power and roles in Cocaine Smuggling


Networks

Introduction

The illicit drugs transiting the Atlantic into Spain from the Americas area are of growing concern to Spain and other countries. Between 2007 and 2009, police wiretapped and instigated four groups involved in cocaine trafficking in Spain. My visualization tries to show the network within these criminal organizations.

Tools and Materials

In this project, I use data from Diviák, Tomas’s Czech Corruption data set. It contains four 1-mode matrices data of four criminal organizations:

Mambo: 31×31
Juanes:51×51
Jake: 38×38
Acero: 25×25

They are undirected and valued ties. Relations are communications between individuals. Meaning of tie values is unclear – may represent the level of communications activity. 

I used Gephi, an open visualization platform to process the data.

Process

My dataset is a matrix and it could be automatically recognized and imported into Gephi and divided into Nodes table and Edges table.

I used the “Network Diameter” to calculate the graph distance of these data. I got three attributes: betweenness centrality, closeness centrality, and eccentricity. I used the “Betweenness Centrality” to give my nodes a color range.

And I resized all the nodes according to their “degree”.

In the layout panel, I tried different algorithms and found out that the “Force Atlas2” algorithm worked the best for my data.

In the preview, I set a black background which can emphasized the red color I used for nodes. And show the labels of each nodes.

I repeated this process and applied it to other three datasets.

Results & Discussion

My final results have four graphics show the networks of different groups. All of them have one or two major core members who control the whole network, with few lower branch leaders around them. I will quickly brief through all four operations structure with a little background in the section below.

Operation MAMBO

MAMBO is a typical Spanish middle cocaine group acting as wholesale suppliers between a South American importer group and retailers in Madrid. The investigation started in 2006 and involved Colombian citizens that were introducing 50 kg of cocaine to be adulterated and distributed in Madrid (Spain). Ultimately, the group was involved in smuggling cocaine from Colombia through Brazil and Uruguay to be distributed in Spain. 

Network of “MAMBO”

Operation JUANES

In 2009, the police investigation detected a group involved in the smuggling of cocaine from Mexico to be distributed in Madrid (Spain). In this case, the group operated in close cooperation with another organization that was laundering the illegal income from drug distribution from this and other groups. The cocaine traffickers earned an estimated EUR 60 million.

Network of “JUANES”

Operation JAKE

In 2008, the group investigated was operating as a wholesale supplier and retail distributor of cocaine and heroin in a large distribution zone located in Madrid (Spain), where gypsy clans traditionally carry out similar activities. The group was in charge of acquiring, manipulating and selling the drugs in the gypsy quarter.

network of “JAKE”

Operation ACERO

This investigation started in 2007 and involved a smaller family-based group. The group was composed mainly of members of the same family and was led by a female. They distributed cocaine in Madrid (Spain) that was provided to them by other groups based in a northwest region of the country, one of the most active areas in the provision of cocaine from the countries of origin. The group also had its own procedures to launder money.

network of “ACERO”

Reflection & Future Direction

Gephi is not very friendly to new users. The video tutorial for this software isn’t very clear so I searched over the web and had to watch three extra videos before I can process the next step. I did not refine the dataset because these data require a specific format to display into nodes and edges therefore a settled dataset was loaded. I am still not familiar with most of the features in Gephi and I expect to explore more in the future.

References

Diviák, Tomas (2014). Czech Corruption data set [Data Set]. Retrieved from: https://sites.google.com/site/ucinetsoftware/datasets/covert-networks/czechcorruption.

http://www.realinstitutoelcano.org/wps/portal/rielcano_en/contenido?WCM_GLOBAL_CONTEXT=/elcano/elcano_in/zonas_in/ari79-2018-olson-gordon-shifting-trafficking-illicit-narcotics-spain-us-cooperation