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.

By Tomáš Diviák, Jan Kornelis Dijkstra and Tom A.B. Snijders

Using data on 32 actors and ties among them drawn from available court files, we combine analytical sociology with statistical models for networks in order to analyse a case of a counterfeit alcohol distribution network from the Czech Republic. We formulate a theory of action and identify relational mechanisms which could explain how the structure of the network emerged and describe. We use the exponential random graph model to test these mechanisms. The analysis reveals that the two actors capable of manufacturing the poisonous mixture were considerably though not optimally proximate to others enabling fast distribution of the mixture. Our model results that the structure was formed by mechanisms of triadic closure, negative tendency to concentrate ties, and tie translation of pre-existing ties into operational ties. We conclude with the discussion of the implications of our approach for the study of criminal networks.

GLOBAL CRIME, 2020, VOL. 21, NO. 1, 51–73

By Euromonitor International

Alcoholic beverages are deeply ingrained in most societies worldwide, with global consumption in 2017 generating US$1.6 trillion in legally registered sales of 222.8 million hectolitres of pure alcohol (“hectolitres of alcohol equivalent”, or hl lae). However, despite the efforts of policy-makers, law enforcement officials, and legitimate alcohol manufacturers, illicit alcoholic beverages still account for a significant share of the total volume of alcohol consumed in many countries. This white paper explores critical issues affecting the problem of illicit alcohol in today’s global alcohol industry. To this end, the paper analyses research conducted in 24 countries in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe, and examines the major factors shaping their illicit alcohol markets. Illicit alcohol is prevalent in these countries: Of the 42.3 million hl lae of total alcohol consumed each year, approximately 25.8% is illicit. In other words, nearly 10.9 million hl lae of illicit alcohol is consumed annually in these 24 countries alone. This suggests they represent an effective sample for exploring this important topic. Illicit alcoholic beverages are defined as those not complying with the regulations and taxes in the countries where they are consumed, resulting in serious health risks to consumers, revenue loss, and brand degradation for legitimate manufacturers, as well as reduced tax revenue for governments. These products are responsible for hundreds of cases of death and illness due to accidental methanol intoxication, millions of dollars used to fund other criminal activities, and the fiscal loss of billions of dollars in unpaid taxes. Health risks affect the poorest and most vulnerable consumers by contributing to widening health inequalities. The most significant risks and costs for each country depend on the characteristics of the local market for illicit alcohol. The landscape of illicit alcohol is varied and complex, ranging from homemade artisanal beverages sold without the proper sanitary permits to legitimately branded bottles of alcohol smuggled illegally into a country. However, although market characteristics differ across countries, the problem of illicit alcohol exists in every region, in developed and developing countries, urban and rural areas, and higher-income and lower-income neighbourhoods alike.

New York: Transnational Alliance to Combat Illicit Trade (Tracit),     42p.

By Alabama Appleseed

Every year from 2012-2020, Alabama ranked first in the nation for opioid prescriptions per capita. Since 2014, the opioid addiction has claimed the lives of nearly 7,000 Alabama residents who died by overdose, and disrupted the lives of countless more.

Since 2017, many state agencies have collaborated successfully via the Alabama Opioid Overdose and Addiction Council to chart a better path. The state has invested in treatment and peer specialists and reframed addiction as a public health issue, not a moral failing. For people who manage to steer clear of jails and prisons, things are starting to look up. 

But the combination of harsh criminal laws, the nation’s highest opioid prescription rate, and Alabama’s under-resourced jails and violent and dysfunctional prisons mean that many of the people who need treatment most are not getting it. Instead, they are dying preventable deaths in record numbers. Something must change.

Montgomery, AL: Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, 2022. 58p.

By Scott M. Deitche

From Chapter 1: To trace the start of traditional organized crime (the mob, the syndicate, the Mafia) in New Jersey, you could begin in a few cities around the state where new immigrant groups at the turn of the twentieth century fell victim to extortion gangs and police indifference. It was in these tight-knit immigrant neighborhoods where the strands and threads of organized-crime groups began. But if there was one focal point, one birthplace where originated the larger, more influential crime figures who would shape both the underworld and overall history of the state through much of the twentieth century, it would be Newark.

London. Rowman & Littlefield. 2018. 299p.

By Yvon Dandurand

This policy brief focuses on a small but especially vulnerable type of transportation business that has been prone to infiltration by organized crime groups through violence, intimidation and corruption: the vehicle-towing services industry. This type of criminal infiltration has been observed in different countries and it involves violent confrontation and competition for a share of the market. As such, this brief provides an opportunity for a comparison between patterns of infiltration and the use of violence by criminal organizations, as well as a review of law enforcement and policy responses  

Geneva: The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021. 26p.

By Yvon Dandurand and Jessica Jahn

Success in addressing transnational organized crime hinges on multilateral cooperation. However, existing cooperation regimes are ineffective at countering the rapid changes in the organized crime landscape and countries increasingly tend to turn to national solutions. The diminishing support for multilateral cooperation means the international criminal justice system has become disjointed, insufficient and reactive. This paper sets out five possible scenarios that could affect the future of international criminal justice cooperation, and raises thought-provoking questions about possible outcomes and impacts on transnational organized crime. To be useful as planning tools, any scenario or vision of the future must be connectable to decisions in the present, and therefore the scenarios described here are presented in the framework of current challenges. It is hoped that civil society organizations will take the lead in formulating a comprehensive international criminal justice cooperation strategy, built on what works. Such a strategy should also supplemented with new ideas to address shortcomings and to facilitate effective reforms of the multilateral institutions needed to implement such a strategy.

Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, 2021. 18p.

By Mark Freeman and Vanda Felbab-Brown

Negotiations with violent criminal groups – such as mafias, cartels, gangs and pirates – occur more often than imagined. This publication, grounded in more than three years of in-depth IFIT research and dozens of first-person interviews conducted with actual negotiators, offers key lessons drawn from the most diverse set of negotiations with violent criminal groups ever examined in one place. One of the prominent discoveries of this study – which centres on negotiations intended to reduce or end violence – is how the best of theory and practice regarding peace talks with militant groups (and associated areas such as transitional justice) appears largely absent from consideration or application in talks with violent criminal groups. The gap is striking and counterproductive, but also heralds an opportunity to achieve greater results in future. Another key discovery relates to the endgame of the negotiation. With militant groups, the point of negotiations is typically to end the use of organised political violence, by exchanging disarmament (and/or incorporation into the army) for some form of political empowerment and rehabilitation. With violent criminal groups, the endgame is harder to pin down, because their motivations are understood to be mainly pecuniary, leaving it unclear what they could transform into. However, the examined cases suggest that the challenge is surmountable – and under a surprising variety of conditions.

Barcelona, Spain: Institute for Integrated Transitions (IFIT), 2021. 34p.

By Anna Sergi and Alice Rizzuti

By using open data and primary resources, previous and ongoing research, and the privileged partnerships with Eurojust Italian Desk and Operations and Europol, the Mafiaround-Europe report - stemming from the CRIME (Countering Regional Italian Mafia Expansion) project presents the first analysis of the presence of Italian mafias in 7 European countries in addition to Italy and the challenges of cross border policing of mafia-type organised crime. Production of the report, Mafiaround Europe, was enabled by funding from the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account, block awards made to research organisations to accelerate the impact of research. The report highlights how mafia-type activities have adapted to individual countries, their economy, culture, infrastructure and logistics networks.

Colchester, UK:  University of Essex, 2021. 258p.  

By  Colombian Organized Crime Observatory, Arlene B. Tickner, et al.

In Latin America, the participation of women in organized crime has been in the shadow of academic and public policy debate due to the male dominance in the different criminal economies and the tendency to see criminal activities as a “man’s activity”. However, a more detailed analysis of drug trafficking, human trafficking, and migrant smuggling, based on the application of a gender lens, allows the appreciation of the different roles that women play. After examining a series of documents, data and information collected through fieldwork, this investigation by the InSight Crime and Universidad del Rosario’s Colombian Observatory of Organized Crime, increases the complexity of female roles inside organized crime and questions the tendency to present women only as victims, or in some cases, as victimizers. From cooks and coca harvesters to owners of their drug empires or trafficking and smuggling networks, women operate in a versatile manner and move in a broad spectrum of roles, challenging the existent division of labor based on gender while at the same time coexisting with criminal organizations that continue to impose a patriarchal system. Through the description of these roles, the development of two case studies – one regarding women and gangs in El Salvador, and another tackling human trafficking and migrant smuggling in the Colombia-Venezuela border town of Cúcuta- and the construction of profiles of some of the greatest protagonists of organized crime in recent times, the investigation takes the shape of a woman. The document also analyses…..

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  the use of violence by women, a characteristic that is usually attributed to men and masculine behavior. However, violence is a tool often used by women in some organized crime structures. Based on this, as well as the examination of the main factors that push women to organized crime activities, a series of public policy recommendations are set forth for governments and local authorities. These are aimed at understanding a phenomenon that, aside from being under-analyzed, is continuously growing.   

Washington, DC: Washington, DC: InSight Crime, 2020.   41p.

By Jenny Pearce

While Latin America’s high levels of chronic violence are mostly carried out by poor young men and mostly cost the lives of poor young men, the conditions for its reproduction are generated by logics of elite power and wealth accumulation. Drawing on more than 70 interviews with oligarchic elites from Colombia and Mexico, the paper offers propositions for further empirical research into these logics. It discusses why it makes sense to use the term “oligarchic elites” to analyse both the failure to invest in the rule of law and also the elite preference for a fragmented security state whose permeability facilitates influence trafficking. It studies the direct and indirect relationships between elites and varied forms of violence, exploring how they have affected the nature of the state in Latin America, the diffusion of criminal violences, and the emergence of micro criminal orders in many parts of the region. Latin America’s history of social action against violences – not least disappearances, feminicide, forced displacement, and state torture – should extend to de-sanctioning violence as a phenomenon. This could open up spaces for social and political participation to create the conditions of social justice which reduce violence.   

London:  LSE Latin America and Caribbean Centre, 2018. 30p.

By Christopher Blattman, Gustavo Duncan, Benjamin Lessing and Santiago Tobón

Organised criminal activities, by their nature, are hard to measure. Administrative data are often missing, problematic, or misleading. Moreover, organised criminal activities are under-reported, and under-reporting rates may be greatest where gangs are strongest. Researchers hoping to quantify organised crime systematically face daunting challenges. Collecting information on organised crime is inherently a slow process of cautious trial and error. It will vary from city to city, and typically within a city as well. Dozens of qualitative and quantitative researchers have shown that this can be done with care, ethically, and with adequate protection for human subjects. What they all have in common is that they commit themselves to a place, and they all take their time. While there are risks, the benefits can be enormous. The information these investigators collect is often rare and invaluable. Officials and policymakers commonly have little insight into criminal organisations, with terrible consequences for policy, be it inaction, mediocrity, or adverse and unintended consequences. Here we draw on our experience in Colombia, Brazil, and Liberia of collecting systematic data on illicit activities and armed groups, in order to share our learning with other researchers or organisations that fund research in this area, who may find this useful for their own research. We address: first steps before asking questions, common challenges and solutions, and alternative sources. Our work thus far emphasises the relevance of deep qualitative work to identify local partners; the need for intense piloting of…..

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  survey instruments and a close oversight of survey firms, ranging from how they hire enumerators to how they plan and implement field work; the power of using survey experiments to mitigate and measure measurement error; and the relevance of cross-validating findings with complementary data sources.

Birmingham, UK: University of Birmingham, 2022. 13p.

By INTERPOL and ENACT Africa

With the increase in Internet coverage, online trade of illicit goods is likely increasing on the African continent. In recent years, cyber-enabled crimes have increased on the African continent. This has been a result of a combination of factors, including, the improvement of Internet coverage, the wide availability of cyber-tools and the growing flexibility of cybercriminals. As a consequence, online crime nowadays represents a bigger security issue for law enforcement in African member countries than ever before. In this framework, INTERPOL, under the European Union funded ENACT Project, examines through this assessment the issue of cyber and cyber-enabled crimes in Africa in order to help drive a more strategic law enforcement response.

Lyon, France: INTERPOL; ENACT AFRICA, 2020. 79p.

By Len Engel, Erin Farley, and John Tilley

The drug overdose epidemic that swept through the United States over the past decade commanded the attention of public health providers, researchers, criminal justice practitioners, and policymakers at the federal, state, and local levels. Because of its severity and associated mortality rates, the epidemic became a priority among leaders across multiple sectors. As collaboration across these sectors matured, researchers and practitioners began to develop evidence-informed strategies to slow the spread of the epidemic. But the progress that was underway appears to have abruptly stopped when the COVID-19 pandemic emerged and fundamentally altered many aspects of American life.

Washington, DC: Council on Criminal Justice, 2020. 11p.

By Christopher Blattman, et al.  

Since the COVID-19 outbreak, scholars and journalists have spread anecdotes of gangs and criminal organizations coming to the aid of citizens, governing in place of the state. They report gang activities that range from enforcing lockdowns to providing goods and services to the poor and hungry. This is especially true in Latin America where thousands of gangs exert authority over civilians in large swaths of territory. Some argue that organized crime is stepping in where states have failed, seizing the chance to consolidate its position. But just how widespread is the kind of gang involvement that captures headlines? Are these anecdotes typical of how gangs are responding to COVID-19? Only systematic data can answer these questions and help assess whether the pandemic will ultimately strengthen organized crime’s grip on Latin American cities. We have spent four years studying criminal groups in Medellín, Colombia, a city with one of the highest concentrations of organized criminals in the world. If gangs respond to COVID-19 anywhere, it should be Medellín. Almost every low- and middle-income neighborhood in the city has a local gang that resolves disputes, polices the community, and often taxes businesses. As soon as the pandemic broke out, anecdotes about gang responses surfaced in Medellin. We set out to collect systematic data on gang and state governance before and during the pandemic. Despite the headlines, gang involvement in pandemic response is exceptional and mostly idiosyncratic. Surveying every low- and middle-income neighborhood in…..

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  Medellin, we find: ● Most welfare support to civilians came from state authorities rather than the gangs. ● Overall, state authorities played by far the largest role in enforcing quarantine rules. ● A small number of gangs, however, were highly involved in providing welfare and enforcing quarantine rules in their territories. ● These rare gang pandemic responses were relatively idiosyncratic. Whereas normal pre-pandemic gang rule is associated with a range of neighborhood characteristics, pandemic gang rule is not. Moreover, gang enforcement of pandemic lockdown or provision of services is almost uncorrelated with pre-pandemic levels of gang rule. We speculate that personal choices of the gangs and their leaders may have dominated in the first weeks of  COVID-19.

Chicago: Innovations for Poverty Action – The University of Chicago – Universidad EAFIT, 2020. 19p.

By John Kleinig, Peter Mameli, Seumas Miller, Douglas Salane and Adina Schwartz

This study is principally concerned with the ethical dimensions of identity management technology – electronic surveillance, the mining of personal data, and profiling – in the context of transnational crime and global terrorism. The ethical challenge at the heart of this study is to establish an acceptable and sustainable equilibrium between two central moral values in contemporary liberal democracies, namely, security and privacy. Both values are essential to individual liberty, but they come into conflict in times when civil order is threatened, as has been the case from late in the twentieth century, with the advent of global terrorism and trans-national crime. We seek to articulate legally sustainable, politically possible, and technologically feasible, global ethical standards for identity management technology and policies in liberal democracies in the contemporary global security context. Although the standards in question are to be understood as global ethical standards potentially to be adopted not only by the United States, but also by the European Union, India, Australasia, and other contemporary liberal democratic states, we take as our primary focus the tensions that have arisen between the United States and the European Union.

Canberra: ANU Press, 2011. 304p.

By Elisa-Sofía García-Marcano

In recent years, two apparently different and unconnected problems have received repeated attention from global news outlets, namely the opioid crisis and the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong. The opioid crisis, which is especially catastrophic in the United States, involves the over-prescription and abuse of synthetic opioid painkillers such as oxycontin and fentanyl (Felter, 2020). The pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong involves legions of protesters, many of them university students, taking to the streets against what they see as the erosion of their civil liberties at the hands of the mainland Chinese government (Perper, 2019). How can these two issues possibly be connected? This paper tells the story of how the world's first great opioid crisis occurred in nineteenth-century China, and how the drug trafficking British thwarted the Chinese government's attempts to stop drug imports, fighting two wars in the process. Upon conclusion of the first of these wars, China was forced to cede the territory of Hong Kong. This British colonial outpost became the principal entrepôt for British opium entering the Chinese market. Over the next century and a half, Hong Kong grew into one of the world's most dynamic commercial cities, and its citizens enjoyed liberties under British rule that were not available to the mainland Chinese population. Thus, the legacy of the opium wars and the British opium trade to China is still very much with us today.

 Online Journal Mundo Asia Pacifico, 10(19), 98–109.