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

States continue to struggle in their efforts to counter organised crime, with it proving too adaptable and too resilient to be seriously affected. This monograph it applies an “irregular warfare” lens to the problem of organised crime, helping to situate the divergent criminal activity within its crucial political context. It goes on to propose ‘A Framework for Analysis and Action’, adapted from a framework for tackling irregular warfare, to guide the analysis and planning of those who are charged with responding to the challenge of organised crime.

David H Ucko & Thomas A. Marks

(NDU Press)

July 2025

This briefing note offers insights on how novel approaches to measuring less visible organised crime activities such as extortion, and using the data to inform better diagnostic of the problem and develop more effective response interventions, can support the building of political will to tackle organised crime. The briefing note draws on the work done by the research team as part of Medellín Impact Lab, demonstrating how new data on extortion has led to increased political will to address the issue in the city, and Colombia more widely.

Professor Christopher Blattman, Dr Benjamin Lessing, Professor Santiago Tobón

January 2025

This briefing note provides insights on how novel approaches to measurement of less visible organised crime activities such as extortion, can be used to better diagnose problems and develop, test and iterate more effective response interventions. It offers an overview of how new data on extortion has been utilised as part of a cross-sector, collaborative Impact Lab approach to tackle the pervasive issue of organised crime groups’ extortion in Medellin.

Professor Christopher Blattman, Dr Benjamin Lessing, Professor Santiago Tobón

January 2025

This evidence review paper explores how security and justice institutions, organised crime, security sector reform and governance and counter-organised crime interventions influence and impact each other, positively and negatively.

Huma Haider

September 2024

This briefing note summarises an evidence review paper exploring how security and justice institutions, organised crime, security sector reform and governance and counter-organised crime interventions influence and impact each other, positively and negatively.

Huma Haider

July 2024

This briefing note identifies four areas that justify greater attention to the fundamental rights of natural persons, and convergence in the human rights and crime agendas: (1) (Organised) crimes that amount to human rights violations (2) Violation of rights due to lack of remedies for crimes committed by OCGs (3) Violations of human rights committed in the context of preventing and combating OC (4) Lack of accountability for human rights violations by OCGs

Ana Paula Oliveira

April 2024

This brief brings together key lessons emerging from GI-TOC’s research on the smuggling of migrants (SOM) between 2015-23. The research emphasises: (1) The need to provide sufficient opportunities for legal migration (2) The importance of timing for enforcement-led responses (3) The adaptive nature of the smuggling industry, with route changes being implemented swiftly in response to seemingly formidable obstacles to population movement.

Tuesday Reitano and Prem Mahadevan

April 2024

This briefing note summarises GI-TOC’s research and experiences in engaging with and supporting civil society responses to organised crime. This is provided in the context of the ongoing threats and shrinking space for civil society, and a need for policymakers and officials to understand civil society’s role, value and potential.

Ian Tennant and Prem Mahadevan

Febraury 2024

This briefing note explains why awareness raising or strategic communications campaigns that aim to inform the public about controlling or fighting so-called ‘social bads’ (e.g. corruption and organised crime). Despite aiming to change behaviours, these campaigns end up having little effect and, in some cases, may even backfire, making the situation worse.

Caryn Peiffer and Nic Cheeseman

Febraury 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 annotated bibliography includes research and evidence on militarised approaches to combating serious and organised crime (SOC) in various contexts. Militarised approaches involve using military forces or methods to deter and disrupt SOC groups. These approaches have been employed in states facing high levels of violence, fragile and conflict-affected contexts, post-conflict settings, and against threats like piracy and wildlife crime.

Luke Kelly

December 2023

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

This paper contributes to research on the relationship between conflict and organised crime (the crime–conflict nexus), using Afghanistan as a case study. For the past four decades, Afghanistan has been plagued by internal armed conflict, influenced by local, national, regional and international external actors, and the intricate relationships among them. To varying degrees, power, politics and criminality informed these relationships. Organised crime provide actors in Afghanistan with significant political power, while powerful political actors are uniquely positioned to reap the profits of the country’s criminal markets. This paper gives an account of the existing literature on Afghanistan’s crime–conflict nexus, identifying some of the key insights that this literature has revealed. To do so, it uses a four-pronged framework, exploring how conflict has fuelled organised crime in Afghanistan; how organised crime has fuelled conflict; how conflict over the control of illicit markets has resulted; and how organised crime has contributed to the erosion of the state. By assessing the literature on Afghanistan’s crime–conflict nexus, the paper identifies knowledge gaps and suggests areas for future research.

Annette Idler, Frederik Florenz, Ajmal Burhanzoi, John Collins, Marcena Hunter & Antonio Sampaio

April 2023

This briefing note summarises research that explores alternative asset recovery mechanisms that could help respond to the immediate policy goal surrounding Russian-linked sanctioned assets, and also contribute to strengthening the broader asset recovery framework in the UK for the longer term.

Maria Nizzero

March 2023