Alberto Aziani
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 196102 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Alberto Aziani |
| NOMBRES | Alberto |
| APELLIDO | Aziani |
| FIRMA | AZIANI A |
| AFILIACIONES | Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4745-7337 |
| VERIFICADO | Sí |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 26 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 24 |
| TOTAL COMO AUTOR | 25 |
| TOTAL COMO EDITOR | 1 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2017 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2026 |
| ÍNDICE H | 3 |
Governance and trade
Systemic violence is a structural feature of drug economies and a key spillover of prohibitionist drug policies. Despite its centrality, the concept is often applied in ways that obscure its distinct purposes, market levels, and organizational contexts. To address this gap, the study examines violence at the intersection of mafia activity and drug markets, focusing on its distribution across market levels (retail, national wholesale, transnationa…
On Reuter’s contribution to the drug policy debate
From (Possible) Detection to Action
Transnational cocaine trafficking
Mapping transnational cocaine flows remains challenging due to fragmented and unreliable datasets, limiting understanding of trafficking structures. To address this, we integrate two distinct sources–the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Individual Drug Seizures and the United States’ International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports–to construct and compare 9 years of global cocaine trafficking networks. Using social network analysis, we r…
Convergence Between Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking of Goods
There is debate about the convergence of migrant smuggling and transnational trafficking of goods, the threat it poses to society, and its evolution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, empirical evidence is limited. We tested for convergence using a methodology based on natural language processing. Results show that convergence occurs, but it is rare and episodic. Exploratory results suggest that COVID-19 containment policies had no im…
The criminal activities and operational roles of Australian neo-jihadists
Despite the significant global repercussions of terrorism, including loss of lives and economic resources, research on its relationship with crime has been limited to group-level analyses. This study examines the individual criminal activities of Australian Neo-Jihadists, via social network analysis from an individual perspective. Judicial documents and newspaper articles are analysed to determine the criminal activities and operational roles of …
Terrorist Financing
This study examines the use of traditional systems and emerging financial technologies for terrorist financing based on a dataset comprising 121 cases around the world. While there are speculations that terrorists are largely adopting emerging FinTechs like cryptocurrencies, our exploratory findings indicate that only 7 percent of cases involve such technologies. Traditional payment systems are still dominant, accounting for 93 percent of cases. …
Homicide clearance
Previous studies have produced mixed findings regarding discretionary and non-discretionary factors associated with the likelihood of homicides being cleared. Performing Pearson’s χ 2 test, logistic regressions, and random forest analyses on all homicide cases that occurred in Italy in 2014, we assess if factors pertaining to the discretionary domain – that is, nationality, age, sex, socioeconomic status of the victim, previous convictions – and …
Covid-19 and Organized Crime
The COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities for organized criminal groups and confronted them with new challenges. Analysis of how these groups have reacted to the pandemic yields better understanding of how they work and enables the devising of more effective counter-strategies. To this end, we identified illustrative cases regarding the provision of illegal governance and infiltration of the legal economy by conducting a systematic cont…
The heterogeneity of human smugglers
Changing dynamics of drug overdoses in the United Kingdom
Steady exponential growth in the all-drugs mortality rate may be a phenomenon specific to certain contexts. It remains an open question whether the explanation of steady exponential growth in the United States and Northern Ireland relates to demand and supply mechanisms, to social and political conditions, or to coincidence
Transnational trafficking networks of end-of-life vehicles and e-waste
Based on case studies and interviews, it appears that the transnational trafficking of various waste types follows distinct paths. However, this information only provides a partial view of the global waste trafficking network, as it has never been studied by combining all the known illegal flows of different waste types. To address this gap, we analysed data from the Basel Convention National Reports to reconstruct networks of countries that enga…
The Evolution of Illicit Flows
What happens when the police go on strike? Homicides increase. Evidence from Ceará, Brazil
This study investigates how an abrupt reduction in policing impacts upon the occurrence of homicides in a violent context in the Global South. The study utilizes a police strike in the Brazilian state of Ceará in summer 2020 as a quasi-natural experiment. Separate SARIMA and Exponential Smoothing models fitted on data on weekly homicide counts from January 2015 to the beginning of the strike are used to generate forecasts of homicides in a virtua…
Evolution of Illicit Flows
Exploring the Immediate Effects of Covid-19 Containment Policies on Crime
This work investigates whether and how COVID-19 containment policies had an immediate impact on crime trends in Los Angeles. The analysis is conducted using Bayesian structural time-series and focuses on nine crime categories and on the overall crime count, daily monitored from January 1st 2017 to March 28th 2020. We concentrate on two post-intervention time windows—from March 4th to March 16th and from March 4th to March 28th 2020—to dynamically…
Explaining the Consumption of Illicit Cigarettes
A Quantitative Application of Enterprise and Social Embeddedness Theories to the Transnational Trafficking of Cocaine in Europe
Illegal enterprise and social embeddedness theories have highlighted the importance of market forces and social factors, respectively, for analyzing organized crime and organized criminal activities. This paper empirically demonstrates the joint explanatory power of these respective theories in the case of the transnational trafficking of cocaine. It does so by conceptualizing transnational cocaine trafficking as a network of relationships among …
Disentangling community-level changes in crime trends during the Covid-19 pandemic in Chicago
Recent studies exploiting city-level time series have shown that, around the world, several crimes declined after COVID-19 containment policies have been put in place. Using data at the community-level in Chicago, this work aims to advance our understanding on how public interventions affected criminal activities at a finer spatial scale. The analysis relies on a two-step methodology. First, it estimates the community-wise causal impact of social…
Measuring (Transnational) Organized Crime as an Indicator of Global Justice
The Global Waste Trafficking and Its Correlates
Our understanding of illicit waste trafficking (IWT) is in its embryonic stages; most notably, the transnational nature of this phenomenon has hitherto been neglected in extant empirical research. This study provides the first analysis of the possible coorrelates of transnational IWT at a global level. Through recourse to information extracted from the official Basel Convention National Reports, we constructed a network of the most relevant IWT c…
Violent disequilibrium
A methodology for estimating the illicit consumption of cigarettes at the country level
This paper introduces and discusses a methodology for estimating the scale of illicit consumption of cigarettes at a national level. After reviewing current data gathering approaches and estimates, the paper delineates a methodology to estimate the consumption of each type of illicit cigarette (i.e., counterfeits, illicit whites, smuggled/trafficked genuine cigarettes). The proposed methodology is tested through estimating the size and characteri…
A Security Paradox. The Influence Of Governance-Type Organized Crime Over the Surrounding Criminal Environment
This study empirically demonstrates how governance-type organized crime groups (OCGs) operate as an enforcer against volume crimes in the communities they control and argues that their ability to mitigate volume crimes forms an integral component of controlling their territory in the long term. This is because the costs incurred from deterring other crimes are offset by the tangible and intangible revenues that it facilitates. Indeed, combating v…
Illicit Financial Flows
The determinants of heroin flows in Europe
A Quantitative Application of Enterprise and Social Embeddedness Theories to the Transnational Trafficking of Cocaine in Europe
Illegal enterprise and social embeddedness theories have highlighted the importance of market forces and social factors, respectively, for analyzing organized crime and organized criminal activities. This paper empirically demonstrates the joint explanatory power of these respective theories in the case of the transnational trafficking of cocaine. It does so by conceptualizing transnational cocaine trafficking as a network of relationships among …
A Security Paradox. The Influence Of Governance-Type Organized Crime Over the Surrounding Criminal Environment
This study empirically demonstrates how governance-type organized crime groups (OCGs) operate as an enforcer against volume crimes in the communities they control and argues that their ability to mitigate volume crimes forms an integral component of controlling their territory in the long term. This is because the costs incurred from deterring other crimes are offset by the tangible and intangible revenues that it facilitates. Indeed, combating v…
Convergence Between Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking of Goods
There is debate about the convergence of migrant smuggling and transnational trafficking of goods, the threat it poses to society, and its evolution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, empirical evidence is limited. We tested for convergence using a methodology based on natural language processing. Results show that convergence occurs, but it is rare and episodic. Exploratory results suggest that COVID-19 containment policies had no im…
The criminal activities and operational roles of Australian neo-jihadists
Despite the significant global repercussions of terrorism, including loss of lives and economic resources, research on its relationship with crime has been limited to group-level analyses. This study examines the individual criminal activities of Australian Neo-Jihadists, via social network analysis from an individual perspective. Judicial documents and newspaper articles are analysed to determine the criminal activities and operational roles of …
A methodology for estimating the illicit consumption of cigarettes at the country level
This paper introduces and discusses a methodology for estimating the scale of illicit consumption of cigarettes at a national level. After reviewing current data gathering approaches and estimates, the paper delineates a methodology to estimate the consumption of each type of illicit cigarette (i.e., counterfeits, illicit whites, smuggled/trafficked genuine cigarettes). The proposed methodology is tested through estimating the size and characteri…
The determinants of heroin flows in Europe
Illicit Financial Flows
Disentangling community-level changes in crime trends during the Covid-19 pandemic in Chicago
Recent studies exploiting city-level time series have shown that, around the world, several crimes declined after COVID-19 containment policies have been put in place. Using data at the community-level in Chicago, this work aims to advance our understanding on how public interventions affected criminal activities at a finer spatial scale. The analysis relies on a two-step methodology. First, it estimates the community-wise causal impact of social…
Measuring (Transnational) Organized Crime as an Indicator of Global Justice
The Global Waste Trafficking and Its Correlates
Our understanding of illicit waste trafficking (IWT) is in its embryonic stages; most notably, the transnational nature of this phenomenon has hitherto been neglected in extant empirical research. This study provides the first analysis of the possible coorrelates of transnational IWT at a global level. Through recourse to information extracted from the official Basel Convention National Reports, we constructed a network of the most relevant IWT c…
Violent disequilibrium
A methodology for estimating the illicit consumption of cigarettes at the country level
This paper introduces and discusses a methodology for estimating the scale of illicit consumption of cigarettes at a national level. After reviewing current data gathering approaches and estimates, the paper delineates a methodology to estimate the consumption of each type of illicit cigarette (i.e., counterfeits, illicit whites, smuggled/trafficked genuine cigarettes). The proposed methodology is tested through estimating the size and characteri…
A Security Paradox. The Influence Of Governance-Type Organized Crime Over the Surrounding Criminal Environment
This study empirically demonstrates how governance-type organized crime groups (OCGs) operate as an enforcer against volume crimes in the communities they control and argues that their ability to mitigate volume crimes forms an integral component of controlling their territory in the long term. This is because the costs incurred from deterring other crimes are offset by the tangible and intangible revenues that it facilitates. Indeed, combating v…
Exploring the Immediate Effects of Covid-19 Containment Policies on Crime
This work investigates whether and how COVID-19 containment policies had an immediate impact on crime trends in Los Angeles. The analysis is conducted using Bayesian structural time-series and focuses on nine crime categories and on the overall crime count, daily monitored from January 1st 2017 to March 28th 2020. We concentrate on two post-intervention time windows—from March 4th to March 16th and from March 4th to March 28th 2020—to dynamically…
Explaining the Consumption of Illicit Cigarettes
A Quantitative Application of Enterprise and Social Embeddedness Theories to the Transnational Trafficking of Cocaine in Europe
Illegal enterprise and social embeddedness theories have highlighted the importance of market forces and social factors, respectively, for analyzing organized crime and organized criminal activities. This paper empirically demonstrates the joint explanatory power of these respective theories in the case of the transnational trafficking of cocaine. It does so by conceptualizing transnational cocaine trafficking as a network of relationships among …
The Evolution of Illicit Flows
What happens when the police go on strike? Homicides increase. Evidence from Ceará, Brazil
This study investigates how an abrupt reduction in policing impacts upon the occurrence of homicides in a violent context in the Global South. The study utilizes a police strike in the Brazilian state of Ceará in summer 2020 as a quasi-natural experiment. Separate SARIMA and Exponential Smoothing models fitted on data on weekly homicide counts from January 2015 to the beginning of the strike are used to generate forecasts of homicides in a virtua…
Evolution of Illicit Flows
Homicide clearance
Previous studies have produced mixed findings regarding discretionary and non-discretionary factors associated with the likelihood of homicides being cleared. Performing Pearson’s χ 2 test, logistic regressions, and random forest analyses on all homicide cases that occurred in Italy in 2014, we assess if factors pertaining to the discretionary domain – that is, nationality, age, sex, socioeconomic status of the victim, previous convictions – and …
Covid-19 and Organized Crime
The COVID-19 pandemic has created new opportunities for organized criminal groups and confronted them with new challenges. Analysis of how these groups have reacted to the pandemic yields better understanding of how they work and enables the devising of more effective counter-strategies. To this end, we identified illustrative cases regarding the provision of illegal governance and infiltration of the legal economy by conducting a systematic cont…
The heterogeneity of human smugglers
Changing dynamics of drug overdoses in the United Kingdom
Steady exponential growth in the all-drugs mortality rate may be a phenomenon specific to certain contexts. It remains an open question whether the explanation of steady exponential growth in the United States and Northern Ireland relates to demand and supply mechanisms, to social and political conditions, or to coincidence
Transnational trafficking networks of end-of-life vehicles and e-waste
Based on case studies and interviews, it appears that the transnational trafficking of various waste types follows distinct paths. However, this information only provides a partial view of the global waste trafficking network, as it has never been studied by combining all the known illegal flows of different waste types. To address this gap, we analysed data from the Basel Convention National Reports to reconstruct networks of countries that enga…
The criminal activities and operational roles of Australian neo-jihadists
Despite the significant global repercussions of terrorism, including loss of lives and economic resources, research on its relationship with crime has been limited to group-level analyses. This study examines the individual criminal activities of Australian Neo-Jihadists, via social network analysis from an individual perspective. Judicial documents and newspaper articles are analysed to determine the criminal activities and operational roles of …
Terrorist Financing
This study examines the use of traditional systems and emerging financial technologies for terrorist financing based on a dataset comprising 121 cases around the world. While there are speculations that terrorists are largely adopting emerging FinTechs like cryptocurrencies, our exploratory findings indicate that only 7 percent of cases involve such technologies. Traditional payment systems are still dominant, accounting for 93 percent of cases. …
From (Possible) Detection to Action
Transnational cocaine trafficking
Mapping transnational cocaine flows remains challenging due to fragmented and unreliable datasets, limiting understanding of trafficking structures. To address this, we integrate two distinct sources–the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime Individual Drug Seizures and the United States’ International Narcotics Control Strategy Reports–to construct and compare 9 years of global cocaine trafficking networks. Using social network analysis, we r…
Convergence Between Migrant Smuggling and Trafficking of Goods
There is debate about the convergence of migrant smuggling and transnational trafficking of goods, the threat it poses to society, and its evolution in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, empirical evidence is limited. We tested for convergence using a methodology based on natural language processing. Results show that convergence occurs, but it is rare and episodic. Exploratory results suggest that COVID-19 containment policies had no im…
Governance and trade
Systemic violence is a structural feature of drug economies and a key spillover of prohibitionist drug policies. Despite its centrality, the concept is often applied in ways that obscure its distinct purposes, market levels, and organizational contexts. To address this gap, the study examines violence at the intersection of mafia activity and drug markets, focusing on its distribution across market levels (retail, national wholesale, transnationa…
Crime, Illicit Activities, and Governance (18 obras) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (14 obras) · Political science (14 obras) · Business (13 obras) · Criminology (13 obras) · Sociology (13 obras) · Economics (12 obras) · Law (9 obras) · Computer Science (8 obras) · HIV, Drug Use, Sexual Risk (7 obras)