Optimal Interventions When Illicit Trafficking Responds

Mehmet Bac

Journal of Public Economic Theory, 2025, vol. 27, issue 5

Abstract: The capabilities of illicit trafficking organizations to expand or contract their periphery and source segments by modifying their link structures pose challenges to law enforcement. This paper scrutinizes the structural response of illicit trafficking organizations to intervention strategies. It also studies how the law enforcement authority should allocate its resources between the source and the periphery segments, given the structural response of trafficking, to minimize the expected harms. The analysis shows that traffickers integrate the supply, possibly build redundant sources and expand in peripheral markets if the source segment is targeted (decapitation), maintain near‐maximal expansion by splintering into supply cells or thin subnetworks if the periphery is targeted (amputation). This response subverts law enforcement primarily by suppressing the possibility of trace‐back detection of trafficking units through their detected connections. In the transnational trafficking context, it can also stifle intelligence sharing between nations. The optimal intervention, then, is amputation under intermediate budgets and large source fragmentation costs, decapitation under low detection contiguity. Actual policies that prioritize border protection and port‐of‐entry units can be optimal from national, but not global, perspective.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/jpet.70062

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:jpbect:v:27:y:2025:i:5:n:e70062

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=1097-3923

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Public Economic Theory is currently edited by Rabah Amir, Gareth Myles and Myrna Wooders

More articles in Journal of Public Economic Theory from Association for Public Economic Theory Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().