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Abstract
Opportunity theories suggest that the occurrence of an offence depends on the presence of a motivated offender and a specific condition in the environment that presents an opportunity for crime. While offenders may be able to choose among crime opportunities, the question is whether they can create new crime opportunities. Based on a qualitative analysis of court cases, investigative reports and the news media, this article examines the genesis of crime opportunities by looking into the malicious online advertising (malvertising) of substandard, spurious, falsely labelled, falsified and counterfeit (SSFFC) medical products. While further research on this topic is needed, the findings of the article help to understand the importance of unsavoury advertising as a tool that perpetrators use to manipulate consumer demand and proactively create (or expand) criminal markets.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their careful reading of the earlier version of this manuscript and their many insightful comments and suggestions.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. As there is currently no universally agreed definition of what constitutes ‘counterfeit medicine’, this study employs the generic term ‘SSFFC medical products’, developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), to refer to medicinal drugs and medical devices produced with the intent to misrepresent their origin, authenticity or effectiveness.
2. Felson and Clarke, ‘Opportunity Makes the Thief: Practical Theory for Crime Prevention’.
3. Felson, ‘Choosing Crime in Everyday Life’, 329.
4. See note 1 above.
5. Ibid., 210.
6. Clarke, ‘Situational Crime Prevention’, 262.
7. See note 2 above, 328.
8. Siegel, Criminology: Theories, Patterns, and Typologies, 105.
9. Brantingham and Brantingham, ‘Notes on the Geometry of Crime’.
10. Rossmo, Laverty and Moore, ‘Geographic Profiling for Serial Crime Investigation’, 105.
11. Brantingham and Brantingham, ‘Environment, Routine, and Situation’, 278.
12. Clark, ‘Seven Misconceptions of Situational Crime Prevention’.
13. Cohen and Felson, ‘Social Change and Crime Rates Trends’, 605.
14. Ibid.
15. Clarke, ‘Opportunity Makes the Thief’.
16. Von Lampe, ‘Re-conceptualizing Transnational Organized Crime’, 189.
17. Ibid.
18. Felson, Crime and Nature.
19. Brantingham, ‘Prey Selection among Los Angeles Car Thieves’, 3.
20. Felson, ‘The Ecosystem for Organized Crime’, 241.
21. Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia.
22. Varese, The Russian Mafia; and Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs, ‘The Political Economy of Protection Rackets in the Past and the Present’.
23. Albanese, ‘The Causes of Organized Crime’.
24. Surtees, ‘Traffickers and Trafficking in Southern and Eastern Europe Considering the Other Side of Human Trafficking’.
25. Ayling, ‘Criminal Organizations and Resilience’.
26. Kenney, ‘Turning to the “Dark Side”’.
27. Ibid., 110.
28. Lavorgna, ‘Organised Crime Goes Online’.
29. Lavorgna, ‘Wildlife Trafficking in the Internet Age’, 7.
30. Ibid.
31. Lavorgna, ‘The Online Trade in Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals’.
32. Tellis and Ambler, The SAGE Handbook of Advertising; and McAllister and West, The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture.
33. Gambetta, Codes of the Underworld.
34. Liang and Mackey, ‘Pharmaceutical Digital Marketing and Governance’, 2.
35. UNICRI, ‘Counterfeit Medicines and Organised Crime’; and Interpol, ‘Pharmaceutical Crime’.
36. Rogue e-pharmacies usually promote drugs and treatments that can be delivered without the need for a prescription or at very cheap prices. They do not adhere to accepted standards of medicine and/or pharmacy practice. Fake e-pharmacies are scams that pretend to sell medicinal products while in reality they defraud online buyers by stealing their identity or credit card information.
37. WHO, ‘SSFFC Medical Products and the Internet’.
38. Ibid., 3.
39. Hall et al., ‘Search and Stop: Guidelines to Tackle the Online Trade of Falsified Medicinal Products’.
40. WHO, ‘Substandard, Spurious, Falsely Labelled, Falsified and Counterfeit (SSFFC) Medical Products’.
41. Finlay, Counterfeit Drugs and National Security.
42. Satchwell, ‘A Sick Business’.
43. Europol, ‘EU Drug Markets Report: A Strategic Analysis’.
44. For computer security literature on the magnitude of spam and its characteristics, see Kanich et al. ‘Spamalytics’; and Xie et al., ‘Spamming Botnets’.
45. UNICRI, ‘Counterfeit Medicines Sold through the Internet’; and WHO, ‘Safety and Security on the Internet’.
46. Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation, ‘CAN-SPAM ACT OF 2003’.
47. BullGuard, ‘Detecting Spam’.
48. Mailshell, ‘Results of the SpamCatcher Attitude Survey’.
49. Vilches, ‘Report: 29% of Internet Users Have Purchased from Spam’.
50. Grimes, Hough and Signorella, ‘E-mail End Users and Spam’.
51. Fogel and Shlivko. ‘Weight Problems and Spam E-Mail for Weight Loss Products’.
52. Fogel, ‘Consumers with Sexual Performance Problems and Spam E-mail for Sexual Performance’.
53. Spamhaus, ‘The World’s Worst Spam Support ISPs’.
54. Spamhaus, ‘The World’s Worst Spam Enabling Countries’.
55. Spamhaus, ‘Definition of Spam’.
56. Wei et al., ‘Characterization of Spam Advertised Website Hosting Strategy’.
57. The methods of infecting a user’s computer with a bot malware are varied. Some of the most widespread are: (a) drive-by download (user’s visit a malicious site); (b) email (a method of botnet infection through an email containing malicious content often sent by somebody the user knows); (c) pirated software (malware codes are hidden inside a software download). For more information about botnets’ operations and technical specifications, see Fortinet, ‘Anatomy of Botnet’.
58. See note 46 above.
59. Europol, ‘Botnet Infographic’.
60. FDA, ‘FDA Takes Action to Protect Consumers from Dangerous Medicines Sold by Illegal Online Pharmacies’.
61. FBI, ‘Over One Million Potential Victims of Botnet Cyber Crime’.
62. iOCTA, ‘The Internet Organised Crime Threat Assessment’, 9.
63. Ibid., 11.
64. Also known as ‘Ozdok’.
65. FTC, ‘Court Orders Australia-based Leader of International Spam Network to Pay $15.15 Million’.
66. FTC, ‘FTC Shuts Down’.
67. United States of America v. Oleg Y. Nikolaenko, ‘Criminal Complaint, United States’.
68. DOJ, ‘Investigating and Prosecuting 21st CenturyCyber Threats’, 10.
69. See note 41 above.
70. Legitscript, ‘No Prescription Required’.
71. Ibid., 3.
72. Legitscript, ‘Yahoo! Internet Pharmacy Advertisements’.
73. DOJ, ‘Google Forfeits $500 Million Generated by Online Ads & Prescription Drug Sales by Canadian Online Pharmacies’.
74. Ibid.
75. Ibid.
76. Leontiadis, Moore and Christin, ‘Measuring and Analyzing Search-Redirection Attacks’.
77. For computer science literature on the topic, see Ott et al., ‘Finding Deceptive Opinion Spam by Any Stretch of the Imagination;’ and Ott et al., ‘Negative Deceptive Opinion Spam’.
78. United States v. Eric L. Crocker, ‘The United States District Court’.
79. Edwards and Levi, ‘Researching the Organization of Serious Crimes’.
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Yuliya G. Zabyelina
Yuliya G. Zabyelina is Assistant Professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York (CUNY), USA. Her expertise lies in the area of international crime and justice with a particular focus on transnational organised crime, criminal markets and corruption.