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April/May 2025 Newsletter |
| In this month’s bulletinThe launch of new research on efforts to negotiate peace with criminal gangs in Colombia Upcoming webinar and paper launch of Russia’s use of illicit finance in occupied Ukraine - link for joining below New State Threats podcast on the blurred lines between espionage, sabotage, and foreign interference Analysis of hostile financial interference, carbon markets and corruption, and on the Taliban’s efforts to control weapon supply and opium production And much more!
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| | Each month, we’ll be showcasing our latest research, news & events. Click on the subscribe button to receive our newsletter. |
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| | | Colombia’s Total Peace policy - launch of ground-breaking research |
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| Two groundbreaking reports from the Negotiating with criminal groups: Colombia’s Total Peace policy research project were launched in Bogotá on 26 and 27 March 2025. The first event shared findings with bilateral and multilateral international organisations and was attended by the UN Special Representatives and media. The second engaged Colombian government practitioners and policymakers in a collaborative discussion around the research’s assessment of what is and isn’t working in current delivery of the Total Peace policy, and particularly the challenge that organised crime continues to pose to the peace process.
The two research papers and two briefing notes offer critical insights into the challenges facing Colombia’s peace process in Buenaventura, Tumaco and Arauca. They explore how a lack of a clear legal framework is preventing the policy from reaching sustainable agreements. Weak local coordination is also limiting the effectiveness of negotiations and peace implementation. In some areas, armed groups are using the peace process to strengthen their territorial control rather than demobilize.
The Institutional Architecture of Total Peace and Total Peace Policy: Between Light and Shadow papers are now available on the SOC ACE website, along with the two briefs drawn from them. Negotiating with Criminal Groups: Colombia’s “Total Peace” and “Total Peace” in Colombia: Lessons for Negotiating with Organised Crime Groups and Promoting Peacebuilding. At the research launch events, experts from the GI-TOC, Fundación Conflict Responses, CORE and Laboratorio de Justicia y Politica Criminal emphasized the need for stronger legal tools, greater local government involvement, and clearer negotiation strategies to prevent unintended consequences.
Keep an eye out for further publications and news on this work through the SOC ACE Newsletter and website. And if you’ve found the research useful in your day-to-day work, please do let us know by sending us an email at: impact-socace@contacts.bham.ac.uk |
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| More state threats research updates! Implausible Deniability: The new age of state threats (48 mins) is a new podcast focussed on the work of RUSI Senior Associate Fellow, Matthew Redhead. The Secure Line podcast, available on Youtube, Apple Podcasts or Spotify, is hosted by CASIS, the Canadian Association for Security & Intelligence Studies. Drawing on insights from SOC ACE Research Paper 32, Old Wine, New Bottles? - The Challenge of State Threats, Matthew discusses the findings with hosts Stephanie Carvin, Leah West and Jessica Davis, author of Illicit financing in Afghanistan: Methods, mechanisms and threat-agnostic disruption opportunities, SOC ACE May 2022. They delve into the blurred lines between espionage, sabotage, and foreign interference. Matthew explains how state threats now encompass a broader spectrum of covert operations, including the outsourcing of targeted assassinations of criminal networks - a trend driven by factors such as (im)plausible deniability, cost efficiency, and the exploration of technology to access denied areas and engage in transnational repression. The discussion further contrasts the legal frameworks and defensive measures employed by Western governments with the often reckless tactics of adversarial states.
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| More on Eliza Lockhart’s Whistleblowing research paper! |
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| Democracy’s Weakest Link: Foreign Money and Political Influence (8-min read), warns that as threats from hostile states rise, the defences of Western democracies against financial interference remain dangerously weak. This new RUSI blog from Centre for Finance and Security Director Tom Keatinge and Eliza Lockhart, author of the SOC ACE research paper on rewarding whistleblowers on economic crime, points out that democratic institutions are rarely overwhelmed by dramatic events and are more often captured incrementally by the slow and steady corrosion of public trust, the subtle but persistent rewriting of political narratives, and the quiet normalisation of foreign influence. The solution is to sever the hidden financial pipelines flowing from hostile states into the heart of our political systems and the overt influence accelerated by social media. |
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| | | | | | | | | | Looting Mariupol - research paper webinar launch |
| Took place Wednesday 14 May 2025 |
| Who benefits from Russia’s occupation of Ukraine? A webinar launch of new research from the Illicit finance and Russian foreign policy: new dynamics and linkages SOC ACE project will put Russia’s economic activities in the occupied territories under the spotlight. Focussed on Russia’s wholesale remodelling of Mariupol and the total elimination of any trace of it’s Ukrainian culture, the research findings reveal widespread corruption and profiteering, billions spent without accountability and illicit seizures of Ukrainian businesses. These activities create new networks and bolster vested interests, often linked to Russian security services.
Co-author Olivia Allison (University of Exeter/RUSI) will present the findings alongside moderator Tom Keatinge, Director of RUSI’s Centre for Finance and Security, and chair Heather Marquette, SOC ACE Director.
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| | | What changes to the carbon market landscape mean for corruption risks (6-minute read) on the GI-ACE blog explores how evolving carbon markets could create new vulnerabilities to corruption and governance challenges. Dan Marks, Research Fellow for Energy Security at RUSI, discusses how changes in voluntary carbon markets - trades in credits generated from emissions reductions might alter the opportunities and incentives for corruption in the supply chain. Dr Alexander Kupatadze, of the Exploring the Consequences of Organised Crime and Illegal Trade Displacement on Eurasia SOC ACE project team, has authored a Hubs of Illicit Trade reginal report on Ukraine. HIT is a strategic evidence-based research initiative launched by the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Centre (TraCCC) and the Anti-Illicit Trade Institute (AITI) at George Mason University in 2022. It’s primary aim is to inform policymakers and communities about the harms and risks linked with hubs of illegal trade, and to propose strategies for disrupting them by addressing their intertwined nature. Wagner’s Business Model in Syria and Africa: Profit and Patronage (long read) examines the financial model of Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin’s private militia through three case studies of its operations in Syria, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Mali. Authored by SOC ACE/RUSI researcher Olivia Allison, along with Nick Connon, Dr Antonio Giustozzi and James Pascal, this RUSI occasional paper aggregates various sources of financial information to understand Wagner’s financial model, its revenue sources and its costs. A new podcast on the links between global kleptocracy and London - A recent edition of The Bunker podcast features Tom Mayne, co-author of Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Postcommunist Elites, and the Enabling of Corruption (with John Heathershaw and SOC ACE project researcher Tena Prelec. He discusses how deregulation, weak enforcement and the UK’s libel laws have made London a money-laundering hub for wealthy elites. Nearly 40 per cent of the world’s dirty money now flows through the capital. How did London become the world’s dirty money capital? is available on most major podcast platforms.
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| | | If you’ve used any of SOC ACE’s research to inform policy and/or practice, let us know by sending us an email at:
impact-socace@contacts.bham.ac.uk |
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