The war in Ukraine has fundamentally reshaped organised crime across Europe and beyond, with criminal networks adapting rapidly to conflict and sanctions, according to a comprehensive new report.
An in-depth examination of illicit activity since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 found that war had not only disrupted organised crime but reconfigured it, pushing networks to relocate, diversify and move into entirely new fields.
Dr Alexander Kupatadze, of King's College London, and Dr Erica Marat, of Georgetown University, analysed media data, trade records and conducted in-depth interviews across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and neighbouring regions. They found that crime displacement had been widespread and multi-directional since the Russian invasion, extending from Ukraine into Russia, Western Europe, Central Asia and even as far as the US-Mexico border.
Russia itself emerged as the largest destination for displaced criminal activity. Reported crime and enforcement actions rose sharply, particularly in regions bordering Ukraine, suggesting both increased criminality and intensified policing.
The researchers found that the drugs market had undergone some of the most significant changes. Synthetic drug production had partly shifted to Kazakhstan, while trafficking routes had moved through Belarus, Central Asia and the Balkans.
Human trafficking patterns also showed signs of change and of new opportunities being exploited, including the emergence of smuggling operations helping individuals evade military conscription. At the same time, new participants, including people without previous criminal backgrounds, have entered illicit markets as wartime pressures disrupted borders and enforcement systems.
The research highlighted too the growing use of trade-based money laundering, with suspicious pricing patterns identified in gold and tobacco trade linked to Russia in several European countries. The researchers believe this shows criminals are increasingly embedding illicit finance within legal trade routes to evade sanctions.
The researchers said: "Our report shows that large-scale conflict does not simply displace organised crime across borders but reorganises it across multiple dimensions simultaneously. While spatial displacement is most visible in neighbouring states, more consequential transformations often occur through functional displacement, as criminal actors repurpose existing trade, logistics and financial infrastructures to adapt to wartime and sanctions-induced constraints.
"Although grounded in the Ukrainian case, the implications of our findings extend beyond the current war. Similar combinations of armed violence, sanctions and institutional stress will be evident in other contemporary and future conflict environments.
"The framework we have developed provides a transferable tool for analysing how organised crime adapts under conditions of prolonged disruption, offering insights relevant to policymakers, law enforcement officials and researchers seeking to anticipate criminal reorganisation rather than merely react to it."
The new report, Criminal Geographies: How the Russia-Ukraine War has Reshaped Global Crime Networks, was compiled for the Serious Organised Crime and Anti-corruption Evidence (SOC ACE) research programme. Funded by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, SOC ACE is a new component in the Anti-Corruption Evidence (ACE) research programme, alongside Global Integrity ACE and SOAS ACE. SOC ACE is managed by the University of Birmingham.
