The Impact of Efficiency/Security Trade-Off on Drug Trafficking Networks' Resilience to Arrests: A Simulation Approach

• In Event: Analysing and responding to illicit drug markets

Abstract

Previous research on criminal network disruption has overlooked how criminal groups adapt to law enforcement interventions. This paper investigates the impact of such interventions on drug trafficking organizations (DTOs) under realistic conditions where multiple members are arrested at once, and the group responds with varying strategies. We use an empirically informed agent-based model to simulate drug trafficking activities of a large criminal organization, based on data from a law enforcement operation against an Italian drug trafficking organization and existing literature. Our study examines how different law enforcement interventions affect the resistance and resilience of DTOs that adopt various efficiency/security trade-off strategies. Our results reveal that efficient DTOs are more resilient against single disruption attempts, whereas secure DTOs are more resistant in more realistic scenarios where the group's organization affects the frequency and impact of disruption. Our findings highlight the significant impact of the efficiency/security trade-off on DTOs' ability to survive law enforcement interventions. Although efficient DTOs are highly resilient, they cannot withstand continuous targeting, while secure DTOs are weak in responding to interventions but can persist by avoiding targeting for long periods. These insights can inform the development of more effective strategies for disrupting criminal networks.

Authors

• Deborah Manzi, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore – Transcrime

• Francesco Calderoni, Transcrime / Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Milan)