The long-term impact of the war on criminality in Russia is likely to be malign. For Ukraine, the long-run picture is less clear cut
has hit this underworld with the force of an earthquake . The vast majority of rock-hard Ukrainian mobsters have stopped collaborating with their Russian peers. “We are thieves, we are against any state, but we decided we are for Ukraine,” says one. Lucrative heroin-smuggling routes are being remapped, affecting prices and profits for criminal syndicates thousands of miles away. If the disruption proves lasting it could alter the face of global crime. It will also change Ukraine.
This infrastructure supported different business models for different products. Ukraine was a growing “spin-off” transit route for, augmenting routes through the Balkans and the Caucasus . Before the war it had the fourth-largest heroin seizures in Europe. Cocaine from Latin America flowed via the Black Sea. In the other direction, mobsters exported weapons to Asia and Africa, notably from Mykolaiv, a port. In 2020 Ukraine overtook China to become Europe’s largest source of illegal tobacco.
The knock-on effects are being felt globally as contraband networks are reconfigured to bypass Ukraine. Turkish customs officials say more heroin and methamphetamines are flowing across the border with Iran. Lithuanian border officials saw a fourfold year-on-year rise in illicit tobacco volumes in the first quarter of 2022. Estonian officials working with Europol, the’s police agency, nabbed 3.5 tonnes of Latin American cocaine in the port of Muuga, worth roughly half a billion euros, last year.
For Ukraine the long-run picture is less clear cut. A frozen conflict could certainly create big risks. Before the invasion Ukraine had somewhere between 7m and 9m legal firearms. There were perhaps as many illicit ones. The country is now even more awash with weaponry. History suggests that wars fuel arms-dealing: guns from Yugoslavia are used in violent crime across Europe. Interpol’s secretary-general, Jürgen Stock, has warned there could be a surge in the trafficking of small arms.
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