Cocaine Trafficking Research Articles

THE BENEFITS OF IMPLEMENTING ILP IN THE PORTS COCAINE TRAFFICKING INVESTIGATIONS AND CRIME PREVENTION IN BRAZIL

The Intelligence-led Policing (ILP) Doctrine is not new. It has been discussed both academically and as a governmental policy since the ‘90s. Moreover, since then it has been gradually applied somehow among many law enforcement agencies worldwide. On the other hand, Brazil has emerged as a very important cocaine trafficking corridor to Europe, Africa, and the Middle East, as far as Brazilian Federal Police has stood out as an excellency agency due to its successful investigative outcomes and national and international partnerships in this specific area. In this regard, the main objective of this article is to present the main ILP Doctrine pillars and characteristics, analyzing if somehow it has been applied by Federal Police and, if not, how beneficial it could be in terms of more effective results considering its existing formal and functional intelligence structure.

The financial management of cocaine trafficking in Italy

Drawing on a set of empirical data, including in-depth interviews with law enforcers and public prosecutors, the article provides preliminary and detailed information on the structure, social organization of actors and financial management of cocaine trafficking in Italy. The article aims to increase knowledge on the financing mechanisms of organized crime activities and uses the Italian cocaine market as a case example. The findings suggest that the national market is fragmented into an interplay of actors who belong to upper, middle or low segments, depending on the level of the trafficking operations (that is, large, medium, small scale), that join as criminal networks to lower risks and maximize profits. These networks are mainly based on family, kinship or ethnic ties or relations built in other social/work settings. Cocaine trafficking operations are financed by both legal and illegal capital whose boundaries are blurred especially when organized crime groups are involved. Settlement of payments in cocaine trafficking operations reflects the level of trust between buyers and suppliers, with credit arrangements often set in longstanding business relationships or, at the other extreme, at the retail level to test clients’ reliability. The findings also add knowledge to existing research, improve the understanding and representation of organized crime, and contribute to enhance prevention and control activities of law enforcers, prosecutors and policy makers at the European and international level.

Corrective lenses for a myopic state: Unseeing coca or not unseeing comunidades negras in Colombia?

Abstract Colombia's Pacific region is a vast expanse of tropical forest that lies between the borders of Panama and Ecuador -the bulk of which is titled to Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities — increasingly subject to 'the illicit' and 'the illegal'. Coca cultivation, cocaine trafficking and gold mining are the principal activities framed as threats to the nation's security, biodiversity, and economic potential. Employing ethnographic evidence and critical geographic theory this article applies the notion of 'seeing like a state' (Scott, 1998) to the context of coca cultivation in southwest Colombia. It specifically theorizes how this mode of vision impacts Afro-descendant communities seeking legibility, sustainable peace and alternative development. This article argues that the corrective measure for this vision problem is not 'unseeing' illicit crops or other illegal activities but making rural Colombian communities legible in a way that they cannot be unseen. It features the insights of the leader of a comunidad negra (Afro-descendant community) who has managed various alternative developments projects and has witnessed the transformation of his community and others impacted by the recent coca boom in this region of Colombia. It frames these insights as part of the struggle for ethnic territorial rights throughout the Americas.

Getting a foot in the door. Spaces of cocaine trafficking in the Port of Rotterdam.

As an important gateway to Europe, the Port of Rotterdam is known for its high-quality facilities and efficiency, but also attracts organised crime groups who use the transatlantic legal trade flows to traffic cocaine. Based on a qualitative study, consisting of 73 interviews with public and private actors, an analysis of 10 criminal investigations and field visits to public and private organisations in the port, this article examines how organised crime groups involved in cocaine trafficking take advantage of or adapt to the socio-spatial relations in the Port of Rotterdam. First, we pay attention to which physical spaces in the port of Rotterdam provide opportunities for cocaine trafficking. Second, we examine how the occupational and legal environment in which people, private companies and law enforcement agencies in the port work and interact provide opportunities for cocaine trafficking. Our findings demonstrate that increased security measures by both public and private actors directed at physical spaces result in a displacement to new spaces in and around the port of Rotterdam. Furthermore, the current socio-spatial relations in the port of Rotterdam also make the role of people on the inside – referring to a whole range of public and private employees – increasingly indispensable.

The impacts of cocaine-trafficking on conservation governance in Central America

This research is motivated by the compelling finding that the illicit cocaine trade is responsible for extensive patterns of deforestation in Central America. This pattern is most pronounced in the region's large protected areas. We wanted to know how cocaine trafficking affects conservation governance in Central America's protected areas, and whether deforestation is a result of impacts on governance. To answer this question, we interviewed conservation stakeholders from key institutions at various levels in three drug-trafficking hotspots: Peten, Guatemala, Northeastern Honduras, and the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica. We found that, in order to establish and maintain drug transit operations, drug-trafficking organizations compete with and undermine conservation governance actors and institutions. Drug trafficking impacts conservation governance in three ways: 1) it undermines long standing conservation coalitions; 2) it fuels booms in extractive activities inside protected lands; and 3) it erodes the territorial control that conservation institutions exert, exploiting strict “fortress” conservation governance models. Participatory governance models that provide locals with strong expectations of land tenure and/or institutional support for local decision-making may offer resistance to the impacts on governance institutions that we documented.

Reliable drug war data: The Consolidated Counterdrug Database and cocaine interdiction in the “Transit Zone”

BackgroundFor almost three decades, a U.S. government dataset has vetted and recorded all known cocaine trafficking events in the massive Western Hemisphere ‘transit zone’ (including Central America, the Caribbean, eastern Pacific, and Mexico) and tracked all cocaine seizures reported by counternarcotic forces there. This is the “cocaine module” of the Consolidated Counterdrug Database (CCDB), and by U.S. law it is the exclusive source for performance data on key aspects of the drug interdiction mission, one of the foundations of U.S. supply-side drug policy. Nevertheless, the dataset remains poorly known or used among drug policy researchers despite being unclassified. To make the existence and strengths of this dataset better known, this paper describes its provenance, ongoing production, and analytical utility. MethodsThe analysis draws on the archive of reports produced by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent, non-partisan entity that has been tracking U.S. government agencies’ drug war accounting for almost 50 years. The analysis also relies on third-party assessments of interdiction, and on correspondence with staff in the Office of National Drug Control Policy. ResultsThe CCDB emerged in the 1990s following two decades of drug war failures in the transit zone. It is an “all source” product, which curates data from a variety of sources produced by the 26 U.S. agencies and 20 foreign partners involved in transit zone interdiction. There is a high threshold for inclusion of cocaine trafficking events into the CCDB; it therefore offers a highly reliable yet conservative representation of cocaine trafficking and counternarcotic response. Instances of CCDB data in the public record yield several insights: a) the volume of cocaine moving annually through the transit zone has for the past decade well exceeded 1,000 MT/year; b) cocaine seizures in the transit zone are greater than anywhere else, and significantly higher than indicated by the UNODC's World Drug Reports; c) interdiction appears to have little to no effect on cocaine prices in the U.S.; d) interdiction is highly “outcome-ineffective”; in FY2018, for example, the U.S. and partners intercepted only 6% of the cocaine trafficking events known to have occurred in the transit zone that year; e) traffickers respond quickly and constantly to interdiction by shifting their routes and transport strategies. ConclusionThe CCDB deserves greater attention from researchers as a high-quality dataset that: a) challenges the “unknowability” of illicit activities and underscores the need for better sharing of unclassified government data; b) opens up new ways of exploring drug enforcement policies and actions in transit areas; c) contradicts rosy assessments of drug interdiction effectiveness by unequivocally demonstrating interdiction's longstanding and persistent failure and thus the need for fundamentally different approaches.

Violent disequilibrium: the influence of instability in the economic value of cocaine markets on homicides

Scholars have investigated the escalation of violence associated with cocaine trafficking. Despite the plethora of literature on the matter, limited attention has been paid to the consequences of instability in the economic value of markets. This study addresses this shortcoming by examining fluctuation of the gross value added of cocaine markets in terms of an etiological factor in the upsurge of interpersonal lethal violence at country level. To this end, the study produces an estimate of the gross value added of the cocaine market in 126 countries between 1998 and 2013. The analysis indicates how expansions, but also contractions, of the value of cocaine markets influence the level of violence within the countries that constitute the global cocaine trafficking network.

Socijalna povezanost kriminalnih mreža u krijumčarenju kokaina u Evropi

This paper is highlighting the main criminal networks that are trafficking cocaine in Europe, through the lenses of social embeddedness and criminal network theories. We will try to show that social ties between European and Latin American organized crime networks, as well as between different European crime networks, are the main reason for the staggering success of European criminal groups in cocaine trafficking in the 21st century. In the beginning, we lay out the social embeddedness theory and criminal network theory, and then we review the main criminal networks involved in cocaine trafficking in Europe and social ties between them, with special attention to Serbian and Montenegrin criminal networks. At the end of the article, we analyze what role does ethnicity, seen as social ties based on common language and tradition, play in cocaine trafficking in Europe.

Cocaine Trafficking and the Transformation of Central American Frontiers

Cocaine Trafficking and the Transformation of Central American Frontiers

A Critical Review of Evolutionary Trends of Drug Trafficking in Guinea- Bissau

Guinea-Bissau emerged as the most vulnerable drug trafficking country in the West African sub-region beginning from the onset of Cocaine trafficking which started in the early 2000s. This led to the country being dubbed by the global media as “Africa’s First Narco-State”. The study employed a desk-review research approach with the reports and evaluations obtained from secondary sources of data analyzed through content analysis. The study found that prolonged dominant military rule, limited civilian oversight over the security sector, weak institutions and endemic clientelism in Guinea-Bissau remain driving factors that led to the state being used by drug cartels as major trafficking hub for narcotic drugs. The study concluded that Guinea Bissau state qualify as a “Narco State” based on numerous evidential reports on high level corruption and penetration of the highest level of power by drug trafficking networks. The study therefore recommended that policy initiatives by the government of Guinea-Bissau should aim at strengthening the already weakened political economic structure through sustainable development and the provisions of socio-economic needs to the citizenry. Security sector reforms initiatives should be fully operationalized and interdiction strategies tailored towards responding to the challenges of drug trafficking while also targeting its ties with other transnational threats. Finally, the government of Guinea-Bissau should review their drug laws and policies and also ensure that the prosecutions of drug traffickers are made public as deterrence measure to others.

A Quantitative Application of Enterprise and Social Embeddedness Theories to the Transnational Trafficking of Cocaine in Europe

ABSTRACT Illegal enterprise and social embeddedness theories have highlighted the importance of market forces and social factors, respectively, for analyzing organized crime and organized criminal activities. This paper empirically demonstrates the joint explanatory power of these respective theories in the case of the transnational trafficking of cocaine. It does so by conceptualizing transnational cocaine trafficking as a network of relationships among countries; a network whose structure reflects the actions of manifold organized criminal groups. The analysis utilizes exponential random graph models to analyze quantitative data on cocaine trafficking which are ordinarily difficult to capture in empirical research. The analysis presented focuses on a set of 36 European countries. The results yield insights into the nature of the relationship among economic incentives, social ties, geographic features and corruption, and how, in turn, this relationship influences the structure of the transnational cocaine network and the modi operandi of cocaine traffickers.

The Drug Kingpin Decapitation Strategy in Guatemala: Successes and Shortcomings

ABSTRACTThis study analyzes whether Guatemalan success with the kingpin decapitation strategy of bringing major drug traffickers to justice has accomplished its greater objectives of reducing cocaine trafficking and drug-related violence. The analysis finds little evidence of success for the first objective in Guatemala but notable success for the second. One of the few studies to examine the application of this strategy outside Mexico and Colombia, its findings are interpreted in light of their contrasting experiences. The article provides an overview of drug trafficking in Guatemala and concise studies of two of its most important organizations targeted by the kingpin strategy.

Auge y decadencia del narcotráfico en Cali : el sicariato como forma de control ilegal.

La incursión de dinámicas criminales como el sicariato figuraron en la oleada de violencia por el control ilegal e intereses de las organizaciones dedicadas al tráfico de cocaína en los años 1980 y 1990. El presente artículo describe el desarrollo del sicariato como dinámica violenta y su transformación durante el auge del cartel de Cali y violencias recientes en la ciudad. Como primer apartado se trabajó una caracterización del sicariato en épocas del narcotráfico a través de indagación en artículos científicos. En el segundo apartado se realizó una cronología de violencia a manos sicariales durante la guerra de carteles hasta su desmantelamiento, a través de una actividad exploratoria de dos diarios locales. Como principales resultados se encuentra la transformación de las dinámicas del sicariato y el reconocimiento del sicariato profesional y el sicariato social presente en la violencia en Cali, el reto institucional de las administraciones a la hora de intervención y la ausencia del por qué a la hora del registro que privilegian las cifras.

Memorias y violencias en Medellín

Este ensayo reflexiona sobre la oportunidad y las posibles maneras de ampliar el trabajo de memoria histórica de las víctimas del conflicto armado en Medellín, con investigaciones sobre las víctimas de otras violencias en la ciudad, en particular las del crimen organizado y mafioso, fuertemente relacionado con el tráfico de cocaína. El autor argumenta que sin incluir aquellas otras víctimas en los trabajos de memoria histórica es imposible comprehender la tragedia de Medellín en su totalidad. El autor sugiere varias maneras de abordar esta tarea de visibilización de aquellas otras víctimas.

The Violent Consequences of Trade-Induced Worker Displacement in Mexico

Mexican manufacturing job loss induced by competition with China increases cocaine trafficking and violence, particularly in municipalities with transnational criminal organizations. When it becomes more lucrative to traffic drugs because changes in local labor markets lower the opportunity cost of criminal employment, criminal organizations plausibly fight to gain control. The evidence supports a Becker-style model in which the elasticity between legitimate and criminal employment is particularly high where criminal organizations lower illicit job search costs, where the drug trade implies higher pecuniary returns to violent crime, and where unemployment disproportionately affects low-skilled men. (JEL F16, J24, J64, K42, L60, O15, R23)

Modeling cocaine traffickers and counterdrug interdiction forces as a complex adaptive system

Counterdrug interdiction efforts designed to seize or disrupt cocaine shipments between South American source zones and US markets remain a core US "supply side" drug policy and national security strategy. However, despite a long history of US-led interdiction efforts in the Western Hemisphere, cocaine movements to the United States through Central America, or "narco-trafficking," continue to rise. Here, we developed a spatially explicit agent-based model (ABM), called "NarcoLogic," of narco-trafficker operational decision making in response to interdiction forces to investigate the root causes of interdiction ineffectiveness across space and time. The central premise tested was that spatial proliferation and resiliency of narco-trafficking are not a consequence of ineffective interdiction, but rather part and natural consequence of interdiction itself. Model development relied on multiple theoretical perspectives, empirical studies, media reports, and the authors' own years of field research in the region. Parameterization and validation used the best available, authoritative data source for illicit cocaine flows. Despite inherently biased, unreliable, and/or incomplete data of a clandestine phenomenon, the model compellingly reproduced the "cat-and-mouse" dynamic between narco-traffickers and interdiction forces others have qualitatively described. The model produced qualitatively accurate and quantitatively realistic spatial and temporal patterns of cocaine trafficking in response to interdiction events. The NarcoLogic model offers a much-needed, evidence-based tool for the robust assessment of different drug policy scenarios, and their likely impact on trafficker behavior and the many collateral damages associated with the militarized war on drugs.

Following the price: identifying cocaine trafficking networks in Colombia

ABSTRACTInternational cocaine trafficking has been well-studied, but little is known about cocaine flows within Colombia, the largest producer and exporter of cocaine in the world. Using a unique dataset on the monthly wholesale prices of cocaine across 32 municipios in 2016, this paper estimates patterns of flows of cocaine within Colombia. For the 496 possible resulting pairs of municipios, price differentials are used to infer direction of flow, and price correlations are used to infer connectedness. Among the new findings, 38 suspected municipio-to-municipio flows that are new to the literature are identified. Interestingly, cocaine is inferred to flow through two distinct networks: one that originates in Buenaventura and the other in three points in southern and eastern Colombia. These networks may correspond to distinct criminal trafficking systems, a finding that has potential implications for drug control policies and measures.

Changing trends in West Africa’s drug policy terrain: a theoretical perspective

ABSTRACTThis article examines the challenges of narcotic drugs in West Africa following the region's emergence as a major transit zone for the trafficking of cocaine and other illicit drugs to many countries in Europe. In addition to the trafficking problem, the use of narcotic drugs has been on the increase in the region. In effect, the drug policy terrain in West Africa appears to be undergoing changing trends. To understand these changes, the article draws on the policy paradigm (orders of change) theory to examine the types of change that are occurring. The analysis reveals that the drug policy terrain is undergoing first and second order changes.

Statistical analysis of trace metals content of cocaine using inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry calibrations

The trafficking of cocaine has become a global challenge now and Ghana is no exception. Cocaine is a whitish powder, which is, produced both from natural and synthetic means. This paper studied the...

A case of cocaine trafficking via body packer as reported by chemical examinerlaboratory, Punjab, India

Drug trafficking is a global illicit trade. The international drug trade uses various methods to smuggle narcotics. These methods include hiding the narcotics in vehicles or carried items, attaching them to one's body or use of the body as a container. A viscera case was received by Chemical Examiner Laboratory (CEL) in July, 2015 with history of suspected drug overdose along with two capsules (one intact and one ruptured). This was a case of body packer which was clarified from the copy of postmortem report (PMR) sent by autopsy surgeon along with various exhibits. We are writing this case because this is the only reported body packer syndrome in which viscera was analyzed by CEL.