which they operate, also require close examination. By better understanding the context and trends, policy-makers will be better able to assess policy options and their implications, especially in Europe, the destination of significant volumes of heroin from Afghanistan

SOC ACE Research Paper No. 9.

Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham. 2022. 35p.

By Summer Walker I Mariana Botero Restrepo

The relationship between illicit economies, conflict and instability has been long debated in academic and practitioner circles, and part of the international policy agenda for some time. From the diamond trade in Sierra Leone to the heroin trade in Afghanistan, illicit economies have been shown to fund insurgencies and political actors, and to contribute to ongoing conflict.

The GI-TOC’s 2021 Global Organized Crime Index shows that of the ten highest-scoring countries for criminality, meaning those with the most pervasive criminal markets and influential criminal actors, the overwhelming majority are countries experiencing conflict or fragility.

This report considers three case studies at different stages of armed conflict to assess the dynamic relationship between criminal networks, illicit economies, and conflict actors and conditions. These three case studies offer unique perspectives in terms of duration, size of the conflict area and stage of the conflict:

• Armed insurgency in northern Mozambique

• Armed groups in Libya and Mali

• Armed groups in Colombia

While these conflicts present three distinct cases, they also share relevant similarities. In these cases, unrest is created after an armed group or groups counter the legitimacy of the state. The national response to the conflict is supplemented with regional and international responses. All situations lack a swift resolution, and the instability persists primarily in areas outside capitals, even after formal conflict resolution. In this way, these three cases are representative of sustained, localized instability deriving from armed conflict between the state and non-state armed groups.

All three conflict areas overlap with areas of established illicit economies. In these settings, the connections between armed conflict and illicit markets evolve over time. The impacts may be commodity-dependent, with different considerations for illegal mining as opposed to trafficked drugs. Illicit markets change over time, as do the power brokers and beneficiaries involved. Illicit economies contribute to long-term enabling environments for instability by prolonging conflict and eroding government responses to conflict. Through the case studies of northern Mozambique, the Sahel region and Colombia, this report identifies ten dynamics that influence illicit economies and conflict situations. These findings make a contribution to vital policy discussions for stabilization and conflict mediation in these – and other – re

Geneva, SWIT: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime., 2022. 74p.

By Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime

Before February 2022, Russian and Ukrainian organized crime formed the strongest criminal ecosystem in Europe. Having developed along similar lines in the 1990s, Russian and Ukrainian criminal groups and networks controlled a lucrative transnational smuggling highway between Russia and Western Europe that carried gold, timber, tobacco, coal, counterfeit/untaxed goods, humans and drugs. At the more politically connected end of the spectrum, corrupt officials and criminal bosses from both countries exploited Ukraine’s role as a transit country for Russian gas to siphon off millions of dollars, while Ukraine’s oligarch class exerted a strong grip over the country’s economic, political and information spheres.

Kyiv made serious efforts to tackle organized crime and corruption after the 2014 Maidan Revolution but results were mixed, especially in the case of judicial reform; meanwhile, the conflict in the Donbas region helped bolster an array of illicit economies and criminal actors. For organized crime, business was generally good.

The Russian invasion has inflicted a profound shock to this ecosystem. With the war, collaboration between Russian and Ukrainian organized crime interests became impossible due to the political situation (which led many criminals to break such ties) and the pragmatic challenge of smuggling across what was now a violently contested and dynamic front line. Many Ukrainian crime bosses chose to leave the country, as did many oligarchs, including several accused of pro-Russian sympathies. Martial law and the curfew also initially constrained criminal activity. According to senior sources in the Ukrainian police, incidents of armed robberies declined by a factor of between three and four, and the homicide rate dropped to almost zero at the beginning of the war (although this may partly reflect the impact of the war on reporting in the early days of the war). It may be that the impact of the invasion also whittled out some less robust and resilient organized crime groups: according to data from the general prosecutor’s office, the number of organized crime groups under investigation decreased from 499 in 2021 to 395 in 2022 (although this decline alternatively could reflect dimished investigative capacity).

This report explores the changing dynamics in the political economy of Ukrainian organized crime up till December 2022 and maps how the criminal landscape has adapted to the new situation. Given the complexity of the impact of the war in Ukraine on organized crime in both parties to the conflict, the GI-TOC is producing two reports. This report concentrates on developments within Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders – with the exception of the so-called Luhansk and Donetsk ‘people’s republics’ (LDNR) in the Donbas region, which broke away from Kyiv in 2014 with Russian backing and assistance, and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed the same year. The impact of the conflict on organized crime in these areas and on Russian organized crime more generally will be discussed in a separate report, which will assess trends in sanctions busting and money laundering, changes in trafficking flows east of Ukraine and how Russian organized crime groups have responded to the conflict.

Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2023. 60p.

By Julia Stanyard | Thierry Vircoulon | Julian Rademeyer

Russia has rapidly increased its engagement in Africa in recent years, both politically and economically, as it seeks to expand its influence on the continent. However, Russia’s activities in Africa are subject to controversy. Our new report sheds light on the Wagner Group, a private military company rapidly becoming the most effective form of Russian engagement in Africa.

The group comprises a network of political influence operations and economic entities such as mining companies. It has been accused of using whatever means necessary to achieve its aims, including criminal activity. The US government recently designated Wagner as a ‘transnational criminal organization,’ allowing for broader sanctions against Wagner and its enablers.

The report argues that the Wagner Group is unique as an organization in the breadth, scale, and boldness of its activities. However, the study also shows that Wagner did not emerge in a vacuum: The group’s activities and characteristics reflect broader trends in the evolution of Russia’s oligarchs and organized crime groups, their respective relationships with the Russian state, and their activities in Africa.

By focusing on case studies in several African countries, the report helps to shed light on the complex dynamics between Russia, its oligarchs, and its criminal networks and how they interact with African governments, businesses, and populations. This report draws on research conducted since July 2022, as well as other sources from across the continent, providing a comprehensive overview of the Wagner Group’s operations in Africa. The report provides important insights into the evolving relationship between Russia and Africa and how this is shaping politics and economics on the continent, serving as a resource for journalists, policymakers, and researchers seeking to understand the complex dynamics of Russian engagement in Africa.

Center for the Study of Democracy; Global Initiative Against Organized Crime, 2023.92p.

By Center for Strategic and International Studies; By Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Rubi Bledsoe & Andrea Michelle Cerén

In 2020, Western and Central Europe comprised 21 percent of the global demand of cocaine. The drug is now the second most consumed illicit drug on the entire continent behind cannabis. Europe has become an attractive destination for drug traffickers seeking higher profits and lower risks. This is due to higher market prices and lesser legal penalties for possession and consumption than in the United States. While a kilogram of cocaine is priced at around $28,000 in the United States, the same kilogram is priced at around $40,000 in places like France and Spain—and a staggering $219,454 in Estonia. Furthermore, European interdiction efforts in Europe and the Caribbean territories do not match U.S. disruption efforts in the Western Hemisphere. Available data suggests the European Union spends only $3-4 billion on supply-side reduction in comparison to $17.4 billion for the United States. According to European officials, this allows border security forces to interdict only around 10–12 percent of the total flow of cocaine into the continent. Without a multipronged approach to curb Europe’s cocaine demand through higher legal penalities and transatlantic interdiction efforts, the cocaine market there will continue to boom—and with it, drug violence and health threats.

Washington, DC: CSIS, 2023.

Edited by Tzanetakis, Meropi and South, Nigel

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. Transnational illicit markets have been transformed by the digital revolution. They take advantage of encryption technologies, smartphones, social media applications and cryptocurrencies that protect the digital traces of buyers and sellers, posing new challenges to drug control policies and public health alike. Digital Transformations of Illicit Drug Markets: Reconfiguration and Continuity considers how the digital revolution has changed the selling and buying of illicit substances through increased convenience and anonymisation. Providing a uniquely interdisciplinary perspective, chapters show how the digital transformation of illicit drug markets combines a reconfiguration of how sellers and buyers interact in new markets. Emphasising that illicit digital markets are embedded in societal structures and power relations in general, contributors also recognise the importance of critical perspectives on inequalities between the Global North and South as well as issues of gender. Digital Transformations of Illicit Drug Markets: Reconfiguration and Continuity challenges the field of criminology to recognise the limits of its traditional knowledge and move beyond the preoccupations that restrict crime to certain fixed spaces in order to develop new explanations.

Bingley: Emerald, 2023. 198p.

By Raminta Daniulaityte, Kaylin Sweeney , Seol Ki, Bradley N. Doebbeling and Natasha Mendoza

Background: Worsening of the overdose crisis in the USA has been linked to the continuing proliferation of non-pharmaceutical fentanyl (NPF). The recent wave of NPF spread in the USA has been fueled by an increased presence of counterfeit pills that contain NPF. This qualitative study aims to characterize the motivation and practices of counterfeit NPF pill initiation and use among individuals using illicit opioids in Arizona. Methods: Between October 2020 and May 2021, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 individuals meeting the following eligibility criteria: (1) 18 years or older; (2) residence in Arizona; and (3) use of illicit opioids in the past 30 days and/or opioid use disorder treatment in the past 12 months. Participants were recruited through referrals by a harm reduction organization, craigslist ads, and referrals by other participants. Interviews were conducted virtually via Zoom. Qualitative interviews were transcribed and analyzed thematically using NVivo. Results: Out of 22 participants, 64% were male, and 45% were ethnic minorities. Age ranged between 25 and 51 years old. Participants noted significant recent increases in the availability of counterfeit NPF pills (“blues,” “dirty oxys”) that were most commonly used by smoking. The majority indicated frst trying NPF pills in the past year, and the frst use often occurred in situations of reduced access to heroin or pharmaceutical opioids. Participant decisions to switch over to more frequent NPF pill use or to maintain some levels of heroin use were shaped by local drug availability trends and personal experiences with NPF efects. They were also infuenced by conficting views of social acceptability of pharmaceutical-like drugs, perceived harms of NPF in terms of overdose risks and increased difculty of quitting, and perceived benefts of switching to the non-injection route of opioid administration (e.g., from injecting heroin to smoking NPF pills). Conclusion: Our fndings highlight the need for the implementation of novel policy, treatment, and harm reduction approaches to address the growing unpredictability of drug supply and NPF pill-specifc risks, attitudes, and behaviors.

Harm Reduction Journal (2022) 19:52

By Julia Yansura and Lakshmi Kumar

In this report, Global Financial Integrity (GFI) presents an analysis of narcotics-related illicit financial flows between the United States and the major narcotics production and transit countries of Mexico and Colombia. The report was commissioned by the Western Hemisphere Drug Policy Commission as part of its mandate to evaluate US drug policies and programs in Latin America and the Caribbean, assess current efforts to reduce the illicit drug supply and address the harms associated with trafficking and drug abuse. A variety of strategies can and have been used to address drug trafficking in the Western Hemisphere, from manual and aerial crop eradication, to interdiction, illicit crop substitution and other alternate development approaches. While existing strategies have resulted in temporary disruptions to narcotics cultivation and trafficking, they have not been successful in addressing these issues in a comprehensive, lasting manner. At the same time, history has shown that many of these policies have had unintended consequences and caused harm to people, their communities and the environment in very profound ways. Financial strategies from the anti-money laundering and counter financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) toolkit offer a different lens to view and address the problem of drug trafficking. In this report, GFI argues that AML/CFT is underutilized in current US and regional counter-narcotics efforts and needs to be reprioritized. Effectively responding to the challenges of drug trafficking and transnational organized crime will require a multi-pronged, multi-stakeholder and multi-disciplinary effort that includes AML/CFT, as well as a more comprehensive approach to drug policies that encompasses human rights, public health and development.

Washington, DC: Global Financial Integrity , 2020. 67p.