In the last decade, states have faced a rising tide of hostile activities from other states and their proxies, often referred to as ‘state threats’. In a series of SOC ACE supported workshops in 2023, a taskforce of experienced experts and practitioners identified the need for a more nuanced definition of state threats. This project addresses the language used to discuss state threats or similar concepts (e.g., hybrid, greyzone), and, using a clearer conceptual framework, map out the current character of state threats.

This research examines the evolution of thinking on SOC and development since 2011 and includes a policy review to understand how they’ve evolved as separate, and larger approaches. Key government officials engaged in the SOC-development policy debate since 2010 will be interviewed to identify government priorities to engage on the development/ SOC nexus, and the challenges that were faced at different times.

This research examines the effectiveness of financial incentivisation schemes for whistleblowing, with a focus on its utility in terms of generating actionable information and intelligence that could support enablement the UK’s economic crime bill. Drawing on experiences and lessons from whistleblower incentive schemes in comparative jurisdictions, the research will consider how viable such a scheme may be in working to reduce the role of the UK’s ‘enabling’ sectors in the laundering of global illicit financial flows.

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 reserach explores politically feasible security sector reform approaches to tackling serious organised crime, drawing on lessons of success from Georgia, Colombia and South Africa.

The project seeks to investigate how illicit markets shape and are shaped by the local political, power, patronage and frontier dynamics in Balochistan - the area spanning the frontier regions of three countries: Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.

The research project aims to deepen the evidence base on the connections between SSR/G and SOC – how they influence and impact one another, positively and adversely. It seeks to encourage collaboration across academic disciplines and professional silos, integrating SSR/G perspectives and programming into the fight against SOC and vice versa.

This research results from the opportunity provided by the approval and implementation of the Total Peace policy in Colombia, a country that, despite the signature of a peace process in 2016, still has numerous armed and criminal groups inflicting significant violence onto the population. The Total Peace policy allows the government to negotiate with armed and criminal groups in order to reduce violence and protect life, providing a unique opportunity to conduct research on ongoing negotiations. This project aims to research the legal framework applied for the different types of engagement at the local and national level, the way in which criminal governance and the Total Peace policy interacts and identify the extent into which legal frameworks and local criminal governance structures shape negotiations with armed and criminal groups in Colombia.

This project examines how Russia is using illicit financial flows (IFF) to support its military campaign against Ukraine and to further its wider foreign policy goals. The scale of Russian use of illicit financial networks has increased rapidly since February 2022. Unless effectively countered, Russia's use of financial and economic tools will give it an advantage in its war against Ukraine and may begin to pose a potential systemic threat to international financial and trading systems. The research seeks to conceptualise how Russia uses illicit finance in political interference and information campaigns around the world, and how these dynamics may be changing in the new context of the war in Ukraine.

This project examines why third countries – countries neither sending sanctions or the target of them – either facilitate sanctions evasion and avoidance (SEA) or support efforts to counter it. It focuses on sanctions relating to Russia since February 2022 and it based on rapid review of the thematic literature on SEA and empirical research in 13 third countries. Our analysis examines how flows of Russian financial and human capital and patterns of SEA changed since February 2022; what factors affect either facilitation of or support to counter SEA; what are the types of individuals/organisations that facilitate SEA, and what methodologies and typologies do they use.

This project applies lessons from irregular warfare to countering organized crime. Irregular warfare is often defined as a violent competition over legitimacy, and it subsumes the problems of terrorism, insurgency, and political instability. Phase 1 of this research project established the commonalities between organized crime and irregular warfare: their shared nature and the pitfalls relating to response. On this basis, Phase 2 presents a Framework for Analysis and Action originally designed for irregular warfare but adapted here to the context of organized crime. The Framework consists of two “parts”: the Strategic Estimate (which maps the problem, explores its drivers, frames, and strategies, and critiques the current response) and the Course of Action (which uses the Estimate to design an appropriate strategy, complete with a theory of success, phasing, assumptions, and metrics). In a third phase of this project, the modified framework will be tested through application to key cases.

The war in Ukraine and sanctions on Russia are leading to tectonic changes in Eurasia’s illicit scene. The war has disrupted licit and illicit supply chains throughout the region, changed routes of trafficking and shifted production of illicit commodities. This project aims to understand changing dynamics in respect of the following: a)  threats in borderlands and seaports; b) opportunities in neighbouring countries as legal companies and criminal enterprises step in to fill the void of meeting the demand on sanctioned goods in Russia; c) actors in smuggling and trafficking; and d) elite bargains related with illicit flows.

This research analyses the drivers of armed violence linked to organised crime. It is a scoping exercise of the academic and policy literature on organised crime and violence, looking closely at the evidence related to causes of violence linked specifically to organised crime. It also briefly analyses some important trends in research on environmental and societal factors influencing the likelihood of criminal violence. It provides brief case studies that illustrate different drivers at play.

This research paper examines the nexus between para-statal armed groups (PAGs), illicit economies and organized crime, with a particular focus on the borderlands of Afghanistan, Myanmar and Colombia. It draws upon new data and analysis generated by a four-year GCRF project, Drugs & (Dis)order. This involved longitudinal, mixed methods research in nine drugs- and conflict-affected borderlands, where PAGs have become embedded within the political, military and economic landscape. The paper sets out a new conceptual framework for analysing the organised crime-militia nexus in conflict-affected borderlands.

Organised crime actors can be spoilers in peace processes or partners in peace. Negotiating with organised crime groups and addressing criminal agendas in peace processes has become a reality in practice. It may be preferable in contexts where repressive tactics have failed to resolve the problem or worse, have fuelled more violence and criminality. Out of options, state actors have turned to negotiation. Negotiation may not only be considered preferable, but also necessary where criminal groups have strong territorial control, filling governance gaps and gaining legitimacy. International peace operations have also begun to recognise the need to address SOC to avoid entrenching criminal structures in the post-conflict state.

This project seeks to contribute to the ‘freeze to seize’ debate: how to move from temporary sanctions-based asset freezes of Russian-linked assets towards more permanent asset deprivation via criminal justice confiscation mechanisms. It does so by examining a range of established asset confiscation concepts and their operationalisation in specific jurisdictions, which have their basis not in sanctions designations but in evidentially-driven and judicially-overseen criminal justice processes. The research sets out the current limitations of UK civil recovery mechanisms and looks at examples of three alternative mechanisms (lowering the standard of proof, reversing the burden of proof and ‘societal danger’ models) across …

Information manipulation has been a growing concern in recent years, particularly in relation to the disinformation tactics employed by authoritarian regimes. However, the role of non-state actors, such as organised crime (OC) groups, in information manipulation has been largely overlooked. This evidence review aims to fill this gap by examining the various ways in which OC groups manipulate information to achieve their objectives and those of actors connected to them. Drawing on Nicholas Barnes' concept of 'political criminality' as well as on Makarenko’s OC-terrorism nexus framework, this study examines the varying degrees of proximity between criminal actors and the state …

This research project is a detailed case study of state capture at the South African Revenue Service (SARS). State capture is more endemic than ordinary corruption at an individual level and occurs at a far wider systemic level. State capture entails a systematic and well organised effort of a group of people to misdirect public resources from their intended purpose into the hands of a private elite for corruption and political patronage purposes. It is supported by high-level political protection through the infiltration and weakening of state institutions.

This research project will test an innovative new approach - the Corruption Functionality Framework - to developing more effective and politically feasible anti-corruption strategies and approaches in a way that brings together serious organised crime and corruption in specific sectors and/or contexts. The team will work with policymakers to test the approach in multi-agency settings, focusing on specific problems in specific locations. The approach combines facilitated workshops with country and sector experts followed by semi-structured interviews to assess whether participants found the CFF useful for triggering new thinking and potential strategic and/or operational approaches. The research will also help to develop more granular understanding of how functionality works in specific contexts that could, in future research, be developed into a series of comparative case studies. Insights from the research will also be used to adapt the CFF to help ensure it is as useful as possible. 

The aim of the research to test the effects of awareness-raising about corruption and SOC in Albania. Awareness-raising efforts are prominent in many counter-SOC and anticorruption policy strategies. This study tests five different messages that are hypothesized to have a positive influence in fostering supportive counter-SOC and anticorruption attitudes and resemble those that are most likely to be used in policy. The study aims to identify what types of messages might be useful and which ones should be avoided for policy makers. Research findings have the potential to enable policy makers to design more effective counter-SOC and anticorruption messaging strategies in the future…