Behind the curtain: an investigation of the illicit trade in firearms and explosives on the dark net

The proliferation and illicit movement of firearms and explosives within and around Europe is a complex of interrelated problems. The wave of terrorist attacks that characterized 2015, including Paris terror attacks in November 2015 and recent event in Brussels, provide mounting evidence to suggest that the illegal trade in small arms and light weapons (including their parts, components and accessories), ammunition and explosives is an existential threat to security and public safety in Europe. The security of Europe against this type of threat is further complicated by the Schengen Agreement that removes international borders between its member states thereby enabling passport-free movement, creates increased challenges to detecting illicit weapons and apprehending traffickers and illicit owners, especially when travelling by land.

The European Union has clear and tough firearm laws, including a general ban on the civilian sale of automatic rifles (European Union, 2008). The legal sale and ownership of firearms, which aims to minimise gun violence and gun-related crime, is mapped in the European Commission's 2013 report "Firearms and the internal security of the EU: protecting citizens and disrupting illegal trafficking". Nevertheless, the spread of firearms from the Western Balkans has been tracked by the Small Arms Survey, where they claim a strong link exists between crime and firearms proliferation into surrounding regions, although little data exists to support this assertion (Carapic, 2014).

Despite the clear and strong regulation of firearms, there are multiple avenues for entrepreneurial criminal actors to bypass controls and traffic weapons through Europe. One possible avenue is via the dark net as noted by the European Commission's report which gives voice to fears of firearm parts and components being traded online and delivered through mail order, or express delivery services (European Commission, 2013). Entrepreneurial criminal networks and so-called 'lone-wolves' therefore have the opportunity to conduct illegal activities in cyberspace, enabling a different form of transnational crime already exploited, for example, for drugs trafficking (Aldridge and Décary-Hétu, 2014; Aldridge and Décary-Hétu, 2016).

This project explores the European illegal arms trade and focuses on the role played by the dark-net in fuelling and/or facilitating such trade. The overarching research question this project seeks to answer is the following: what can the investigation of the dark-net reveal about the illegal arms trade in Europe?

In answering this question, the project will:

1) Provide an evidence-based assessment of the nature and scale of the online illegal supply and trade (i.e. transactions) of small arms and light weapons (including their parts, components and accessories), ammunition and explosives.
2) Identify potential loopholes in European and National firearms laws and regulations that may be exploited by online traffickers (e.g. discrepancies in the definitions of what can and cannot be legally sold).
3) Generate policy recommendations, contributing to a more efficient and effective action against arms trafficking in Europe.
4) Contribute to the ongoing academic research in the field of crypto-markets/DNMs

We aim to build links and contacts at the early stages of the project to identify, connect and involve potential beneficiaries and users. The potential beneficiaries of the research are those scholars in academia studying the impact of cryptomarkets on criminal behaviour and the trade of illegal firearms. Those who are likely to be users or directly benefit from the research are those in national and foreign law enforcement agencies, policymakers in government and contemporary scholars in such fields as sociology, international security, criminology and cybercrime studies. Critical to maximising the economic and societal impact of the project is to involve representatives from national - and critically, international - law enforcement agencies and international organisations at relevant junctures. We have identified the need for user engagement during the execution phase, where interviews and one expert workshop will form the basis of qualitative data.

The study team foresees the impact epicentre of our work will be the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) which has expressed its official support and will be involved in the implementation of the study and dissemination of its findings, National Crime Agency (UK), European Cybercrime Centre (EC3) and Europol (EU). We expect peripheral interest from the international law enforcement agencies of Interpol, the national policing agencies with foreign collaboration like the FBI (US) and AFP (AUS). Those indirectly benefiting from the research are all communities, civil societies and states affected by gun violence, organised crime and terrorism, especially those in the UK, Europe and other Western nations.

To increase the likelihood of impact, RAND Europe will use its network of professional contacts, social media followers and online presence with the broader public to engage with all intended users and beneficiaries. RAND Europe creates impact with media engagement with national, policy and trade media outlets. We have considerable experience of achieving national media coverage for a range of our reports. On social media, RAND Europe has 2,000 followers on Twitter and can also draw upon the RAND Corporation Twitter account, which regularly tweets and retweets our research and has nearly 100,000 followers.

It is foreseeable the study will be published by the academic partners in peer-reviewed journals, under the working title "Behind the curtain: An investigation of the illicit arms trade on the dark net". Given the research team's track record, we consider the following global, UK and European journals - in order of impact - as likely to accept publications from the study: Criminology, Survival, British Journal of Criminology, European Journal or Criminology, International Security and Journal of Peace Research.

Secondary journals we aim to publish our findings in may include: Deviant Behaviour, International Journal of Cyber Criminology, Small Wars & Insurgencies, Networks and Network Analysis for Defence and Security.