The project evaluates the role of Global Trade Hubs (GTH) along the maritime Silk Road in facilitating illicit activities, particularly smuggling, leveraging proven methods based on mirror trade statistics. By comparing these findings with existing assessments of illicit activities and flows, the project aims to provide insights into the potential risks associated with GTH involvement in illicit financial flows (IFFs).

This research is part of the project ‘Monitoring the evolution of the illicit economy in Afghanistan’ which seeks to develop an overarching framework to better understand how a monitoring system for illicit markets in Afghanistan could operate. This will provide policy-makers in Europe and elsewhere with more advanced tools for scenario planning illicit trade developments and thereby formulate more effective policy responses against them. The research paper examines Afghanistan’s narcotics trade and smuggling patterns, which are intertwined in different ways with the economic fate of the Afghan state and society.

This project examines the potential of using illicit market violence in Afghanistan as a proxy to project current and future trends of other illicit and criminal market development in the country. It does so by using a methodology developed by GI-TOC to examine targeted assassinations. By applying variables from the methodology to research and analysis on targeted violence in Afghanistan during a period of increased violent crimes against civilians (2020-2021), the project map recent trends in the country and aims to explore whether monitoring such violence can serve as a proxy for understanding the changing dynamics of illicit economies and criminal actors at the national and regional scale.