In Addressing police and military involvement in serious and organised crime Liam O’Shea, Louis-Alexandre Berg, Alexander Kupatadze and Lucia Tiscornia present compelling comparative studies from Colombia, Georgia, and South Africa. They highlight how political will, institutional control, and prosecutorial strength are key to curbing security forces’ involvement with organised crime. The authors propose politically grounded strategies over technical fixes for sustainable, integrity-driven reform.

Dr Liam O’Shea (RUSI)

Dr Louis-Alexandre Berg (Georgia State University)

Dr Alexander Kupatadze (Kings College London)

Dr Lucia Tiscornia (University College Dublin)

December 2025

Investigating the complex relationship between corruption and informal security welfare regimes, using Pakistan as a case study. The study reveals that corruption plays a dual role: it undermines formal welfare provision while simultaneously acting as a survival mechanism for those excluded from official support.

Dr Zahid Mumtaz (Australian National University)

Dr Caryn Peiffer (University of Bristol)

November 2025

In this research paper, Kathryn Westmore examines the rapid development of Chinese Money Laundering Organisations (CMLOs), describing their history and expansion in the West. She analyses them within a state threats framework and discusses the policy implications.

Kathryn Westmore (RUSI)

November 2025

This research paper takes a gendered view of Russia’s use of illicit financial flows (IFF) in occupied Ukraine, by examining the role of women as both victims and perpetrators. The paper sheds light on the overlooked role that women are playing, be that - implementing corrupt policies, acting as proxies, or surviving under duress - while facing systemic harm, coercion, and prosecution amid gendered norms.

Dr Orly Stern

Olivia Allison (University of Exeter)

October 2025

Who benefits from Russia's occupation of Ukraine? Russia's economic activities in the occupied territories are characterised by widespread corruption and profiteering off billions spent without accountability and illicit seizures of Ukrainian businesses, many of which may be war crimes. These activities create new networks and bolster vested interests, often linked to Russian security services.

Olivia Allison, David Lewis

May 2025

Contrary to initial expectations, Colombia’s Total Peace Policy have not progressed as quickly or effectively as anticipated, leading to the unintended consequence of increasing armed and criminal groups capacity to govern the territories involved in negotiations, prompting some to think the policy is strengthening both rebels and criminals. This new research paper explores the argument and demonstrates that this trajectory is not generic: it depends on the armed and criminal actors, and the specific areas and the populations involved. Through comparison of negotiations’ in three regions, the paper explores not only which aspects of life are governed, but also how they are governed.

Kyle Johnson, Felipe Botero, Mariana Botero, Andrés F. Aponte, and Lina M. Asprilla.

March 2025

This new research paper explores the institutional architecture of Colombia’s Total Peace Policy, (“Paz Total”) answering two key questions: 1) what is the Policy’s institutional context, and 2) how is it being implemented by the negotiating groups. The research examines implications of the Policy’s degree of centralisation, as well as the expectations and actual involvement of local authorities and the robustness of it’s legal framework.

Juanita Durán

March 2025

From the combination of traditional intelligence tradecraft with new technologies, attempts to innovate, a willingness to take greater risks, and a growing willingness to contract out activities to both licit and illicit non-state actors – especially organised crime groups, this research shows there is much that is new about the rising tide of hostile activities perpetrated by state actors and their partners; state threats.  

This paper offers firmer definitional boundaries of state threats, and within them, explores the scale, scope and characteristics of their modern manifestation, especially - but not exclusively - from a Western perspective. It shows that many hostile activities are taking advantage of the new vulnerabilities in society, such as social media and societal reliance on technology, and that state threats have become more important as tools of policy due to “geopolitical climate change”, including perceived changes in global power balances and receding agreement on international norms of behaviour.

The paper concludes that whilst evidence suggests the results of these kinds of activities are mixed, they remain an attractive form of coercive statecraft in the medium term, and that if sustained over the long term, could have more severe effects on open societies that have robust protections in place.

Matthew Redhead (RUSI)

January 2025

This paper evaluates the evidence on the use of reward programmes for whistleblowers who report economic crimes, evaluating it against the key concerns in the debate surrounding the implementation of such schemes. It offers four observations for policymakers considering use of whistleblower rewards programmes in the fight against economic crime.

Eliza Lockhart

December 2024

This paper is part of a comparative research phase that tests and applies the ‘IFFs pyramid’ (Reitano, 2022), in the context of the Mekong region. Based on a review of secondary literature, it provides an overview of financial flows, trade flows and informality – the three main means by which IFFs are enabled, moved and held according to the ‘IFFs pyramid’ – and discusses how IFFs manifest across the Mekong.

Kristina Amerhauser

January 2024

In this phase of the SOC ACE project “Unlocking the black box of political will on IFFs: going beyond technical responses”, the research analyses whether the ‘IFFs pyramid’ proposed by the GI-TOC (Reitano, 2022) is applicable to and useful for researchers seeking to understanding illicit financial flows in various settings around the world but especially in regions where greater levels of informality exists, such as East and southern Africa.

Michael McLaggan

January 2024

This paper is the second of a three-part series exploring the nexus between paramilitaries, illicit economies and organised crime. This research paper examines the nexus between paramilitaries, illicit economies and organised crime in frontier regions, through detailed case study analysis of these phenomena in the borderlands of Afghanistan, Myanmar and Colombia.

Prof Jonathan Goodhand, Dr Patrick Meehan, Camilo Acero & Jan Koehler

January 2024

This research paper set out to capture the implications of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 for the local realities of the opium trade and the diverse actors whose lives are entangled in the country’s pervasive drug economy. Focusing on a narrowly defined geography and period, the paper navigates the uncertainty that was omnipresent following the announcement of the Taliban’s opium ban in the two important localities for the country’s opium economy: Helmand – the source of more than half of Afghan opium before the April 2022 ban took effect – and Nangarhar, the key opium-producing province in the eastern part of the country.

Prem Mahadevan, Maria Khoruk, Alla Mohammad Mohmandzai & Ruggero Scaturro

January 2024

This paper is the first of a three-part series exploring the nexus between paramilitaries, illicit economies and organised crime. It advances a conceptual framework for analysing the nexus between paramilitaries, illicit economies and organised crime in borderland and frontier regions.

Dr Patrick Meehan & Professor Jonathan Goodhand

January 2024

This paper examines the emerging dynamics, risks and opportunities within Afghanistan from the perspective of the gold mining industry in the north-eastern province of Takhar. While Afghanistan has relatively small value deposits compared with other resources, insights into the evolution of political economies surrounding the gold sector, its role in the economy and foreign intervention, shed light on broader dynamics of the extractives industry in the country.

Marcena Hunter & Alastair MacBeath

December 2023

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

Kabul's fall to the Taliban in August 2021 spurred the fourth wave of distress migration from Afghanistan in 50 years. This research uncovers common patterns in Afghan migration and the impact of the Taliban's return on human mobility. It draws on interviews with migrants, smugglers, and financiers, revealing an entrenched illicit economy essential to Afghanistan and beyond. This study aims to analyse post-Kabul human mobility; and investigate the role of informal value transfer systems (IVTS) in clandestine migration.

Prem Mahadevan, Maria Khoruk, and Alla Mohamad Mohmandzaï

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 details Russia's illicit economic activity in the occupied territories in Ukraine and calls for more international attention to this aspect of Russia's invasion. The report shows that since Russia occupied large parts of south-eastern Ukraine in March 2022, it has worked rapidly to incorporate these regions into Russia's economic and financial system. These activities were all illegal under Ukrainian law and some may constitute potential war crimes under international law.

Professor David Lewis

September 2023