Drugs dealing is a very popular business today. Cyberspace made it almost invincible, but that deadly criminal phenomenon does have weak points.

Famous PR specialist discusses the problem. Literal translation below:

Victims in Class

“…Once in Balkhash, a took a walk from a client’s office back to hotel.  And I saw this school kid walking towards myself. It did not take to be a genius to understand that he was just a kid, I mean his body-size and the school uniform… The thing is, the kid was totally wrecked. Dilate pupils, unnaturally hurried respiration, as if he was running, not walking and zero reaction to exterior world – he just did not see me walking towards him. On the way to hotel, I ran into two more kids in the same condition. One of them was dragging his backpack on the ground.  Softly speaking, it all looked spooky… Was it “speed” or “spice” or some other shit, I just don’t know, but one thing for sure – those kids were on synthetic drugs.  I am most certain, I am not the only one freaked out about growing number of such incidents. Careful look into the situation, as well as talks with police officers, public activists, volunteers, charity workers, as well as speeches made by officials, including our President all point at one particular thing – synthetic drugs are no longer “horror stories from elsewhere”. They are a catastrophic part of our reality…”

10 Drug Related Offences a Day

Some figures – last year, law enforcers registered some 3,000 drug related offences. 10 crimes a day, in other words. Police arrested 4 organized drug-dealing groups. Eliminated 70 drug-labs.  Confiscated 16 tons of narcotics, including 5.7 tons of marijuana, 918 kilos of hashish, 102 kilos of heroin and 582 kilos of synthetic drugs. 

Some figures for Q1, 2023 – 1,972 drug offences. 3 criminal investigations into formation of and operations by organized drug-dealing groups.  15 drug-labs eliminated.  Synthetic drug busts increased by 3 times.  In Q1, 2022, 42 kilos of drugs busted, in Q1, 2023, we are looking at 141 kilos.  Speaking easy, the country is under narcotic tsunami.

Success Factor – Easy Entry

So, what is the secret behind such a “success”? That is, first of all, “easy entry”. Today, no syringes and other paraphernalia are necessary to administer drugs.

Pills, mixes, papers, crystals, drops – just put it in the mouth and this is it. Consequently, becoming a junkie today is a piece of cake. It is important to organize the proper awareness campaigns, not only using the resources of law-enforcers, but education system, as well.

The second important “success factor” unexpectedly derives from IT and digitalization – Internet-sites, messengers, Instagram publics, closed groups in social networks and others. ID and digitalization  significantly facilitated the operations for drug makers and dealers. They reduced risks associated with interaction with police – nobody has to sell drugs out in the streets in the neighborhoods risking to get on police or national security radars.

Traditional measures of drug enforcement are helpeless today, that we have Internet-trade, electronic money, and anonymous messengers.

Earlier, police used street reconnaissance, keeping dealers and their hubs under control. Electronic trade made drug-dealers invisible. Today, a drug hub may be anywhere, all it takes is to wire-transfer money and receive a geo-location in exchange. Proving that moneys were wired in exchange to drugs is another challenge.

Apprehension of droppers is a temporary measure. Often are cases, when innocent people did not even suspect they were being used as drug transporters – one bright example to that is the story of a Kazakh student girl, who was asked to carry come personal belongings to China.

Some people might insist that drug makers and police work together and it is of no use to fight them and when police shut own certain messenger groups and channels, new ones appear and fill in the vacuum.  Some people say, that all legal procedures and litigations take a lot of time and efforts. 

My experience from crisis management, as well as social engineering through social networks and other Internet resources prompts that any new crises and problems give birth to new instruments and asymmetrical methods of confrontation. It does not take to seek big budgets, all it takes is to identify a weak spot or a bottleneck and then deal with the problem accordingly. 

Holus-Bolus?

A small reference. Once upon a time, somebody asked Albert Speer, Nazi Germany’s Minister of Armaments and War Production, whether Allies, in the course of WWII ever had opportunities to stop the war in one strike. Speer said, that successful bombardment of ball-bearing plants in Schweinfurt would end the war in two weeks. Ball-bearings were the stem element of tanks, war-planes, war-ships and many other types of war machinery. Lack of ball-bearings would stop that all.

Analysis of electronic drug-trade shows, that there is such a ball-bearing plant out there, in the sphere of synthetic drugs production and dealing in social networks. 

Don’t Be Indifferent

It is absolutely clear that drug enforcement in cyberspace cannot be won by means of “analogous” tools. We need our own network and active part of population involved. In the USA, transport police, then other force structures and eventually all citizens began to practice the “ See Something – Say Something!” principle.  You see something criminal, report it.

We need to form a network of young pro-active volunteers. Adults are of no use, we particularly need youngsters who were “born with smartphones”. Those youngsters live in the net and know its slang.  Knowing network procedures, protocols and rules, they can promptly shut down drugs-dealing channels, without waiting on the reaction from securocrats, because security structures may get stuck in numerous endorsement and approval procedures, which procedures include budgets, permissions, training, testing and other things. 

Network confrontation requires only knowledge of rules and procedures governing operations of network resources, including social networks and messengers. We might need to pay those volunteers. My personal contribution shall be free of charge, that is a matter of principle. And, we need proper coordination. To cascade and bring that activity to higher level, all we need is the political will.

The coordination and the scale, and we are looking at coordination of the work of thousands (as they did in France and Canada, while fighting against child pornography), may come from Ministry of Enlightenment and Ministry of Science and Higher Education. If the leaders of the said two ministries express readiness and have real desire to clean the cyberspace, we will shut down and cancel drug-dealing in a matter of several weeks. The other question is, how interested are society, public administration and governance and citizens. 

I repeat – we must clean cyberspace, so to deprive drug-dealers from promptness and easiness that the said cyberspace offer. Police possess trialed methods to fight offline crime. I do not want to discuss detail herein, so not to give drug-dealers knowledge.

I am ready to make a report before decision making individuals, first of all – those who are responsible for work with school and university students. Let us see how it works!”