Search results

Cryptomarkets on the dark web have emerged as a hub for the sale of illicit drugs. They have made it easier for the customers to get access to illicit drugs online while ensuring their anonymity. The easy availability of potentially harmful drugs has resulted in a significant impact on public health. Consequently, law enforcement agencies put a lot of effort and resources into shutting down online markets on the dark web. A lot of research work has also been conducted to understand the working of customers and vendors involved in the cryptomarkets that may help the law enforcement agencies. In this research, we present a ranking methodology to identify and rank top markets dealing in harmful illicit drugs. Using named entity recognition, a harm score of a drug market is calculated to indicate the degree of threat followed by the ranking of drug markets. The top-ranked markets are the ones selling the most harmful drugs. The rankings thus obtained can be helpful to law enforcement agencies by locating specific markets selling harmful illicit drugs and their further monitoring.

Drug sales facilitated through digital communication on the surface web and on darknet cryptomarkets have increased during the past two decades. This has resulted in an increase in drug law enforcement efforts to combat these markets and a subsequent increase in judicial sentencing of people selling drugs online. The aim of this study was to analyze how Swedish courts describe sentenced sellers and how the courts apply case law.

The empirical material consists of 71 sentencing documents produced by Swedish courts in cases of online drug selling between January 1, 2010 and January 1, 2020. In total, 99 sentenced persons occur in the documents. Using a qualitative research design, the authors analyzed the material through thematic text analysis.

Overall, in their descriptions of online drug sale operations, the courts’ characterizations of the concepts of street capital and digital capital show a dichotomy. These forms of capital are situationally described as both aggravating and mitigating aspects in the application of case law, indicating that it may be fruitful to view both street and digital capital as resources used on contemporary drug markets in general.

Very little research exists into how judicial systems describe and perceive the developing phenomenon of online drug sales. Using a relatively large sample from a decade of sentencing, the authors provide an analysis of how Swedish courts view and valuate capital forms in the online drugs trade.

This paper aims to explore how the Celtic Tiger economic boom and Great Recession influenced drug and alcohol use in one Irish city.

Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 48 people, living in Cork City, who had previously used drugs and/or alcohol problematically. All participants had engaged with services for their problematic use and had at least one year of abstinence at time of interview.

Some participants reported that their drug and/or alcohol consumption increased during the economic boom; others, who were already in (self-defined) active addiction, reported how full employment lessened some of the harms of their problematic use. For others, problematic use struck once the economy entered a downturn and, heavy drink and drug use became a means of soothing the strains of economic recession.

The paper provides two key contributions. Methodologically, it demonstrates how large-scale national quantitative data can mask local idiosyncratic tendencies, suggesting the need for mixed-method approaches for understanding drug market trends. The paper also provides insights into the impact of global and local economic conditions on drug and alcohol consumption in Ireland.

International policy approaches to cannabis production and use are changing rapidly, and within the Irish context, alternatives to prohibition are being considered. This study aims to explore policymaker’s attitudes towards the decriminalisation and legal regulation of cannabis for recreational use in the midst of an unfolding policy process, examining the degree which a “policy window” might be open for the implementation of cannabis policy change.

Semi-structured interviews were held with eight key informants within the policy field in Dublin, Ireland. Kingdon’s (2014) Multiple Streams framework was used to consider whether the problems, policy and political streams were aligning to support progressive policy change.

Irish policymakers indicated broad support for the decriminalisation of cannabis. The legal regulation of cannabis received more qualified support. Existing policy was heavily criticised with criminalisation identified as a clear failure. Of particular interest was the willingness of policymakers to offer opinions which contrasted with the policy positions of their organisations. While a policy window did open – and close – subsequent governmental commitments to examine the issue of drugs policy in a more deliberative process in the near future highlight the incremental nature of policy change.

This study provides unique insight into the opinions of policymakers in the midst of a prolonged period of policy evolution. A latent aspiration for historical policy change was situated within the realpolitik of more traditional approaches to policy development, demonstrating that the alignment of Kingdon’s (2014) problem, policy and political streams are essential for change in cannabis policy.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the association between drug consumption and unemployment. This paper also studies the differential association between these variables in both the pre- and current-crisis periods. The results are compared in an attempt to verify that the population of users is more vulnerable in terms of how likely they are to get and hold down a job in the labour market.

Matching methods and microdata from the Survey on Alcohol and Drugs in Spain, EDADES are used. The use of these methods on the estimates carried out prove to be particularly effective in reducing treatment-selection bias. The authors’ interest is also to analyse the differential association between the interest variables in both the pre- and current-crisis periods. For this purpose, the authors also use the differences-in-differences (DID) estimation method between the two periods to check if the impact of drug use on unemployment depends on the economic context. The estimations are compared in an attempt to verify that the population of users is less likely to attain and hold down a job in the labour market than non-drug users.

The results obtained in the current study are consistent with the hypothesis that drug use decreases an individual’s capacity and availability when he or she is trying to enter the labour market. In both 2007 and 2013, drug users were more likely to be unemployed, regardless of the type of drug. Differences in the probability of being unemployed intensify during an economic crisis. In light of these results, it is possible to conclude that the negative effect of drug consumption on an individual’s employability is increased during periods of economic recession.

The study presented here has some limitations. Firstly, cross-sectional data were used to examine the causal relationship between consumption and employment. In this sense, the results are susceptible to bias. The unavailability of longitudinal data on the same individual made it impossible for the researchers to consider periods of abstinence, the duration of periods of consumption and how this consumption affected an individual’s productivity and his or her working situation. Another limitation is that certain relevant unemployment variables may have been omitted. Among the variables that affect an individual’s labour participation is the existence of sources of income as an alternative to market salaries. With state subsidies, income from illegal activities and money sent by family or friends, an individual may decide not to work. This problem could be mitigated if omitted variables operate in a similar way throughout both of the periods examined.

Given the results obtained in this paper, the authors believe that public policy conclusions should be mainly concerned with the importance of implementing proactive employment policies, along with family support programmes and a greater role for primary care among the people with the highest risks of exclusion. Health treatment should go jointly with measures that make it easier for individuals to enter the workforce. These steps would only be possible with an improved level of education and more complete professional profiles, to increase motivation when individuals seek employment.

This study could make various contributions to the existing body of evidence. In the authors’ knowledge, this is the first attempt to document the effect of the economic crisis on the employability of the drug-using population in contrast with the general population. Moreover, a methodology is presented that provides an alternative to those used in earlier studies, in terms of reducing treatment-selection bias. At the same time, the use of a DID estimation method between pre- and current-crisis periods allow us to check if the impact of drugs consumption on unemployment depends on the economic context.

People who use drugs (PWUD) have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aims to examine changes in illicit opioid use and related factors among incarcerated PWUD in Quebec, Canada, during the pandemic.

The authors conducted an observational, cross-sectional study in three Quebec provincial prisons. Participants completed self-administered questionnaires. The primary outcome, “changes in illicit opioid consumption,” was measured using the question “Has your consumption of opioid drugs that were not prescribed to you by a medical professional changed since March 2020?” The association of independent variables and recent changes (past six months) in opioid consumption were examined using mixed-effects Poisson regression models with robust standard errors. Crude and adjusted risk ratios with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated.

A total of 123 participants (median age 37, 76% White) were included from January 19 to September 15, 2021. The majority (72; 59%) reported decreased illicit opioid consumption since March 2020. Individuals over 40 were 11% less likely (95% CI 14–8 vs 18–39) to report a decrease, while those living with others and with a history of opioid overdose were 30% (95% CI 9–55 vs living alone) and 9% (95% CI 0–18 vs not) more likely to report decreased illicit opioid consumption since March 2020, respectively.

The authors identified possible factors associated with changes in illicit opioid consumption among incarcerated PWUD in Quebec. Irrespective of opioid consumption patterns, increased access to opioid agonist therapy and enhanced discharge planning for incarcerated PWUD are recommended to mitigate the harms from opioids and other drugs.

The relationships between tourist resorts and transnational crime are rarely analyzed systematically. This paper begins to fill this gap by examining how organized crime groups and individuals linked to them can take advantage of tourist resorts to commit crimes.

This study aims to examine the role of Australian casinos in facilitating money laundering and Chinese capital flight.

The reports and transcripts of evidence from government inquiries into money laundering in Australian casinos are integrated with analyses of Asian transnational crime.

Money laundering in Australian casinos is linked to transnational crime and Chinese capital flight. A central finding is that junket operators play a key role in facilitating money laundering. The casinos are particularly exposed to criminal influences in the Chinese very important person gambling market, since they have used junket operators and underground banks, many of whom are closely linked to major Chinese criminal groups from Hong Kong and Macau.

Very little information is available on money laundering in Australian casinos and this research has relied on the government inquiries that have been conducted over the past two years on the subject.

The author’s focus on money laundering in Australian casinos in the context of Asia-Pacific transnational crime is important for Federal and state government regulators grappling with the rapidly changing money laundering issues. The government inquiries recognised that the money laundering was related to transnational crime, but did not have the time and resources to explore the topic. The paper provides state government casino regulators and financial crime regulators with a broader international perspective to anticipate future money laundering and crime pressures facing Australia’s casinos.

Money laundering in Australian casinos has had devastating social implications on the community. My research helps to focus attention on the problems of transnational crime and money laundering.

Little research has examined the linkages between casinos and transnational crime. This study has found that Australian casinos were used to launder the proceeds of illegal drug trafficking and to facilitate Chinese capital flight. While casinos have been forced by damming government inquiries to tighten anti-money laundering controls, it is likely that there will be pressure to relax these controls in the future because of competitive pressure from other casinos in the Asia-Pacific region.

While there is increasing interest in implementing drug checking within overdose prevention, we must also consider how to scale-up these responses so that they have significant reach and impact for people navigating the unpredictable and increasingly complex drug supplies linked to overdose. The purpose of this paper is to present a distributed model of community drug checking that addresses multiple barriers to increasing the reach of drug checking as a response to the illicit drug overdose crisis.

A detailed description of the key components of a distributed model of community drug checking is provided. This includes an integrated software platform that links a multi-instrument, multi-site service design with online service options, a foundational database that provides storage and reporting functions and a community of practice to facilitate engagement and capacity building.

The distributed model diminishes the need for technicians at multiple sites while still providing point-of-care results with local harm reduction engagement and access to confirmatory testing online and in localized reporting. It also reduces the need for training in the technical components of drug checking (e.g. interpreting spectra) for harm reduction workers. Moreover, its real-time reporting capability keeps communities informed about the crisis. Sites are additionally supported by a community of practice.

This paper presents innovations in drug checking technologies and service design that attempt to overcome current financial and technical barriers towards scaling-up services to a more equitable and impactful level and effectively linking multiple urban and rural communities to report concentration levels for substances most linked to overdose.

This paper explores the historical aspects of customer due diligence and related anti-money laundering measures in South Africa. Customer due diligence measures are usually employed to ensure that financial institutions know their customers well by assessing them against the possible risks they might pose such as fraud, money laundering, Ponzi schemes and terrorist financing. Accordingly, customer due diligence measures enable banks and other financial institutions to assess their customers before they conclude any transactions with them. Customer due diligence measures that are utilised in South Africa include identification and verification of customer identity, keeping records of transactions concluded between customers and financial institutions, ongoing monitoring of customer account activities, reporting unusual and suspicious transactions and risk assessment programmes. The Financial Intelligence Centre Act 38 of 2001 (FICA) as amended by the Financial Intelligence Centre Amendment Act 1 of 2017 (Amendment Act) is the primary statute that provides for the adoption and use of customer due diligence measures to detect and combat money laundering in South Africa. Prior to the enactment of the FICA, several other statutes were enacted in a bid to prohibit money laundering in South Africa. Against this background, the article provides a historical overview analysis of these statutes to, inter alia, explore their adequacy and examine whether they consistently complied with the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations on the regulation of money laundering.

The paper provides an overview analysis of the historical aspects of the regulation and use of customer due diligence to combat money laundering in South Africa. In this regard, a qualitative research method as well as the doctrinal research method are used.

It is hoped that policymakers and other relevant persons will adopt the recommendations provided in the paper to enhance the curbing of money laundering in South Africa.

The paper does not provide empirical research.

The paper is useful to all policymakers, lawyers, law students and regulatory bodies, especially, in South Africa.

The paper advocates for the use of customer due diligence measures to curb money laundering in the South African financial markets and financial institutions.

The paper is original research on the South African anti-money laundering regime and the use of customer due diligence measures to curb money laundering in South Africa.