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The British Journal of Criminology 38:537-560 (1998)
© 1998 Centre for Crime & Justice Studies (formerly ISTD)

RESEARCH-ARTICLE

DRUGS IMPORTATION AND THE BIFURCATION OF RISK

Capitalization, Cut Outs and Organized Crime

NICHOLAS DORN, LUTZ OETTE and SIMONE WHITE

Nicholas Dorn is Director of Research and Development at ISDD, Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence, London, where he co-ordinates a study supported by the European Commission on administrative measures in drug policy
Lutz Oette is completing his legal training in Cologne after studying in London for an LLM
Simone White is a Senior Research Fellow at De Montfort University, Leicester, where she researches and teaches EU law. Communications may be sent to the first author by e-mail: nicholas{at}isdd.co.uk or ecru{at}dial.pipex.com

Qualitative research was conducted with 15 persons convicted of serious offences in connection with drugs importation into the UK, and with 10 informants of Her Majesty's Customs and Excise, with appropriate safeguards.1 Objectives included an assessment of smugglers' (planners' and organizers') perceptions about ‘risk’ and how they attempted to reduce risk. Two conceptually distinct forms of risk were identified. Strategic risk is the risk to the planner/organizer (‘number 1’ man or woman). Tactical risk is the risk to the drugs and to persons other than the planner/organizer. This paper focuses on strategic risk, which is described as differing markedly between (a) the well capitalized, risk-adverse number 1, who is well ‘cut out’ from danger, and (b) the more risk-tolerant, ‘hands on’ number 1, who is more directly associated with the drugs and other vulnerable aspects of smuggling operations. The authors give reasons for focusing future work on interactions between the first category of trafficker and control strategies.


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