This report examines governance frameworks to counter illicit trade. It looks at the adequacy and effectiveness of sanctions and penalties applicable, the steps parties engaged in illicit trade take to lower the risk of detection - for example through small shipments - and the use of free trade ...

This report assesses the magnitude, flows and drivers of illicit trade and the illegal economy including: narcotics, human trafficking, wildlife, sports betting, counterfeit medicines, alcohol and tobacco. The negative socio-economic impacts that these markets have in consumer countries are as worrisome as the goverance gaps that are exploited in source countries. This report examines each illicit sector in terms of the geographic sources, destinations and key trade routes, the current trend of infiltration by organized crime networks, and good practices or future policy solutions with which to combat illicit trade within the various sectors.

This open access book provides the first-ever comparative study on criminal policy concerning the illicit trade of tobacco, conducted among four comparatively new EU Member States (Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Romania) and two "old" EU countries (Germany and Italy). The book addresses the national legal frameworks, current criminological situation regarding illicit trade of tobacco, and the practical challenges faced by national law enforcement authorities in the countries examined. It also considers the international framework, and concludes with a horizontal report. The objective of the book is to highlight legislative and practical challenges in the fight against illegal tobacco products at the national and transnational level, and to formulate recommendations for overcoming them more effectively in Europe.--

Tobacco use has declined because of measures such as high taxes on tobacco products and bans on advertising, but worldwide there are still more than one billion people who regularly use tobacco, including many who purchase products illicitly. By contrast to many other commodities, taxes comprise a substantial portion of the retail price of cigarettes in the United States and most other nations. Large tax differentials between jurisdictions increase incentives for participation in existing illicit tobacco markets. In the United States, the illicit tobacco market consists mostly of bootlegging from low-tax states to high-tax states and is less affected by large-scale smuggling or illegal production as in other countries. In the future, nonprice regulation of cigarettes - such as product design, formulation, and packaging - could in principle, contribute to the development of new types of illicit tobacco markets. Understanding the U.S. Illicit Tobacco Market reviews the nature of illicit tobacco markets, evidence for policy effects, and variations among different countries with a focus on implications for the United States. This report estimates the portion of the total U.S. tobacco market represented by illicit sales has grown in recent years and is now between 8.5 percent and 21 percent. This represents between 1.24 to 2.91 billion packs of cigarettes annually and between $2.95 billion and $6.92 billion in lost gross state and local tax revenues. Understanding the U.S. Illicit Tobacco Market describes the complex system associated with illicit tobacco use by exploring some of the key features of that market - the cigarette supply chain, illicit procurement schemes, the major actors in the illicit trade, and the characteristics of users of illicit tobacco. This report draws on domestic and international experiences with the illicit tobacco trade to identify a range of possible policy and enforcement interventions by the U.S. federal government and/or states and localities.

Examines illicit trade and the difficulties of establishing international cooperation against it, including how government interests differ, criminal groups involvement, and how legitimate players may seek to hinder regulatory efforts.

This study provides an overview of government- and industry-specific measures to address the abuse of online platforms by counterfeiters. In recent years, trading platforms have been instrumental in the growth in e-commerce, but at the same time, they can be abused by illicit trade networks.

Economists explore the relationship between expanding international trade and the parallel growth in illicit trade, including illegal drugs, smuggling, and organized crime. As international trade has expanded dramatically in the postwar period--an expansion accelerated by the opening of China, Russia, India, and Eastern Europe--illicit international trade has grown in tandem with it. This volume uses the economist's toolkit to examine the economic, political, and social problems resulting from such illicit activities as illegal drug trade, smuggling, and organized crime. The contributors consider several aspects of the illegal drug market, including the sometimes puzzling relationships among purity, price, and risk; the effect of globalization on the heroin and cocaine markets, examined both through mathematical models and with empirical data from the U.K; the spread of khat, a psychoactive drug imported legally to the U.K. as a vegetable; and the economic effect of the "war on drugs" on producer and consumer countries. Other chapters examine the hidden financial flows of organized crime, patterns of smuggling in international trade, Iran's illicit trading activity, and the impact of mafia-like crime on foreign direct investment in Italy.

This publication explores the link between trafficking in persons and corruption, and presents a set of Guiding Principles on Combatting Corruption Related to Trafficking in Persons.

In countries affected by the illegal wildlife trade, corruption is a key enabler and facilitator. Failure to address this corruption, and the institutional and governance gaps that allow it to take place, make tackling the illegal wildlife trade a significant challenge. This report provides a structured analysis of how corruption facilitates wildlife crime based on research in four source and transit countries in East and Southern Africa. It offers a series of specific recommendations targeted at national governments, donors, and intergovernmental organisations to address the issues of corruption and the illegal wildlife trade.

Though mankind has traded tangible goods for millennia, recent technology has changed the fundamentals of trade, in both legitimate and illegal economies. In the past three decades, the most advanced forms of illicit trade have broken with all historical precedents and, as Dark Commerce shows, now operate as if on steroids, tied to computers and social media. In this new world of illicit commerce, which benefits states and diverse participants, trade is impersonal and anonymized, and vast profits are made in short periods with limited accountability to sellers, intermediaries, and purchasers. Louise Shelley examines how new technology, communications, and globalization fuel the exponential growth of dangerous forms of illegal trade--the markets for narcotics and child pornography online, the escalation of sex trafficking through web advertisements, and the sale of endangered species for which revenues total in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The illicit economy exacerbates many of the world's destabilizing phenomena: the perpetuation of conflicts, the proliferation of arms and weapons of mass destruction, and environmental degradation and extinction. Shelley explores illicit trade in tangible goods--drugs, human beings, arms, wildlife and timber, fish, antiquities, and ubiquitous counterfeits--and contrasts this with the damaging trade in cyberspace, where intangible commodities cost consumers and organizations billions as they lose identities, bank accounts, access to computer data, and intellectual property.