The Impact of Drug Smuggling as an Organised Crime and Its Effects on a Country's Economic, Social, and Political Situation: A Case Study of UK and Mexico

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER 01: LITERATURE REVIEW1

Drug Smuggling1

Defining Organised crime2

Theories of Organised Crime2

Drug Trafficking as an Organised Crime4

Supply to the UK5

Heroin Trafficking5

Cocaine Trafficking5

United Kingdom Distribution5

Drug Smuggling in Mexico6

Organised Crime Leaders in Mexico6

Consequences of Organised Crime7

Increasing inequality8

Features of Drug Markets9

Social, Political and Economic Impact of Drug Trafficking in Mexico and United Kingdom10

Conclusion12

CHAPTER 02: METHODOLOGY13

Justification for Secondary Research13

Research Method13

Advantages of Secondary Research14

Disadvantages of Secondary Research15

REFERENCES17

CHAPTER 01: LITERATURE REVIEW

Drug Smuggling

Transnational drug smuggling involves the movement of illegal commodities across borders. In most cases, willing sellers and buyers collaborate to successfully achieve their goal. In the last twenty-five years, researchers demonstrated that the drug trade networks share a lot in common with legal markets. A definition of market based offenses that are useful to understand transnational drug smuggling. Drug smuggling consists of multilateral exchanges of inherently illegal goods between producers, distributors and consumers in a market-like context. There are two elements in the smuggling of the drugs. First, drug smuggling involves the movement of an illegal commodity from source to user. The chain between the two comprises a given number of intermediaries. This could be referred to as the “economic” element because it is centred on the commodity trade. Second, those exchanges occur in specific social and political contexts; the commodity itself is secondary (Adler, 1993, pp. 15). The contextual element of drug smuggling has been the subject of many analyses in geopolitics. The study of transnational drug smuggling thus remains multidisciplinary and quite divided: it combines notions borrowed from sociology, anthropology, economics and politics. Economic analyses of transnational smuggling demonstrated the fundamental inequality among participants of the trade (Ball and Robert, 1982, pp. 488).

Drug trafficking or drug smuggling is considered to be a major threat for countries. Drugs comprise of classes. Class A drugs include cocaine, heroin, ecstasy and crack cocaine and these drugs are available widely throughout the United Kingdom. The level of annual supply of cocaine and heroin to the United Kingdom is based on the number of users, the consumption levels and the purity of drugs. Therefore, the levels of heroin lie between 18 to 23 tons and the levels of cocaine lie between 25 to 30 tons (Gugliotta and Jeff, 1990, p. 136).

Defining Organised crime

For approximately a hundred years, speculation has flourished regarding the nature of the organised crime. During this time, countless investigations and governmental studies have convinced some members of law enforcement and the media that organized crime is dominated by a single, monolithic criminal organisation made up of criminals. In contrast to this view, academics and scholars who have studies the phenomenon have countered that there is no single dominant crime organisation and that organized crime is composed of numerous ethnic and transnational groups operating together or apart and in conjunction with legitimate business and political entities (Cressey, 1967, pp. 23). In addition to depictions by the entertainment industry and the ...