Policing the Cybercrime Script of Darknet Drug Markets: Methods of Effective Law Enforcement Intervention

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Jardine
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Drug Markets

scholarly journals Combatting Substandard and Counterfeit Medicines in the Nigerian Drug Market: How Industrial Pharmacists Can Rise Up to the Challenge

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Melody Okereke ◽  
Ignatius Anukwu ◽  
Sola Solarin ◽  
Mazi Sam Ohuabunwa
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Drug Market ◽  
Pharmaceutical Manufacturing ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Cross Border ◽  
Counterfeit Medicines ◽  
Detection Technology ◽  
Monitoring And Surveillance

Substandard and counterfeit medicines (SCMs) are a major public health threat in Africa. In Nigeria, the manufacture and distribution of substandard and counterfeit medicines in the drug market are booming, despite the efforts of law enforcement agencies to crack down on criminal syndicates over the years. The current situation has been exacerbated due to factors tied to unregulated open drug markets, lack of counterfeit detection technology, poor local pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity, and porous cross-border monitoring and surveillance systems. However, industrial pharmacists have a key role to play in combatting the production and circulation of SCMs in the Nigerian drug market. In this commentary, we examine the prevalence of SCMs in Nigeria and proffer feasible recommendations that industrial pharmacists can leverage to ensure its effective containment.

scholarly journals Drug Law Enforcement Revisited: The “War” Against the War on Drugs

2017 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 396-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos Alexandris Polomarkakis
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Illicit Drug ◽  
War On Drugs ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Policy Choice ◽  
Drug Control ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Drug Law ◽  
Drug Law Enforcement

From the closure of London’s nightclub Fabric to Duterte’s drug war, law enforcement has become the policy choice par excellence for drug control by stakeholders around the globe, creating a rift between theory and practice, the former vehemently dismissing most of its alleged benefits. This article provides a fresh look on the said regime, through examining its implications in the key areas of illicit drug markets, public health, and broader society. Instead of adopting a critical stance from the start, as much of the literature does, the issue is evaluated from the perspective of a focus on the logic and rationality of drug law enforcement approaches, to showcase from within how problematic the latter are. The article concludes by suggesting at least a reconceptualization of the concept, to give way to more sophisticated policies for finally tackling the issue of illegal drugs effectively.

Turf and Illegal Drug Market Competition between Gangs

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 1507-1548 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alberto J. Naranjo
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Community Policing ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
Drug Market ◽  
Illegal Drug ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Stage Game ◽  
Enforcement Policies

Abstract Street-level illegal drug markets generate much of the violence and intimidation that local communities face nowadays. These markets are mainly driven by territorial gangs who finance their activities through the sale of drugs. Understanding how the existence of both turf and drug market competition may have unintended consequences of law enforcement policies on violence is the main contribution of the paper. We propose a two-stage game-theoretical model where two profit maximizing gangs compete in prices and invest in guns. We find that policies such as traditional or community policing can have different and unexpected effects on the level of violence.

scholarly journals Evolving and Diversifying Selling Practices on Drug Cryptomarkets: An Exploration of Off-Platform “Direct Dealing”

2020 ◽  
Vol 50 (2) ◽  
pp. 173-190
Author(s):  
Andrew Childs ◽  
Ross Coomber ◽  
Melissa Bull ◽  
Monica J. Barratt
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Personal Security ◽  
Insight Into

This is the first study to explore how cryptomarket actors are increasingly adopting encrypted messaging applications to “ direct deal” beyond the provided platforms, to obviate the protocols of cryptomarkets, and to diversify the communication experience of drug buying via the dark net. Drawing on 965 forum posts discussing encrypted messaging applications, results showed that direct dealing may be more likely to occur in the context of preestablished trust between vendors and buyers, during instances of law enforcement crackdowns, and when buyers are enticed by discounts or promotions. Our findings also suggested a general hesitancy toward direct dealing, as it was often associated with greater exposure to scams, and perceptions that direct dealing increases the risks concerning personal security and detection from law enforcement. These findings provide insight into the interconnection of online drug markets, and how actors make decisions to drift between multichannel supply points mediated by perceptions of trust and risk.

scholarly journals Violence in Illicit Markets: Unintended Consequences and the Search for Paradoxical Effects of Enforcement

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (3) ◽  
pp. 1263-1295 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Prieger ◽  
Jonathan Kulick
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Electronic Cigarettes ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Market Prices ◽  
Illicit Markets ◽  
Menthol Cigarettes ◽  
Paradoxical Effects ◽  
Competitive Model ◽  
Bandwagon Effects

Abstract The textbook competitive model of drug markets predicts that greater law enforcement leads to higher black market prices, but also to the unintended consequences of greater revenue and violence. These predictions are not in accord with the paradoxical outcomes evinced by recent history in some drug markets, where enforcement rose even as prices fell. We show that predictions of the textbook model are not unequivocal, and that when bandwagon effects among scofflaws are introduced, the simple predictions are more likely to be reversed. We next show that even simple models of noncompetitive black markets can elicit paradoxical outcomes. Therefore, we argue that instead of searching for assumptions that lead to paradoxical outcomes, which is the direction the literature has taken, it is better for policy analysis to choose appropriate assumptions for the textbook model. We finish with performing such an analysis for the case of banning menthol cigarettes. Under the most plausible assumptions enforcement will indeed spur violence, although the legal availability of electronic cigarettes may mitigate or reverse this conclusion.

Flow My FE the Vendor Said: Exploring Violent and Fraudulent Resource Exchanges on Cryptomarkets for Illicit Drugs

2017 ◽  
Vol 61 (11) ◽  
pp. 1427-1450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kim Moeller ◽  
Rasmus Munksgaard ◽  
Jakob Demant
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Illicit Drugs ◽  
Drug Distribution ◽  
Community Resources ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Resource Exchange ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Multiple Data ◽  
Expert Interview ◽  
Traditional Drug

A growing share of illicit drug distribution takes place using cryptomarkets that use encryption and anonymization technologies. The risks of law enforcement intervention and violence are lower here than in off-line traditional drug markets, but with the technological innovations follow new opportunities for stealing and fraud. The sites themselves fall prey to theft and hacking attempts, administrators abscond with users’ funds, and malicious sellers regularly cheat buyers. In this study, we explore the types of theft and fraud that occur on cryptomarkets using multiple data sources: formalized community resources (e.g., guides, tutorials), ethnographic observations of user forums, thematic identification of forum posts using unsupervised text classification, and an expert interview. We find system-based violent predatory resource exchange similar to robberies and process-based fraudulent resource exchange similar to rip-offs. We discuss these offenses conceptually as extensions of common drug-related crimes in the digital world. This contributes to the research on how cryptomarkets work and can improve crime-prevention efforts.

DRUG MARKETS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

1990 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
pp. 171-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
NICHOLAS DORN ◽  
NIGEL SOUTH
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Drug Markets

The recovery of online drug markets following law enforcement and other disruptions

2017 ◽  
Vol 173 ◽  
pp. 159-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joe Van Buskirk ◽  
Raimondo Bruno ◽  
Timothy Dobbins ◽  
Courtney Breen ◽  
Lucinda Burns ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Drug Markets

Six Years Later

2018 ◽  
Vol 45 (4) ◽  
pp. 366-381 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Décary-Hétu ◽  
Vincent Mousseau ◽  
Sabrina Vidal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Slow Rate ◽  
Drug Users ◽  
Illicit Drugs ◽  
Technical Skills ◽  
The United States ◽  
Drug Markets ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
The Impact

Cryptomarkets are online illicit marketplaces where drug dealers advertise the sale of illicit drugs. Anonymizing technologies such as the Tor network and virtual currencies are used to hide cryptomarket participants’ identity and to limit the ability of law enforcement agencies to make arrests. In this paper, our aim is to describe how herbal cannabis dealers and buyers in the United States have adapted to the online sale of herbal cannabis through cryptomarkets. To achieve this goal, we evaluate the size and scope of the American herbal cannabis market on cryptomarkets and compare it to other drug markets from other countries, evaluate the impact of cryptomarkets on offline sales of herbal cannabis, and evaluate the ties between the now licit herbal cannabis markets in some States and cryptomarkets. Our results suggest that only a small fraction of herbal cannabis dealers and drug users have transitioned to cryptomarkets. This can be explained by the need for technical skills to buy and sell herbal cannabis online and by the need to have access to computers that are not accessible to all. The slow rate of adoption may also be explained by the higher price of herbal cannabis relative to street prices. If cryptomarkets were to be adopted by a larger portion of the herbal cannabis market actors, our results suggest that wholesale and regional distributors who are not active on cryptomarkets would be the most affected market’s participants.

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