This month’s bulletin brings together new SOC ACE research on the changing relationship between states and organised crime, the political economies that sustain illicit activity, and the uneven development of conflict-affected borderlands.

We also explore scam compounds in the China–Myanmar borderlands, Russian war-related illicit trade across the Black Sea and the paramilitary–organised crime nexus in war-to-peace transitions. Alongside new publications, SOC ACE researchers are contributing to policy and academic discussions on state threats, sanctions evasion, corruption and hybrid warfare, with upcoming events in Krakow and Manchester.

SOC ACE researchers chaired a panel on brokerage and power at the Development Studies Association's DSA2026 conference in Dublin, which ran 8-10 July 2026. It explored how brokers shape development outcomes in a fragmenting world, from coercive intermediaries to digital brokers behind scam networks.