The ongoing efforts to stop drug trafficking have disrupted and disturbed some drug trades temporarily, but have largely had little to no effect on degrading or destroying the networks created to traffic illegal drugs. The reason behind this, Phil Williams argues in his article “The nature of drug-trafficking networks”, is because the network structure of these drug-trafficking organizations is not well understood by law enforcement officials.

In a trade where flexibility and teamwork are crucial to success, criminal organizations adopt a network structure instead of the traditional business hierarchical structure because it allows for resilience from disruption. While a traditional business structure relies on hierarchical flow of information from, networks facilitate for constant flow of information and knowledge, and lines of communication are formed much more easily. Drug-trafficking networks in particular work to ensure a stream of transportation of drugs throughout the network, and ensure profit among the various nodes of the network. Because of the network structure of drug-trafficking, it appears disorganized to law enforcement officials, and therefore difficult to combat. Network structures can lose a part of its network and still function, whereas in hierarchical operations, losing a high-ranked member can bring down the entire organization.

All drug-trafficking networks, on some level, consist of a core and a periphery. The core has very dense connections and provide the sense of direction for the network. Nodes within the core must have very strong ties, because the relationships between the core members must have a lot of trust. The periphery is not as dense and exhibit weak ties with the rest of the periphery. This allows for the network to extend farther, but also makes it hard to penetrate due to Grannovetter’s theory of “the strength of weak ties”. Also, drug-trafficking networks may have another line of defense in which some nodes act as insulators between the strong core and the weaker periphery, therefore increasing the distance between the periphery and the core.

Also, although information can easily be disseminated in a network structure, a lot of times the information is kept in a cellular fashion, meaning it only stays within a certain part of the periphery because the information is shared only on a need-to-know basis. This makes it even harder for law enforcement officials to penetrate far into the periphery.

I was surprised to see how illegal organizations have a tendency to accelerate their growth and adapt to better and more efficient structures quicker than regular business organizations because their trade requires a lot of speed, flexibility, and teamwork. Illegal organizations are at the forefront of adopting new technologies (such as the internet) to grow and new strategies for success because their trade exhibits such high risk. Also, it was interesting to see how the strength of weak ties could play into being the primary mechanism of foiling law enforcement officials. This article demonstrates that it is not the wealth, the location, or the people in the organization that can lead to a successful organization, but it is the structure of that organization that makes a large difference.

Source:
The nature of drug-trafficking networks
Phil Williams
Current History; April 1998; 97, 618; Research Library
Pg. 154
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