Blog

Rio de Janeiro’s criminal groups have, from time to time, attracted international attention. The news of their anti-coronavirus measures has made international headlines once more. Drug-dealing gangs have forcibly imposed curfews on the city’s population, against the backdrop of perceived state inaction in managing the spread of COVID-19. This blog takes a closer look at the gangs’…

In May 2020, the Secur.Ports workshop brought together 16 practitioners and 9 researchers with expertise in the field of port policing, port security, organised crime and border control. Funded by the British Academy, the workshop was organised by the University of Essex and Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research (SHOC) at the…

COVID-19 is already having an unprecedented impact on the UK illicit drug market, its dependent customers and County Lines in particular. Just as international drug traffickers rely on hiding in plain sight amongst high volumes of global trade, County Lines depend on free and low-profile movement within the mass population.…

It is a maxim in the criminology of organised crime that as the state strengthens, organised criminal groups are weakened. Notwithstanding this notion, the present context in the wake of COVID- 19 indicates otherwise in hybrid democracies. The established adage is seemingly inapplicable to the contemporary setting of a global…

The Marie Collins Foundation (MCF) is a child protection charity which works to ameliorate the impact of online child sexual abuse and related offline abuse. COVID-19 presents many challenges to families, to us, our funders and partner agencies across the world. We foresee that our services will be in higher…

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on international trade has led to a significant retraction in global commerce. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) estimates that worldwide merchandise trade will fall by up to 32% in 2020. This represents a clear loss to legitimate businesses, but also to organised crime groups (OCGs), who…

We sometimes forget that organised crime is actually ‘us’, and not some vague, mythical, ethnic or national threat from somewhere else. ‘Us’ refers to the general, ‘law-abiding’ public, which is rife with individuals possessing selfish and manipulative tendencies to profit from the pain of others. Recently, there have been multiple analyses showing…

Territorial control is a crucial activity for many criminal organisations. Italian mafias, in particular, consider the territory they originate from as a crucial resource. It is the place they wield an extra-legal political authority, recruit members, extort illegal tributes, and operate as brokers within the local community. While globalisation has increasingly…

There is no shortage of evidence that ‘organised crime’ has rapidly adapted to Covid-19 conditions. While some journalists have looked at how illicit trade has been affected by the pandemic, think thanks and scholars have investigated new opportunities for organised crime, ranging from cyber-fraud to the changing market for illegal drugs. Others still have focused on changing patterns…

County Lines is undeniably the most significant trend in over a decade in the market for illicit drugs in Britain. It is a criminal business model unlike any other across Europe, thriving on the daily demand for heroin and crack cocaine from a dependent user group estimated to exceed 300,000 people. The…