Blog

Across the world, organised crime groups have wasted no time in capitalising on new opportunities presented by COVID-19. The intersections between organised crime and the virus are plentiful: while the illegal wildlife trade and deforestation are instrumental to how the crisis began, counterfeiters and drug traffickers have seen their supply…

As the US and China escalate their trade war, increasingly imposing new tariffs on each other’s goods, there is another factor in the US-China economic relationship that receives little attention, but is causing serious harm to the US economy and national security: the sale of counterfeit goods. Trade in counterfeit and pirated goods is…

South Africa and Mexico face similar security challenges, particularly when it comes to criminal violence. Both governments have responded in a similar fashion for years, by employing joint police-military operations. However, in both countries those operations have repeatedly been unable to bring peace and stability in the long-term. They act…

The plan to introduce 10 freeports across the UK after Brexit has drawn attention in recent weeks. Introducing these provenly risky ‘special economic zones’ sits uneasily alongside the UK’s wider efforts to ramp up the fight against economic crime.  Delivering on one of his election pledges, Boris Johnson’s government is…

The traditional ‘pub’ as a site of leisure (and crime) In bygone eras, the public house (i.e. the ‘local pub’) was a staple of the British social landscape. It was a transitional space for leisure: somewhere to go after work to relax and socialise before heading home. Yet, the local…

This article is not meant to fully cover trade in post-conflict societies, but rather, the aim of this article is to introduce the kind of issues that enable illicit trade to flourish in post-conflict societies. In particular, this article will cover places like Kosovo and similar post-conflict societies where the EU has…

On 25 March 2019, RUSI’s Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research (SHOC) – in collaboration with the Centre for the Study of Modern Slavery at St Mary’s University, Twickenham and the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales – convened a conference to explore the role of faith-based organisations in…

On 11 March 2019, RUSI’s Strategic Hub for Organised Crime Research (SHOC) convened a workshop exploring the role of academic-law enforcement partnerships in tackling organised crime (OC). Although the important role of the academic community in knowledge creation for law enforcement has long been recognised, understanding how this partnership should…

This post draws on research completed as part of RUSI’s Financial Crime 2.0 research programme. In early March 2019, the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) announced that it was seeking to freeze and potentially forfeit £3.6 million in 95 bank accounts, most of them held by overseas students studying in the UK. The reason…

Amid high expectations, and on a popular mandate to curb violence across the country, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (commonly known as AMLO) won the Mexican presidential election in early July 2018. However, by November, the then president-elect AMLO dismayed some of his electorate by placing the National Guard under military…