Cryptomarkets and the returns to criminal experience

ABSTRACT

Criminal capital theory suggests more experienced offenders receive higher returns from crime. Offenders who accrue skills over their criminal career are better able to minimise detection, increase profits, and navigate illegal markets. Yet shifts in the offending landscape to technologically-dependent crimes have led some to suggest that the skills necessary to be successful in conventional crimes no longer apply, meaning ‘traditional’ criminals may be left behind. The recent turn of drug vendors to online markets provides an opportunity to investigate whether ‘street smarts’ translate to success in technologically-dependent crimes. This study surveys 51 drug vendors on online drug markets to compare individuals who began their drug-selling career in physical drug markets with vendors whose onset began on digital platforms. The findings suggest vendors who broker between online and offline drug markets are better positioned to maximize profits. The results inform potential spillover effects from offline drug-selling into online marketplaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Cryptomarkets
• criminal capital
• drug markets
• returns to crime

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the vendors who took the time to engage with our survey and share their experiences. We are indebted to Carlo Morselli who not only inspired this work but to whom we owe much of our academic careers. Carlo played a key brokerage role for our entry into academia, and continues to shape how we see and think about crime.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Measured as individuals’ total reported illicit earnings as a function of the number of weeks they worked an illicit job.

2. The ten cryptomarkets comprise Aero, Berlusconi, CGMC, Dream Market, Libertas, RSClub Market, Sourcery Market, Tochka, the Trade Route, and Zion.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marie Ouellet

Marie Ouellet is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology. Her research explores how illicit groups emerge and evolve, and how networks structure this process.

David Décary-Hétu

David Décary-Hétu is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology at the Université de Montréal. His research broadly focuses on the impacts of technology on crime. Specifically, he studies how offenders adopt and use technologies and how this shapes the regulation of offenses, as well as how researchers can study offenders and offenses.

Andréanne Bergeron

Andréanne Bergeron is a PhD Candidate in the School of Criminology at the Université de Montréal and holder of the prestigious Vanier scholarship. She is also involved in her community as a president of the annual Workshop on Research on Police Investigations and as the coordinator for the Trans-National Organized Crime research project of the Darkweb and Anonymity Research Center. Her dissertation focuses on the dynamic interactions between officers and suspects during police interrogations of online sex offenders.