Anja Shortland is Professor of Political Economy at King’s College London, where she studies private governance in some of the world’s most complex and hostile markets, including kidnapping, piracy, fine art theft, antiquities, and ransomware. Her work explores how people trade, negotiate, and create systems of order in environments where formal state enforcement is weak…
When ransomware shuts down a pipeline, exposes hospital data, or forces a local authority offline, the disruption is often framed as a technical failure. In reality, these incidents represent the visible edge of something far more structured: a global criminal economy that increasingly mirrors the organisation of legitimate industry. Ransomware has evolved from opportunistic hacking…
Violent crime in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) has for decades imposed a heavy toll on lives and economic performance. Outside of active war zones, the region remains the most violent in the world, accounting for roughly one-third of global homicides despite just 8% of the global population. The economic consequences are equally severe….
Irvin Waller is Professor Emeritus of Criminology at the University of Ottawa, whose work focuses on reducing interpersonal violence and advancing victims’ rights across national and international contexts. His research and policy engagement examine how evidence-based prevention strategies can significantly reduce violent crime, with a particular emphasis on translating successful interventions into scalable public policy….
For years, organised crime in Mexico has been framed primarily through the lens of drug trafficking. Cartels are often portrayed as singular entities competing for control over narcotics routes into the United States, with violence understood as a by-product of this competition. Yet this framing obscures a more complex and evolving reality. As David Mora,…
This episode with David Mora examines the evolving landscape of organised crime in Mexico, moving beyond narratives focused solely on drug trafficking to explore the broader systems of control, violence, and economic extraction that underpin cartel activity. We discuss how criminal groups have diversified across sectors, why strategies targeting cartel leaders have often led to fragmentation rather…
As Senior Analyst for Mexico at the International Crisis Group, David researches organised crime, violence, corruption and conflict in the country, blending fieldwork and investigative reporting tools. He analyses and formulates policy strategies aimed at preventing, mitigating or resolving conflict.Trained as an investigative reporter and documentary producer, David has eight years of journalism experience, working…
Humphrey Hawksley is a former BBC foreign correspondent who works over the last 40 years or so has taken him to crises all over the world. He is also an award-winning author, commentator and guest lecturer at universities and think tanks such as the RAND Corporation, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and MENSA…
The global landscape feels increasingly unsettled. Conflict in the Middle East, Sudan and Ukraine to wider geoplitical, technological and climatic shifts, the world is going though a period of rapid change. At the same time, the nature of conflict and the way it’s reported has changed dramatically over the past few decades. So today we’re…
Eliot Higgins is an award-winning journalist and the founder of Bellingcat, the investigative platform that has helped pioneer modern open-source intelligence and digital verification methods. He first gained international recognition through his early work analysing weapons use in the Syrian conflict under the pseudonym “Brown Moses“, before establishing Bellingcat in 2014 following the downing of…
