PUBLICATIONS
The ‘Dark Side of Globalisation’? Anti‑Illicit Trade Discourse and the Role of Ideas in the Fight Against Globalised Economic Criminality
Anti-illicit trade discourse, shaped largely by actors in the Global North, has developed quietly over decades, well before recent geopolitical tensions put global trade in the spotlight. Drawing on 52 interviews with international organisations, government agencies, private firms and NGOs, this paper traces how the category of ‘illicit trade’ emerged through three threads: tobacco smuggling, counterfeit goods and trade-based money laundering. It finds that the discourse focuses enforcement on discrete smuggling activities and stigmatises particular trade actors, rather than tackling the systemic drivers of globalised economic crime, and may ultimately weaken the political will needed to address illicit finance at its roots.
Adam Blanden (University of Birmingham)
Dr Mayya Konovalova (Birmingham Business School)
Prof Sami Bensassi (Birmingham Business School)
October 2026
How Russia’s Full-Scale Invasion of Ukraine Displaced Drug Trafficking Routes in Europe and Central Asia
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has significantly reconfigured organised crime across Ukraine and neighbouring regions. Rather than simply disrupting illicit networks, the war and resulting sanctions have displaced and reshaped them. The most visible changes have occurred in the drugs market. Synthetic drug production has increasingly relocated to Kazakhstan, while trafficking routes for heroin and cocaine have shifted towards Belarus, Central Asia and the Balkans.
Dr Alexander Kupatadze (Kings College London)
Erica Marat (NDU)
April 2026
The Boomerang Effect: Russia’s Full‑scale Invasion of Ukraine Expands Crime Rate at Home
Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine has produced a powerful internal shock that is transforming the country’s criminal landscape and the way the state deploys repression. This briefing note draws on wider research that demonstrates how the war has created a ‘boomerang effect’, whereby, the war has made Russia both more criminalised and more repressive.
Dr Alexander Kupatadze (Kings College London)
Erica Marat (NDU)
March 2026
Criminal Geographies: How the Russo-Ukrainian War Reshaped Global Crime Networks
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has reconfigured organised crime, displacing and transforming networks across regions. Crime has grown in both neighbouring states and Russia itself, with new actors, routes and cyber‑enabled methods emerging. War and sanctions act as systemic shocks, expanding illicit markets rather than suppressing them and demanding multi‑level policy responses.
Dr Alexander Kupatadze (Kings College London)
Erica Marat (NDU)
March 2026