(I)llicit chains : some new hypotheses regarding a changing global cocaine market

International cocaine trafficking from South America has increased significantly over the past decade. Based on mixed-methods research, we hypothesize that this change has been driven primarily by the globalization of its logistics, which has led to relevant technical and political changes along the value chain. Today’s global criminal logistics connect a wider variety of producers and retailers, ensuring a market without monopoly and monopsony, although very few transnational criminal groups control the center of the value chain. Their cooperation results in a virtuous circle for illicit accumulation, in which the constant improvement in productivity in South America also leads to an increase in consumer demand in Europe and, more recently, in Africa, Asia, and Oceania. We used a mixed-methods approach to relationally analyze coherent changes in the cocaine value chain in Latin American, African, and European countries.