How Do Illicit Drugs Move Across Countries? A Network Analysis of the Heroin Supply to Europe

Date01 April 2017
AuthorAlberto Aziani,Luca Giommoni,Giulia Berlusconi
DOI10.1177/0022042616682426
Published date01 April 2017
Subject MatterArticles
Journal of Drug Issues
2017, Vol. 47(2) 217 –240
© The Author(s) 2016
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DOI: 10.1177/0022042616682426
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Article
How Do Illicit Drugs Move Across
Countries? A Network Analysis of
the Heroin Supply to Europe
Luca Giommoni1, Alberto Aziani2, and Giulia Berlusconi3
Abstract
Illicit drugs are trafficked across manifold borders before ultimately reaching consumers.
Consequently, interdiction of cross-border drug trafficking forms a critical component of the
European Union’s initiative to reduce drug supplies. However, there is contradictory evidence
about its effectiveness, which is due, in part, to a paucity of information about how drugs flow
across borders. This study uses a network approach to analyze international drug trafficking
both to and within Europe, drawing on several perspectives to delineate the factors that affect
how drug shipments move across borders. The analysis explicates how drug trafficking is
concentrated along specific routes; moreover, we demonstrate that its structure is not random
but, rather, driven by specific factors. In particular, corruption and social and geographical
proximity are key factors explaining the configuration of heroin supply to European countries.
This study also provides essential insights into the disruption of traffickers’ illicit activities.
Keywords
drug trafficking, network analysis, heroin
Introduction
Illicit drugs, especially heroin and cocaine, travel across multiple borders before reaching con-
sumer markets (Caulkins, 2015). Although, in principle, drug traffickers have a plethora of suit-
able routes through which to move illicit drugs, in actuality, drug trafficking is concentrated
along specific routes, as countries generally have a limited number of trading partners (Boivin,
2013, 2014a; European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction [EMCDDA] &
EUROPOL, 2013; United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime [UNODC], 2015d). In this critical
respect, the international trade network of illicit drugs is indeed less dense than that which per-
tains to legal commodities (Boivin, 2013, 2014a).
The concentration of drug trafficking along a few specific routes follows well-established
trends of other forms of criminal behavior. Indeed, an extensive corpus of criminological litera-
ture now demonstrates how crime is not uniformly distributed and some areas have higher crime
rates than others (Curman, Andresen, & Brantingham, 2014; Sherman, Gartin, & Buerger, 1989;
1Cardiff University, School of Social Sciences, UK
2Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan, Italy
3National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland
Corresponding Author:
Luca Giommoni, School of Social Sciences, Cardiff University, Glamorgan Building, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff
CF10 3WT, Wales, UK.
Email: giommonil@cardiff.ac.uk
682426JODXXX10.1177/0022042616682426Journal of Drug IssuesGiommoni et al.
research-article2016
218 Journal of Drug Issues 47(2)
Weisburd & Amram, 2014; Weisburd, Groff, & Yang, 2012). These findings form the cornerstone
of the so-called hot-spot policing approach (Weisburd, 2015). The underlying logic of this
approach is that law enforcement resources should be concentrated within the areas where crime
most commonly occurs (Sherman et al., 1998). Several studies went one step further and identi-
fied the characteristics of these “hot” areas (Eck, Clarke, & Guerette, 2007; Smith, Frazee, &
Davison, 2000; Weisburd et al., 2012; Wikström, 2012), establishing how socioeconomic (e.g.,
low income, ethnic heterogeneity, residential instability) and physical features (e.g., land use and
presence of risky facilities) of places can help us account for crime concentration. Such research
was invaluable in terms of providing an evidence-base from which to both efficiently manage
police resources and design social interventions aimed at tackling the root causes of crime
(Weisburd, Groff, & Yang, 2013).
The disruption of illicit drug trafficking, both within the European Union (EU) and along its
external borders, constitutes a key priority of the EU Drugs Strategy (2013-2020; Council of the
European Union, 2012). Yet, evidence pertaining to the effectiveness of current interdiction pro-
grams is contradictory at best (Collins, 2014). For example, traffickers adapt to interdiction pro-
grams by either changing their modes of transportation and hiding techniques, or shifting to
alternative routes (Friesendorf, 2005; Manski, Pepper, & Thomas, 1999; Reuter, 2014; Seccombe,
1995; Windle & Farrell, 2012). The latter form of adaptation is often referred to as the “balloon
effect,” and suggests that stronger law enforcement actions in one location will result in the dis-
placement of drug trafficking activities to another location (Friesendorf, 2005; Hawdon &
Kleiman, 2011; Reuter, 2014). The balloon analogy derives from the similarity between this
dynamic and that of incompressible fluids that move toward areas of lower resistance when
under pressure (Mora, 1996). Consequently, eradications, seizures, and other drug control inter-
ventions taking place in one country may damage others if coordination schemes are scant
(Chouvy, 2012; Mora, 1996; Reuter, 2014). The emergence of a supply route of cocaine to Europe
via Africa following the instantiation of increased level of controls between the Netherlands and
the Netherlands Antilles is a recent example which testifies to the notorious balloon effect and the
limits of interdiction programs (Reuter, 2014; UNODC, 2007, 2013).
The concentration of drug trafficking along specific routes also suggests that traffickers are
driven by specific motives (Boivin, 2014a; Reuter, 2014; UNODC, 2015c). The understanding of
how and why crime focuses within particular areas proved to be integral to the introduction of
new criminal justice and social interventions aimed at reducing crime. Similarly, one would think
that gaining insights into the concentration of drug trafficking along specific routes could also aid
efforts to identify the most effective counter-policies, evaluate the consequences of interdiction
programs, and anticipate the possible displacement of traffickers’ illicit activities because of such
programs. However, there has hitherto been a dearth of empirical research investigating which
factors shape the geographic configuration of international drug trafficking and why it concen-
trates along a specific and limited range of paths (Trumbore & Woo, 2014).
The present contribution investigates the determinants of the geopolitical configuration of
heroin supply to European countries. It draws from several disciplines (i.e., criminology, macro-
economics, and geography) to explain what factors determine how drug shipments move across
countries. The reason for our focus on the trafficking of heroin to Europe is twofold. First, heroin
consumption still accounts for a large share of drug-related health and social costs in Europe
(EMCDDA, 2015). For example, 40 experts from across the EU recently judged heroin to be the
most harmful illicit psychoactive substance in Europe, as well as the second most harmful overall
with respect to 16 harm criteria (van Amsterdam, Nutt, Phillips, & van den Brink, 2015). The
purity of the heroin available in certain European markets, and therefore its potential harm, is
increasing alongside the number of overdose deaths (EMCDDA, 2015). Second, Europe has a
large availability of country-level data. As concluded in the first European Conference on Drug
Supply Indicators, “. . . a considerable amount of data on drug supply is already being collected

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