ruggiero, vincenzo - unintended consequences, changes in organised drug supply in the uk

Unintended consequences: changes in organised drugsupply in the UK

Vincenzo Ruggiero

Published online: 20 November 2009# Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009

Abstract Social and institutional alarm around crime and violence within South-Asian communities in the UK has grown substantially over the last 10 years. Whetherbased on imagined threats and moral panics or on realistic observation of facts, suchalarm focuses on drug use, related property crime, gang violence, and ultimately onnew forms of organised criminality emerging among Pakistanis, Indians or SriLankans. This paper sets the scene by examining this imaginary or realistic alarm, tothen offer an overview of studies around South Asian drug use and crime.Subsequently, it presents a number of organised crime models which have takenshape within the communities under examination. Finally, it looks at more recentdevelopments, namely at the changes in organised drug supply determined by specificlaw enforcement choices and by the general political climate in which such choices aremade. The case discussed in this paper shows how the features of illicit markets andthe characteristics of the criminal enterprises operating in them may be the unintendedconsequences of specific social and institutional responses to social problems.

Introduction

Moral entrepreneurs and the gut press may be instrumental in the construction of socialproblems, be they associated with youthful behaviour or to organised crime. Both maybe vehicles of exclusionary rhetoric followed by criminalisation (Woodiwiss andHobbs 2009). In what follows, a more nuanced process will become apparentinvolving a number of diverse actors: local residents in specific environments,journalists working for local or national newspapers, institutional agencies and,finally, academics. Such actors, in an ideal chain, reflect the perception of criminalactivity carried out by members of South Asian communities in the UK.

Trends Organ Crim (2010) 13:4659DOI 10.1007/s12117-009-9085-x

V. Ruggiero (*)Middlesex University, London, UKe-mail: [email protected]

It is not easy to establish the extent to which perceptions tally with reality, alsobecause law enforcement activity plays a central role in forging views, alimentingfears, selecting danger and, ultimately, in creating aspects of reality itself. Thisprocess, however, may entail the participation of the very communities targeted bylaw enforcement, whose self-perception may trigger, or result from, intervention byinstitutional agencies and media depictions. This aspect is dealt with in the firstsection of the following pages, where examples are provided of how the social alarmpertaining to the spread of drug use and distribution within South-Asiancommunities is raised by members of these communities. It is then academicresearch which, at times, may explore the degree to which social alarm is founded,attempting to define the contours of the problem in presumably realistic terms. Lawenforcement, in turn, may be led to prioritise the problem highlighted bycommunities and academics alike, establishing specialised agencies which targetthe alleged sources of that problem. Sections of this paper give an account of bothacademic research and law enforcement activity, namely of those joint efforts which,while attempting to capture, or respond to, a problem inevitably contribute toshaping it. Hence the section devoted to the different forms of South-Asian criminalorganisations prevailing in the drug business, in which a typology is provided ofhow dealing and trafficking networks or enterprises assume specific shapes due tosocial and institutional pressures they experience. In the last section of this papersuch pressures are shown to cause surprising effects that are given the overalldefinition of reverse ethnic succession. In brief, it is hypothesised that, thedifferential targeting of South-Asian criminal groups and communities, combinedwith official views associating such communities with radical Islam and the terroristthreat, will remove South-Asian criminal entrepreneurs from the market, favouringtheir replacement with indigenous white British drug entrepreneurs. Describing thisprocess by stages, it may be useful to start from the local level.

Ash and Mohammed

Articles and letters published in the local press in cities such as Birmingham andManchester set the tone for the following media campaigns launched at the nationallevel. In a letter published by the Birmingham Post (1 September 2003), Ashcomplains that twenty odd years ago, Pakistani, Indian and Sikh communities wereconsidered the most law-abiding communities in the UK. Now look at them!Mohammed replies that Pakistani and Bengali youths are the worst criminals fromAsian background, and that in his area most heroin dealers are Pakistani: realshame to see where many Asian youngsters are heading (1 October 2003). Thesame local paper reports that gangs of young Asian men are stepping up their interestin the drug business, resulting in unprecedented increase in violence and organisedcrime (Warburton 2003). The emerging groups are said to be mainly from Pakistaniand Afghan backgrounds, and to corner the Midlands market of heroin thanks tocontacts they establish with the Asian sub-continent. Drugs like heroin are floodingthe region from cheap sources in areas of Pakistan to be sold on the streets ofBirmingham and Wolverhampton for huge profits. Some initial distinctions areproposed between black drug gangs who get involved in shoot-outs and the Asian

Trends Organ Crim (2010) 13:4659 4747

gangs, which are more organised and play on moral codes within ethniccommunities to get results. Common forms of action are said to be kidnappingmembers of a family of competitors or debtors who owe them money for drugs.They play on the reluctance of the Asian community to seek help from the police.

Echoes of these news items are soon reported in the national press. The DailyMail, for example, writes that Asian drug gangs are the latest crime threat facingBritain, and that while the drug trade has been dominated by Turkish criminals,with Albanians, British and Jamaican Yardies accounting for much of the rest, nowAsians largely born and bred in the UK are muscling in and becoming majorplayers (23 January 2004). Meanwhile, The Times focuses on Operation Ashworth,which is aimed at seizing the weapons of choice for the Asian gang membersfighting for control of the streets: machetes, kitchen knives and meat cleavers (2March 2004).

Prior to media attention, this emerging area of problematic drug use anddistribution had already attracted the attention of academic researchers, and whatfollows is an overview of their findings.

British South Asians and drugs

Specific research into South Asian communities and drugs has addressed thecontroversial point whether such communities are less likely to engage in substancemisuse because of cultural and religious restraints (Ganchi et al. 1997). A studyfound that among South Asian communities levels of alcohol misuse are high, butthose of opiates are remarkably low (Wanigaratne et al. 2001). Other findings seemto indicate that young South Asian drug users have a greater degree of contact withtheir families than do their white counterparts (White 2001), and that, at times,denial strategies are put in place whereby either drug use is regarded as negligible orusers themselves regard it as harmless (Arora and Khatun 1998). On the one hand,there appears to be a worrying lack of help for addicts because of a still widely heldpopular misconception that Asian youths do not use drugs (Patel 2000), on the otherhand, users hesitate to approach drug services because they see them as whiteoriented (Awiah et al. 1992; Khan et al. 2000).

A study centred on South Asian communities in the northwest of Englandprovided an example of how heroin distribution networks might develop. The studyfocused on a key individual who sponsored dealing enterprises and attempted todiscourage independent competitors from emerging. Friendships and kinship werefound to facilitate drug entrepreneurship, while subsequent conflict and break-downof trust were pinpointed as key factors for law enforcement success in dismantlingsuch entrepreneurial initiative (Akhtar and South 2000). A more recent researchstudy conducted by the Asian Drug Advisory Group (2005) based in Coventry foundthat street level distribution is carried out by dealers who use drugs only occasionallyand that distribution is carried out by both males and females. The street market, itwas also found, services users from all ethnic groups, although some dealers wouldonly sell to those with whom they are comfortable. At street level it emerged that noone had any way of knowing the purity of the drug they were buying to sell on(Asian Drug Advisory Group 2005: 61).

48 Trends Organ Crim (2010) 13:4659

Intelligence sources agree that 80 to 90 per cent of heroin entering the UK isunder the control of Turkish networks, who replaced previously dominant Asiangroups. While the latter groups had connections with Burma, Laos and Thailand, theformer established direct connections with Afghanistan and Iran. The developmentof South Asian supply networks in the UK, on the other hand, may be due to theincreasing role played by South Asian drug producers and wholesalers themselves(Carey 2000). Business relations established with Turkish networks in Pakistan mayturn into business partnerships established in the UK between Pakistani and Turkishgroups. Therefore, while not long ago South Asian networks were mainly found atlower levels of the domestic heroin market, and after being temporarily displaced atimportation levels by Turkish groups, they may now take advantage from moredifferentiated patterns of importation and distribution (Sircar 2002).

The recent Indian resurgence in international drug trafficking has been examined, alongwith the effects in South Asia of the Afghan crisis (Haq 2000). It is not clear how theactivities of organised crime in India affect drug trafficking and distribution networks inthe UK, although it is suggested that being a transit country, India may be the placewhere partnerships between local and foreign networks are forged (DEA 2002).

Research based on interviews with drug workers describes Asian dealingnetworks as now active and integrated into most UK cities. Kinship and ethnicity,in these networks, are said to remain important, as they are deemed the traditionalsources of trust in illegal business enterprises. However, though criminal networkscontinue to be based on kinship and linkages with producing countries, inter-ethnicpartnerships are developing due to mere market dynamics (Heal 2002). Thesepartnerships are detectable in changing trafficking routes and in the growing multi-ethnic nature of large drug supply. Partnerships are viable alternatives to traditionalorganisations, in that they permit access to a variety of producers and, at the sametime, to multi-commodity illicit markets.

Finally, the suggestion has been made that when ethnic minorities are involved indrug economies, and in criminal economies in general, while their visibility makesthem more exposed to arrest, they tend to occupy the lower levels and the leastremunerative segments of such economies (Ruggiero 2000; Murji 2003). Moreover,the dynamics of economic globalisation are said to have reinforced patterns ofselective marginalisation and exacerbated the ethnic division of labour within illicitdrug economies (Friman 2004a, b).

An Asian crime wave?

Between 2003 and 2005, Scotland Yard mounts a drive against the growing powerof Asian gangs linked to muggings, drug dealing and protection rackets in London(Tendler 2004). Tarique Ghaffur, the assistant commissioner in charge of specialistcrime operations, warns that detectives would concentrate on Asian gangs, and thatthe police are building up intelligence on heroin operations in South Asiancommunities. This is the prelude to the institution of a special unit focused onSouth Asian crime led by Mr Ghaffur himself, a development that follows theprevious establishment of special units to fight Triads in the Chinese population andYardie gangsters in the black community (Tendler 2004).


What exactly lies behind the creation by the Metropolitan Police of a South AsianCrime Unit? The unit is presented as a response to an apparent rise in crimes rangingfrom kidnapping and gun-use, to drug-running and passport scams with transnationallinks in human trafficking. Modelled on Operation Trident, a specialist unit focusingon gun crime in black communities, the South Asian Crime Unit, it is optimisticallyannounced, will achieve a similar level of success. The Head of the new unit warnsthat the rise in crime, in and between South Asian communities, will result in anetwork of ghettoes, if left unchecked. In turn, these ghettoes will become breedingground for yet further increases in organised crime. And to back this up, Mr Ghaffurreleases documents which show a 300% increase in the number of murdersinvolving South Asians in the last decade and a 41% rise in drug crimes in the last5 years. Yet, antiracist organisation CARF asks what this unit will actually be doing.For, whilst the above statistics may be deplorable, so is the fact that stops under anti-terrorism legislation rose by roughly 1,450% between 1999 and 2003, a hugenumber of which were carried out on South Asians. Particular South Asian groupsare four times more likely to be victims of racist attack than whites, and two and ahalf times more likely to be stopped and searched than whites. CARF reports somehorror stories, like that involving a British Pakistani man, who had his London homeraided by police who beat him, forced him into a prostrate position, and asked himwhere is your God now? Furthermore, the organisation draws attention on therapidly changing context of South Asian communities in Britain, within which theSouth Asian Specialist Unit has emerged. There has been a growing moral panicover lawless Asian youths. Elders and traditional community restraining practiceshave been blamed for not doing enough to curb their behaviour. There has been aperceived breakdown in what are commonly perceived as Asian traitsstrongfamily-ties that bind, a readiness to work hard at all hours, and a strong sense of dutyand obedience before the law. In particular, a number of events in 2001 ensured thatthe already shifting stereotypical assumptions of Asian traits have undeniablyaltered. The summer was beset by riots in northern towns and cities which toreasunder these comfortable beliefs. Here was a generation of Asian youths notprepared to stand by and watch racists march through their neighbourhoods, notprepared to be told they did not belong here. And if this did not put a differentpicture of being Asian on the map, the events of 11 September that year certainlydid. England was suddenly confronted with Asian anger at home and Muslimterrorism abroad. And, predictably enough, adding the two together, mistrust ofMuslims or those perceived to be Muslim flourished under the guise of anti-terrorism and the rhetoric of law and order.

With South Asians cast as Britains new suspect community, we might expectthat a policing unit focusing on this particular group would be at pains toensure that the full protection and support of the law was available to it; thatthe unit would do its utmost to render itself democratically accountable to thevery group it was trying to protect; and, at the very least, challenge thedamning stereotypes that frame South Asians as the enemy within in their owncountry. But, instead, we see a highly politicised imposition of punitivepolicing practices that focus on the number-one agenda of the day: illegalimmigration (Burnett 2004: 2).


For a social reaction to the alarm around South Asian crime, we have to return tosome news items reported in the local as well as the national press. The ManchesterEvening News (6 January 2003) reports that a group of Islamic fundamentalistswent to the scene of a terror raid where an officer was killed, and warned that thetragedy might not be the last. Interviews with local residents reveal an angry moodamong Muslims, who say that Britain could not expect to wage war on Iraq and notface some retaliation. Another interviewee argues: I would not say it is justified, Idont condone the killing of a police officer, but I dont think it should come asunexpected either. Yet another Asian youth explains that the British and Americangovernments cannot expect to kill all those people in Afghanistan and threaten Iraqwith war and there not be some retaliation. Theirs is not a war on terrorism, its a waron Islam. We believe that is the case, and if it continues then I think there willcontinue to be retaliation of some kind. Are we going to send greeting cards toBritain? Finally, in another comment: We are going to stand together as Muslimsand defend our right and honour against the bullies of Britain and America.

In this climate, and with the institution of the new police unit geared towardsSouth Asian crime, the necessity to study drug distribution networks becomesurgent, and attention is given to the role played in such networks by South Asiancriminal enterprises.

South Asian firms and networks

A comprehensive study conducted between 2004 and 2005 suggests thatinvolvement in the drug economy does not necessarily imply embracing a specificdrug subculture. Importing or distributing illicit substances are almost unanimouslydetermined by the profit prospect, and are perceived as one-off remunerativeenterprises or as a regular occupational choice. Whether this is a specific feature ofBritish South Asian dealing networks is impossible to tell from this study (Ruggieroand Khan 2006). However, the authors claim that this is a relatively newphenomenon, as in previous research widespread use of techniques of neutralisa-tion is found whereby dealers justify their activity by affirming that they are users aswell, and by arguing that they provide a service to needy people similar to them(Ruggiero and South 1995).

The situation faced by this research is one in which the different actors involveddo not share motivations, values or life styles, thereby inhabiting an economy basedon fragmented roles and cultures rather than a homogenous social setting. Eachactor, in other words, can participate in that economy while ignoring the rationaleguiding other peoples participation. Often interviewees say that they only know andwork with one or two other people in the distribution network, while one of thedealers at liberty comments that Drug is a dont ask, dont tell, business, and youllnever know the entire chain.

Given the high prevalence the study finds of suppliers who do not use drugs, theresearchers formulate the following hypothesis. The growing number of dealers isnot accompanied by a growing number of users, hence, presumably, the paucity ofearnings available to those who can be termed minimum wage street sellers(Bourgois 1995). In other words, the drug retailing sector, in British South Asian


communities, may be overcrowded, competitive and, therefore, potentially violent asdealers compete for scarcer and scarcer resources (i.e. consumers).

A related observation is made: official unemployment data do not provide anaccurate or detailed enough picture of the labour market. Many young people, inparticular those from visible minorities, are understood to make do in the informaleconomy. It is in this economy that their first encounter with illicit drugs may takeplace. This mainly applies to the vulnerable sectors of the drug economy, namelyindividuals who are more exposed to detection and arrest, such as those the authorsinterview in custody.

In brief, findings suggest that drug dealing networks develop, first, as a result ofmere occupational choices, and second, through involvement in the hidden economyin which many British South Asians try to make a living. In this economy,marginalised youths may start using drugs on an occasional basis, but as barriersbetween recreational and problematic use are being eroded (MacDonald and Marsh2002), poverty drugs become increasingly available. The growing demand for suchdrugs functions as an incentive for the formation of dealing networks.

The development of British South Asian drug networks in the UK is understoodthrough what are known as ethnic succession arguments. These have posited thatcrime can serve as a path of socio-economic mobility for minorities, who eventuallygain access to the formal economy. However, mobility can be constrained withincriminal economies, and law enforcement efforts towards certain minority crimegroups may have the unintended effect of creating opportunities for the upwardmobility of other minority groups (OKane 2003; Friman 2004a). Attention towardsWest Indian criminal groups may have created vacancies which are beingincreasingly filled by British South Asian groups. By the same token, thedisproportionate concentration of law enforcement efforts on British Pakistanismay also create such vacancies for other groups.

On the basis of their findings, Ruggiero and Khan (2006; 2007) identify a numberof different South Asian drug dealing networks and suggest the following typology:

& Family networks. This type of dealing network appears not to be particularlyrelevant in British South Asian drug markets. Rather, families appear toconstitute a crucial cultural obstacle to the development of the drug business.Only inadvertently can families contribute, for example, when sending relativeswho use drugs to their country of origin, where at times users may get in touchwith large distributors and international traffickers.

& Mono-ethnic networks. Opinions differ substantially on the prevalence of thistype of dealing network. At the local level some users and small dealers claimthat business could only be conducted with their own people. Others stress thattheir peer-group is multi-ethnic, and that competition is merely commercial. It istherefore suggested that mono-ethnic networks are very ephemeral, becauseunable to service a market which is increasingly open and multi-ethnic, and inwhich demand for illicit goods and services tends to be extremely diversified.These networks are incapable of establishing partnerships with other ethnicgroups who might offer the skills, know-how and contacts necessary to respondto such diverse demand. Their incapacity turns into violent competition whensuccessful British South Asian networks, at the local level, push out of the


market other ethnic groups who previously played a role in it. Mono-ethnicnetworks, in other words, are prone to inter-ethnic conflict. However, manyinformants note that intra-ethnic conflicts, namely conflicts within British SouthAsian dealing groups themselves, are frequent and perhaps even more serious.

& Issue-specific networks. This type of network seems among the most successful,due to the diversity of the actors involved. Well organised, issue-specificnetworks are formed by an executive layer, middle management, and a numberof employees. However, they are not characterised by long-term membership,and individual involvement may be limited to one-off projects. Core members ofthe network may remain in operation, while clusters of collaborators change andmove on. They do not specialise in one illicit market only, and become multi-drug distributors according to availability and demand. Clean entrepreneurs areinvolved in these networks, for example, in the capacity of investors, moneylaunderers, or when they make their business premises available for drug storingpurposes. Careers are erratic and members are in constant movement: from theofficial to the criminal economy and vice-versa.

& Value-adding networks. With the previous type, these appear to be the mostsuccessful criminal enterprises. They manage to establish alliances with otherethnic groups because they are sufficiently powerful to negotiate the terms ofpartnerships, or to impose a clear division of labour. They are on an equal footingwith Turkish groups of importers and large distributors and with them they carryout joint operations at upper and middle market level. They recruit other ethnicminorities in local level operations and have excellent relationships with officialentrepreneurs. Unlike the previous type of network, their activity is not issue-specific, because the interactions they have with a variety of partners ensurescontinuity and durability to their business. They do business with any reliableactor (legitimate or otherwise) that can generate added value to the network.Their core members are more numerous than the ones in issue-specific networks,and this may explain why, as some informants remark, they are so highlyrespected in the community in which they operate. They are role models, theycreate jobs: this is why they can afford to go around with loads of money withoutfear of being robbed.

Each of the four types of network described above possesses the ability toestablish its own distribution and trafficking business. Some may buy largeconsignments from importers based in the UK, others may buy quantities in Turkey,yet others may outflank Turkish large distributors by establishing direct contactswith wholesalers in Pakistan or India.

Returning to the typology drawn above, it is suggested that family and mono-ethnicnetworks are more likely to import directly from producing countries, but are unable todistribute to wider markets than their own local outlets. The range of their partnershipsis limited and their capacity to form commercial alliances, at home as well as abroad,is hampered by a form of business provincialism. This provincialism is also the resultof the parochialism of some white users, who would not buy drugs from them, thuscreating obstacles to their commercial expansion. Issue-specific and value-addingnetworks, instead, thanks to their ability to find a diverse range of partners and accessa variety of markets, are likely to use all available importing modalities.


It is now time to examine how institutional responses as seen in the most recentperiod are likely to affect drug distribution in the UK.

Unintended consequences

The UN has long been concerned about the unintended consequences of controlsystems and strategies. The first of such consequences is the creation of a criminalblack market. Drug prohibition, of course, contributes to the development ofcriminal economies, in that there is no shortage of criminals interested in competingin a market in which hundred-fold increases in price from production to retail are notuncommon (United Nations 2009: 216). The second is what is described as policydisplacement, in the sense that law enforcement responses may take resources awayfrom the treatment of drug use as a public health issue. The third unintendedconsequence may be geographical displacement. This is also called the ballooneffect, because squeezing (by tighter controls) in one place produces a swelling(namely, an increase) in another place:

Success in controlling the supply of illicit opium in China in the middle of the20th century, for example, displaced the problem to the Golden Triangle. Latersuccesses in Thailand displaced the problem in Myanmar. A similar processunfolded in South West Asia from the 1970s onward. Supply control successesin Turkey, Iran and Pakistan eventually displaced the problem to Afghanistan(United Nations 2009: 216).

The United Nations identify the fourth unintended consequence as substancedisplacement. This means that, if the use of one drug is controlled, suppliers andusers may move on to another drug with less stringent controls. The fifth is the wayauthorities perceive and deal with the users of illicit drugs.

A system appears to have been created in which those who fall in the web ofaddiction find themselves excluded and marginalised from the socialmainstream, tainted with a moral stigma, and often unable to find treatmenteven when motivated to seek it (United Nations 2009: 216).

What is missing from this thoughtful list is the unintended consequence oftargeting one specific ethnic group. We have seen how joint ventures and alliances,issue-specific and added-value networks, provide more organisational stability andmultifaceted competence to drug distributing enterprises. The effects of the way inwhich institutional agencies respond to such networks remain to be examined. Whatnovel changes in the structure of drug distribution in the UK are likely to beproduced? First, let us focus on the international level.

The debate on transnational law enforcement is crucial in this respect, althoughone ought to consider that transnational policing strategies are still geared to nationalcustoms and domestic institutional cultures. Take the following example: onehundred police officers in London have been disciplined for circulating an e-mailshowing black men being decapitated on railings after jumping from a fly-over whilebeing pursued by police (The Independent, 29 November 2006). The message isclear: dont run from the police; but how does this culture translate into transnational


policing strategies? In the UK there is overwhelming evidence of discriminationthroughout the criminal justice system and that minorities cannot be guaranteed fairand equitable treatment, regardless of the nature of their encounters with it. Thisamounts to a collective failure to deliver an appropriate and professional service tominorities (Britton 2004: 89). Attention has focused on police disproportionate useof stop and search powers against black people (Home Office 2003). Other studieshave revealed the ways in which policing is unequally experienced by ethnic groups(Newburn et al. 2004), and the disproportionate extent to which young black menfeature in the crime figures (FitzGerald 2004: 22). As for British South Asiancommunities, while they invoke more effective policing to reduce crime and preventthe racist aggressions to which they are subjected, the police may increasinglyperceive such communities as sources of criminal activity, disorder, and above all asenclaves of dangerous Islamisation (Webster 2004). International law enforcementreplicates this perception, also because we are witnessing the development of aninternational component in policing and a policing component in internationalrelations. This process involves the efforts by Western powers to export theirdomestic definitions not only of democracy but also of crime and criminals, alongwith their criminal justice norms, law enforcement priorities and policing practices(Andreas and Nadelmann 2006: 10). Police practices inspired by stereotypes andother forms of institutional racism are reproduced at transnational level, wherecertain visible minorities and some specific trafficking routes are unequally targeted.The partial coincidence of drug producing countries with politically inimicalcountries provides ammunitions to biased international policing: Islamophobiaexpands from the street of London onto the global arena. Meanwhile, the belief thatdrug trafficking and terrorism are interconnected encourages a coordination of anti-drug and anti-terror policing which is presumed to deal effectively with both(Bjrnehed 2004). However, one should note a paradoxical outcome of this policingstrategy. The enterprises and drug supply networks described earlier may be immuneto transnational policing inspired by stereotypes, as the multi-ethnic partnerships andalliances in which they engage can provide protection from biased law enforcement.Such enterprises, moreover, are diligent enough to avoid the obviously heavilypoliced trafficking routes and cut all direct links with producing countries, resortingas they do mainly to staging posts located in Europe or in other non-suspectcountries. In this way, Islamophobic international policing may end up capturingindividuals from a specific, undesirable, ethnic or religious group, whetherdangerous, culpable or totally innocent, while British South Asian drug enterpriseswill be left undisturbed to prosper.

After 2005, however, with the invasion of Iraq, other developments are coming tothe limelight. The outcomes of the Terrorist Act 2000 are now assessable as is thedeterioration of the relationships between the police force and South Asiancommunities in the UK. Stop and searches and intelligence activities havemultiplied, while academic work has granted corroborating evidence of theappropriateness of police practices. Scholars addressing the issue of organised crimeand terrorism jointly, or coalescing the analysis of drug trafficking with that ofpolitical international conflict, have also multiplied. Even in the prestigious OxfordHandbook of Criminology organised crime and terrorism are dealt with jointly. Thefocus on weak states, moreover, is conveying the notion that people with a


background in such states pose serious threats to hosting Western countries, becausethe increase in the volume and profitability of drugs trafficking is seen as somewhatan aggressive response by weak states to those who want them to embracedemocracy. The dramatic growth in narcotics addiction and trade impacts societalsecurity negatively through increased epidemics of Hepatitis C, sexually transmitteddiseases such as HIV/AIDS, petty crime and decreased economic growth(Swanstrom 2007: 4). Like plague-spreaders, South Asians are of course alsoimputed of running the narcotics industry in order to provide financial support forinternational terrorism (Swanstrom 2007: 5). This reminds us of a grotesque publicwarning released in London not long ago, when the authorities advised people toavoid buying counterfeit clothes in Oxford Street, because most likely the moneygiven to traders would fill the coffers of terrorist organisations. Only paedophiles, forthe time being, are excluded from this gigantic Muslim conspiracy.

The association between drugs and terrorism is, of course, well highlighted inmany documents and official publications, and it is legitimate to wonder whethersuch publications are inspired by academics or whether it is academics who takeinspiration from them (Leggett 2008; Kan 2009; Yadav 2009). As far as the UK isconcerned, for example, it is suggested that some branches of the religiouslyaffiliated Irish insurgency groups have completely abandoned their political goals infavour of money laundering activities. The terrorist heritage of Northern Ireland issaid to have yielded a worrisome criminal element: 30 years of armed conflict haveleft a web of networks in which organised crime can thrive and a fear and secrecythat makes fighting such crime very difficult. Armed groups allegedly takeadvantage of arms supplies that have been accumulated during the past years toengage in criminal business, including narcotics dealing. No evidence is provided tosubstantiate such claims, while England is depicted as a safe haven for terroristgroups due to its open immigration policy and tolerant attitude toward a variety ofdissenters. In these types of publication, however, the point is also made that theUKs Terrorism Act of 2000 has substantially changed this by expanding the powerof the police and the Home Secretary to cut down fund-raising, recruitment, andtraining conducted by suspected terrorist cells under the guise of political orreligious activity. A new law, in its turn, has made possible the confiscation of bankassets of those suspected of conspiracy to commit a terrorist act (The LibraryCongress 2003: 1325).

Inevitably, such developments translate into sharply higher costs for South Asianswho choose to engage in criminal business. Statistics reflect this, showing that whilein past years drug trafficking and distribution saw Pakistanis participation amount toaround 30% of the total business, now their score does not go over 10% (SOCA2009). One may assume that, while in the past their visibility forced them to mergewith other groups from different ethnic backgrounds, they are now more likely to bethe object of acquisition on the part of less stigmatised ethnic groups. We have seenabove how South Asian drug enterprises may be disadvantaged by provincialism,including the provincialism of customers; what we are witnessing now is theiroutright expulsion from the market due to their particular dangerousness in the eyesof institutional agencies and potential partners. Such vulnerability to lawenforcement also depreciates them in transactions with mediators and evenproducers, who rightly fear that those obsessively targeted by the police may lead


the latter to them. All of this suggests that perhaps we are experiencing anunprecedented version of what above has been described as ethnic succession. Iwould term this reverse succession, whose contours I would like to discuss in theconcluding part of this paper.

The British agency dealing with serious organised crime (SOCA) looks atcriminal networks, how they are structured, and how they develop. It also describesa number of cross-cutting criminal activities that are undertaken to enable othercrimes, and deals in detail with the more significant areas of drugs trafficking,organised immigration crime, and fraud. One goal of SOCA, among others, is toincrease the awareness of risk, so that the criminals believe it is more likely thatthey will be caught, and be dealt with severely; SOCA therefore puts pressure oncriminals so that they stop or operate less freely. The linking of terrorism withMuslims, and of Muslims with drugs, has indeed contributed to the achievement ofthis goal. First, it has stopped or hampered the crimes that are ancillary to othercriminal activities or businesses. The asphyxiating control imposed on South Asiancommunities, for example, has targeted lawful entrepreneurs, thus reducing thepossibility for South Asian drugs entrepreneurs to establish connections with theofficial economy. If one considers that many serious organised criminals make useof financial and legal professionals to handle their financial affairs, such affairs areheavily compromised for South Asian groups (SOCA 2009: 5). The view thatcriminals manage risk of apprehension by working in the main with people theyknow well leads law enforcement to target South Asian communities in general,rather than South Asian criminals. It is assumed, for example, that sharedexperience, gained through family connections, school, prison, or previous criminalcollaboration, is important to establish trust. Common nationality or ethnicity is alsoimportant, particularly where there is a relatively small community (SOCA 2009:11). Targeting such nationalities and ethnicities may, however, have yet anotherunintended effect. With the slump experienced by South Asian criminalentrepreneurs, other actors may enter the scene, for example, the white Britishcriminals identified as major UK suppliers of heroin based in Merseyside. These aresaid to supply drugs to all parts of the UK, including much of Scotland. They appearincreasingly willing to bypass the London-based Turkish traffickers who have beentheir traditional suppliers, and to source directly from Europe, mostly the Nether-lands, but also Belgium and France (SOCA 2009: 27). The increase in the amountof heroin seized in consignments originating directly from Afghanistan and Pakistanis bound to mobilise such white British suppliers. Let us see a possible scenario ofthis development.

South Asian drug networks are experiencing a novel arrangement of thedimension of risk associated with their activity (for an analysis of criminal risk,see Matrix Knowledge Group 2007). Their market risk, namely the factors affectingdemand and supply, may slowly change, although the production of drugs across theworld is increasing while demand remains substantially stable. In such situation,their difficult position in the market may encourage other groups to intervene andreplace them, or existing groups to appropriate higher shares of the available profits.Their business risk, namely factors affecting the ability to run a profitable businessand manage costs, is severely affected due to their increasing vulnerability to lawenforcement. Their credit risks may also be compromised, as their ability to receive


payments from debtors may also decline due to their vulnerability. Their operationalrisks, affecting the logistics of undertaking transactions, will also increase due tohigher risk of being arrested. Finally, risks linked with their reputation willinevitably follow suit: who would trust entrepreneurs who are so blatantly exposedto prosecution and who are slowly losing the protection of legitimate actorsbelonging to their very ethnic group and community? As noted above, ethnicsuccession implies that marginalised groups, initially involved in criminal activity,are slowly included in host societies and given the opportunity to pursue legitimatecareers, while new comers replace them in illicit markets. Instead, reversesuccession implies that emerging white British criminal entrepreneurs replace theirSouth Asian counterparts, finally realising a national dream that in the UK isexpressed with the slogan British jobs for British workers. Only, in this case, theslogan would go: British crimes for British criminals!

References

Akhtar S, South N (2000) Hidden from heroins history: Heroin use and dealing within an English Asiancommunity. In: Natarajan M, Hough M (eds) Illegal drug markets. Criminal Justice, New York

Andreas P, Nadelmann E (2006) Policing the globe: Criminalization and crime control in internationalrelations. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Arora R, Khatun A (1998) No to Nasha: Drugs, alcohol and tobacco use in the Bradfords Asiancommunity. Race Relations Research Unit, Bradford

Asian Drug Advisory Group (2005) Report of the community led research project focussing on the druginformation and treatment needs amongst the South Asian communities in Coventry. ADAG,Coventry

Awiah J, Butt S, Dorn N, Pearson G, Patel K (1992) Race, gender and drug services. ISDD, LondonBjrnehed E (2004) Narco-terrorism: the merger of the war on drugs and the war on terror. Global Crime

6:305324Bourgois P (1995) In search of respect: Selling crack in El Barrio. Cambridge University Press,

CambridgeBritton NJ (2004) Minorities, crime and criminal justice. In: Muncie J, Wilson D (eds) Student handbook

of criminal justice and criminology. Cavendish, LondonBurnett J (2004) The South Asian crime unit: Policing by ethnicity? CARF features (Campaign Against

Racism and Fascism). CARF, LondonCarey SF (2000) Looking for the buzz: Heroin, the drug of choice: Drug use amongst the Bangladeshi

youths. Borough of Tower Hamlets, LondonDEA (2002) Drug intelligence brief: India country brief, MayFitzGerald M (2004) Understanding ethnic differences in crime statistics. Criminal Justice Matters 55:2223Friman HR (2004a) The great escape? Globalisation, immigrant entrepreneurship and the criminal

economy. Rev Int Polit Econ 11:98131Friman HR (2004b) Forging the vacancy chain: law enforcement efforts and mobility in criminal

economies. Crime, Law Soc Chang 41:5377Ganchi Y, Unell I, Mclean PC, Mohammad A (1997) A survey of knowledge, attitudes and drug usage

amongst young Asian People in Nottingham, Nottingham: Asian youth drug awareness programmeHaq M (2000) Drugs in South Asia: From Opium trade to the present day. Macmillan, LondonHeal A (2002) A strategic assessment of crack cocaine use and supply in South Yorkshire, South

Yorkshire police and partnership drug strategy unitKan PR (2009) Drugs and contemporary warfare. Potomac Books, DullesKhan F, Ditton J, Hammersley R (2000) Ethnic minority use of illegal drugs in Glasgow. Addict Res 8:2749Leggett T (2008) Drug trafficking as a security threat in West Africa. United Nations Office on Drugs and

Crime, ViennaMacDonald R, Marsh J (2002) Crossing the Rubicon: youth transitions, poverty, drugs and social

exclusion. Int J Drug Policy 13:2738


Matrix Knowledge Group (2007) The illicit drug trade in the United Kingdom, Home office online reportMurji K (2003) Pourquoi certaines personnes prennent des risques dans le traffic des drogues? Les Cahiers

T3E(8):5962Newburn T, Shiner M, Hayman S (2004) Race, crime and justice? Strip search and the treatment of

suspects in custody. Br J Criminol 44:677694OKane JM (2003) The crooked ladder: Gangsters, ethnicity, and the American dream. Transaction, New

BrunswickOffice H (2003) Statistics on race and the criminal justice system. Home Office, LondonPatel K (2000) Using qualitative research to examine the nature of drug use among minority ethnic

communities. EMCDDA, LisbonRuggiero V (2000) Criminal franchising: Albanians and illicit drugs in Italy. In: Natarajan MA, Hough M

(eds) Illegal drug markets: From research to prevention policy. Criminal Justice, New YorkRuggiero V, Khan K (2006) British South Asian communities and drug supply networks in the UK: a

qualitative study. Int J Drug Policy 17:473483Ruggiero V, Khan K (2007) The organisation of drug supply: South Asian criminal enterprise in the UK.

Asian Journal of Criminology 2:163177Ruggiero V, South N (1995) Eurodrugs. UCL, LondonSircar N (2002) www.hindustantimes.comSOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency) (2009) The United Kingdom threat assessment of serious

organised crime. SOCA, LondonSwanstrom N (2007) The narcotics trade: a threat to security? National and transnational implications.

Global Crime 8(1):125Tendler S (2004) Asian gangs face London crime wave crackdown. The Times, 6 FebruaryThe Independent (2006) Police reprimanded for circulating racist e-mail, 29 NovemberThe Library Congress (2003) Nations hospitable to organized crime and terrorism. Federal Research

Division, WashingtonUnited Nations (2009) World drug report 2008. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, ViennaWanigaratne S, Unnithan S, Strang J (2001) Substance misuse and etnic minorities: Issues for the UK. In:

Bhurga D, Cochrane R (eds) Psychiatry in multicultural Britain. Gaskell, LondonWarburton R (2003) Organised crimes are increasing. The Birmingham Post, 3 NovemberWebster C (2004) Policing British Asian communities. In: Hopkins Burke R (ed) Hard cop, soft cop:

Dilemmas and debates in contemporary policing. Willan, CullomptonWhite R (2001) Heroin use, ethnicity and the environment: the case of the London Bangladeshi

community. Addiction 96:18151824Woodiwiss M, Hobbs D (2009) Organised evil and the Atlantic alliance: moral panics and the rhetoric of

organised prime Policing in America and Britain. Br J Criminol 49:106128Yadav SN (2009) Terrorism, drug-trafficking and organised crime: Challenges for international peace and

security. Jnanada Prakashan, New Delhi


Unintended consequences: changes in organised drug supply in the UKAbstractIntroductionAsh and MohammedBritish South Asians and drugsAn Asian crime wave?South Asian firms and networksUnintended consequencesReferences

/ColorImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorACSImageDict > /JPEG2000ColorImageDict > /AntiAliasGrayImages false /CropGrayImages true /GrayImageMinResolution 150 /GrayImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleGrayImages true /GrayImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /GrayImageResolution 150 /GrayImageDepth -1 /GrayImageMinDownsampleDepth 2 /GrayImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeGrayImages true /GrayImageFilter /DCTEncode /AutoFilterGrayImages true /GrayImageAutoFilterStrategy /JPEG /GrayACSImageDict > /GrayImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayACSImageDict > /JPEG2000GrayImageDict > /AntiAliasMonoImages false /CropMonoImages true /MonoImageMinResolution 1200 /MonoImageMinResolutionPolicy /OK /DownsampleMonoImages true /MonoImageDownsampleType /Bicubic /MonoImageResolution 600 /MonoImageDepth -1 /MonoImageDownsampleThreshold 1.50000 /EncodeMonoImages true /MonoImageFilter /CCITTFaxEncode /MonoImageDict > /AllowPSXObjects false /CheckCompliance [ /None ] /PDFX1aCheck false /PDFX3Check false /PDFXCompliantPDFOnly false /PDFXNoTrimBoxError true /PDFXTrimBoxToMediaBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXSetBleedBoxToMediaBox true /PDFXBleedBoxToTrimBoxOffset [ 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 0.00000 ] /PDFXOutputIntentProfile (None) /PDFXOutputConditionIdentifier () /PDFXOutputCondition () /PDFXRegistryName (http://www.color.org?) /PDFXTrapped /False

/SyntheticBoldness 1.000000 /Description >>> setdistillerparams> setpagedevice

ruggiero, vincenzo - unintended consequences, changes in organised drug supply in the uk

Documents