This research examines the impact of Afghanistan’s drug trade on the country’s neighbours, with a particular focus on the three countries, Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan, which account for the highest volumes of narcotics that transit from Afghanistan. It explores policy options in the post-August 2021 context and considers the prospects of and challenges to greater regional cooperation.

Shehryar Fazli

November 2023

In recent years, concerns over information manipulation have grown, particularly the disinformation tactics employed by authoritarian regimes. Yet, the role of non-state actors, specifically organised crime (OC) groups, in shaping information landscapes remains overlooked. Drawing from Nicholas Barnes' 'political criminality' concept, this paper investigates the complex connections between criminal actors and the state. The research spans various regions, with a strong focus on Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Russia, Moldova (Transnistria), and Albania.

Dr Tena Prelec

October 2023

Sanctions are a crucial tool for exerting influence internationally yet understanding of the impact of sanctions evasion or avoidance (SEA) and third-country involvement is limited. This report reveals that third countries are more likely to engage in SEA when they have trade and commercial capacity, particularly in professional advisory, financial services, shipping and logistics sectors. Private commercial actors within these sectors, with an economic interest in engaging in SEA may find opportunity to do so.

Dr Liam O’Shea, Olivia Allison, Gonzalo Saiz & Alexia Anna Hack

October 2023

This paper provides an analytical overview of how Russian actors and proxies are using illicit financial flows (IFF) to support Russian foreign policy goals. It shows how Russia has used illicit finance to fund political interference campaigns, promote disinformation, and support military operations outside Russia, including the international activities of the Wagner network. It calls for a holistic approach to tackling the issue by combining effective sanctions with systematic efforts to tackle money-laundering and illicit finance in key financial and logistical hubs, including in the UK and other Western countries.

Professor David Lewis & Dr Tena Prelec

August 2023

Illicit actors in Afghanistan, including drug traffickers, warlords, terrorist groups, and even former government officials, exploit the country to achieve their own political and economic objectives. This paper provides a historical and contemporary overview of illicit financing activities in Afghanistan. It uses a terrorist financing framework to explain the various mechanisms involved in how illicit actors raise, use, move, store, manage, and obscure their funds. Specific jurisdictions used for illicit finance and global financial vulnerabilities that illicit actors with a nexus to Afghanistan exploit in their financial activities are discussed, outlining the threat-agnostic capabilities that could tackle some of these illicit financial challenges.

Jessica Davis

May 2022

This briefing note analyses Russian illicit financial flows (IFF) and its possible influence on political parties and the wider body politic of western Europe. It argues for the need to place more focus on certain individuals, companies, and relationships, given the legal vagaries of financial flows linked to the Russian state. As Russia’s investigative units, prosecutorial bodies, and law courts lack independence, the vast majority of Russian IFF may not be illegal under Russian law (or at least a Russian court will not rule it to be) but could still constitute IFF and could be used for malign purposes in the countries where it is found.

Thomas Mayne

May 2022

This paper examines the links between illegal drug trafficking, violence, and corruption in Central Asia. The research demonstrates how drug trafficking is highly organised with major criminal and state actors participating in the illicit activity. Criminal violence is spread across the region, especially in urban areas, but the Central Asian states are capable of intercepting and preventing illicit activities. By analysing big data on violence, drug interdictions, and patterns of corruption in the region between 2015 and 2022, we explain the relationship between drug trafficking and key actors from the criminal underworld and state agencies in Central Asia.

Erica Marat & Gulzat Botoeva

May 2022

This briefing note – part of a project advancing a new conceptual framework designed to improve our understanding of Russian illicit financial flows (IFFs) as linked to foreign policy (FP) aims – provides an overview of Russia’s economic presence in South Eastern Europe. It first considers its interaction with the post-Yugoslav region as a whole, then zooming into the patterns at play in Serbia and Montenegro. These two countries have had a dramatic change in relations with Russia in 2014, when Montenegro implemented sanctions after the annexation of Crimea, and Serbia did not. This juncture offers a clear opportunity to think about the extent to which IFF from Russia are linked to foreign policy considerations.

Tena Prelec

May 2022

This briefing note shows how Russian foreign policy in Africa facilitates illicit financial flows (IFF) into and out of the continent through two case studies. First, in Sudan, gold-mining ventures, supported by military investments, are being exploited by Russian and Sudanese political elites hit by Wester economic sanctions. Second, in Madagascar, Russian ‘political technologists’ influenced electoral processes by cultivating anti-Western sentiments and supporting Moscow-friendly candidates.

Catherine Owen

May 2022

Organised crime poses one of the greatest threats to national security and development in the 21st century. Despite this, most policy, data collection, and scholarly research focuses on individuals and disorganised violence. Our work addresses several critical gaps in knowledge in the context of Medellín, Colombia’s second largest and most important city.

Christopher Blattman, Benjamin Lessing & Santiago Tobón

May 2022

This paper categorises the practices used by Russian Kremlin-connected actors to advance Russian illicit financial flows (IFF) and depicts them, as well as their relationships to one another and to IFF in a novel framework. It argues that conclusively identifying and tracing IFF in authoritarian environments is very difficult due to the politicised nature of authoritarian legal systems and the inevitable data gaps. Our framework seeks to remedy these challenges by mapping malign practices, enacted by Russian actors in collaboration with elite overseas partners to create conditions friendly to Russian IFF, across three vectors: 1) political activities, 2) media activities and 3) political violence. We argue that the deployment of these practices is deeply connected to Russian foreign policy objectives, which are built in part on informal and patronal relationships with domestic elites. Thus, the principal actors in Russian foreign policymaking and -doing are not state institutions but elites, intermediaries, private companies, and organised crime groups.

Catherine Owen, Tena Prelec & Tom Mayne

May 2022