Research paper
British South Asian communities and drug supply networks in the UK: A qualitative study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2006.03.009Get rights and content

Abstract

This paper explores the spread of drug use within British South Asian communities, focusing on the role of family, friendship and ethnicity connections for members of drug dealing network. The paper draws on qualitative research conducted in England and Wales, but also in Pakistan. Interviews were conducted with 123 individuals, including: British South Asian drug offenders in custody for drug supply related offences; drug dealers and users outside prison, unknown to official agencies; ‘key individuals’ with working knowledge of drug use/distribution amongst British South Asian communities; law enforcers based in Britain; law enforcers based in Pakistan; treatment staff based in Britain; treatment staff based in Pakistan. We draw on these interview data to present a descriptive typology of the criminal organizations involved in drug dealing and trafficking. This typology includes family and mono-ethnic networks, which are more likely to import directly from producing countries, but are unable to distribute to wider markets than their own local outlets, and issue-specific and value-adding networks, which have the capacity to find a diverse range of partners and access a variety of markets, and which are likely to use all available importing modalities.

Introduction

Research has previously suggested that drug dealing networks are often organized along lines of kinship and ethnic identity (Pearson & Hobbs, 2001). However, it is also suggested that this may be changing, as new market conditions increasingly encourage alliances between dealing networks and partnerships among different ethnic groups (National Crime Intelligence Service, 2003).

At the level of international trafficking organized groups appear to be multi-ethnic, as business entails contact with a variety of countries and operators. United Nations research, for example, suggests that in the majority of cases criminal groups are not tied together by ethnic linkages (Centre for International Crime Prevention, 2002). Studies have also identified mobile groups of international traffickers, often from marginalized communities, acting as independent operators, who offer their trafficking services to a variety of large national distributors (Ruggiero, 2000a, Ruggiero, 2000b). These groups may be culturally homogeneous and consist of members of extended families, but the transactions in which they engage are multi-ethnic in character. In most cases, therefore, risky international operations may be covered by less powerful groups and networks.

According to law enforcement agencies, over 90% of heroin imported into the UK originates from Afghanistan-grown opium, and is transported via Iran, Pakistan and Turkey to Europe. From Western Europe heroin then enters the UK in freight and vehicles, predominantly through ports in Southern and Eastern Europe (Corkery, 2000, Corkery, 2002). Although ‘ethnic’ minorities are indicated as the main importers, there also appears to be growing involvement of British Caucasian groups in heroin smuggling. Distribution continues to be mostly from London, but Merseyside, Birmingham and Manchester are seen as significant distribution points (NCIS, 2002).

Whether British South Asian (BSA) groups, due to their ethnic origin and links with source countries, are better equipped than other groups to establish importing operations remains unexplored. While noting a general breakdown of ethnic and cultural barriers between traffickers, research has failed to identify the prevalence of consortia formed by BSA groups operating in the UK and their partners based in producing zones. The existence of direct commercial links between Pakistan and Britain is often seen as evidence of the major role played by BSA dealing networks, as drugs are said to follow the same commercial routes through which legitimate goods are imported. This paper discusses the spread of drug use within BSA communities, the importance of family, friendship and ethnicity connections for members of dealing networks and their organizational structure. It also addresses the issue whether such networks are involved in international drug trafficking.

While ethnic minorities as victims of crime feature in many criminological studies, ethnic minorities as crime perpetrators do not seem to attract similar criminological interest (Bowling, 1998; Carrabine, Iganski, Lee, Plummer, & South, 2004; Witte, 1996). It is true that Black Minority Ethnic (BME) communities may be the source of anxiety and fear, even when their involvement in crime in general, and drug crime in particular, is not greater than that of whites. A large body of literature focuses on racist perceptions and stereotypes, surrounding the issues of ethnicity, crime and drugs (Berking, 2003, Institute of Race Relations, 2001) rather than, explicitly, on ethnic minorities, crime and drugs.

Studies focusing on how migrants and minorities are perceived describe processes of othering while deconstructing the formation of fear and anxiety (Lambert, 1970, Sassen, 1999). The other becomes a threat to predictable social interactions and homogeneity: he/she is equated to chaos, and racism provides an easy way to escape chaos. It should be noted that studies examining these dynamics do not observe migrant or minority communities, but the way in which majorities respond to their presence. Such studies address processes of criminalization rather than criminal careers, thus implying that the higher criminality of minorities is a myth. Scholars who have attempted to deconstruct this myth (Ferracuti, 1968, Marshall, 1997) show that minorities, in spite of their greater visibility and, therefore, probability of being reported, reveal criminal rates that are about equal to, or lower than, the crime rates of majorities.

Issues around ethnicity indirectly emerge when charting the development of drug trafficking in the UK in relation to the supply country (Dorn, Murji, & South, 1992). Chinese, Iranian and Pakistani illicit drugs appear to have successively predominated in the markets of British cities, a circumstance leading many observers to investigate the trafficking routes and the criminal enterprises connected to the respective countries. Britain's position on the traditional trade routes of the main source countries of heroin and other opium-based products, along with its historical imperial and post-imperial relationships with these countries, are often mobilized among other explanatory tools (Ruggiero & South, 1995).

Murji (1999) examines the ‘racialisation’ of drugs, carried out through the depiction of dangerous places identified with a mixture of drugs, crime, race and violence. Examples of ‘racialisation’ of drugs are provided by Miller (1996), who suggests that the war on drugs is in reality a war declared against the ethnic minorities inhabiting the inner city areas of Western countries, and that racial discrimination is endemic to drug prohibition. In this respect, the spread of crack, a typically ‘racialised’ drug, is said to have encouraged particularly harsh law enforcement against minorities. New techniques and cultures of tough law enforcement, it is suggested, have established a trend, whereby even if crack use declines, arrests of impoverished black youth are likely to continue to rise (Reinarman & Levine, 2004). Similarly, studies focusing on law enforcement discrimination in the UK form an important background for any analysis of ethnicity, crime and drugs (Britton, 2004, Feuchtwang, 1992; FitzGerald, 2004; FitzGerald, Stockdale, & Hale, 2003; Home Office, 2003, Newburn et al., 2004; Waddington, Stenson, & Don, 2004).

Specific research into South Asian communities and drugs has explored whether such communities are less likely to engage in substance misuse because of cultural and religious restraints (Ganchi, Unell, Mclean, & Mohammad, 1997). One study among South Asian communities found that levels of alcohol misuse are high, but those of opiates are remarkably low (Wanigaratne, Unnithan, & Strang, 2001). Other findings seem to indicate that young South Asian drug users have a greater degree of contact with their families than do their white counterparts (White, 2001), and that, at times, denial strategies are put in place whereby either drug use is regarded as negligible or users themselves regard it as harmless (Arora & Khatun, 1998). There appears to be a worrying lack of treatment for drug users because of widely held misconceptions that Asian youths do not use drugs (Patel, 2000), while users may hesitate to approach drug services because they see them as white oriented (Awiah, Butt, Dorn, Pearson, & Patel, 1992; Khan, Ditton, & Hammersley, 2000).

A recent study investigated how heroin distribution networks might develop among South Asian communities in the UK. The study focused on a key individual who ‘sponsored dealing enterprises’ and attempted to discourage independent competitors from emerging. Friendships and kinship were found to facilitate drug entrepreneurship, while subsequent conflict and break-down of trust were pinpointed as key factors for law enforcement success in dismantling such entrepreneurial initiative (Akhtar & South, 2000). An additional study by the Asian Drug Advisory Group (2005) in the UK found that street level distribution is carried out by dealers who use drugs only occasionally and that distribution is carried out by both males and females. The street market, it was also found, services users from all ethnic groups, although some dealers would only sell to those with whom they are comfortable.

South Asian networks are thought to occupy uncovered sections of the market, or establish some form of cooperation with already operating networks in the UK. For example, partnerships between Pakistani and Turkish, or Nigerian, suppliers are said to be developing. In some cases, however, competition prevails over cooperation, and in Birmingham, Yorkshire, Lancashire and the Midlands, Pakistani drug syndicates are said to be once again emerging to challenge the supremacy of Turkish gangs, and there is fear that extreme violence may erupt (National Crime Intelligence Service, 2003).

Research based on interviews with drug workers describes Asian dealing networks as now active and integrated into most UK cities. Kinship and ethnicity, in these networks, are said to remain important, as they are deemed the traditional sources of trust in illegal business enterprises. However, though criminal networks continue to be based on kinship and linkages with producing countries, inter-ethnic partnerships are developing due to market dynamics (Heal, 2002). These partnerships are detectable in changing trafficking routes and in the growing multi-ethnic nature of large drug supply. Partnerships are viable alternatives to traditional organizations, in that they permit access to a variety of producers and, at the same time, to multi-commodity illicit markets.

Additionally, it has been suggested that when ethnic minorities are involved in drug economies, and in criminal economies in general, while their visibility makes them more exposed to arrest, they tend to occupy the lower levels and the least remunerative segments of such economies (Murji, 2003, Ruggiero, 2000a). Moreover, the dynamics of economic globalization are said to have reinforced patterns of selective marginalization and exacerbated the ethnic division of labor within illicit drug economies (Friman, 2004a, Friman, 2004b).

Section snippets

Methods

Data collection was primarily carried out by interview. This paper is based on findings emerging from 123 interviews conducted with the following informants:

  • 42 BSA drug offenders in custody for drug supply related offences;

  • 23 interviews with BSA drug dealers and users outside prison, unknown to official agencies;

  • 58 interviews drawn from ‘key individuals’ with working knowledge of drug use/distribution amongst BSA communities: 21 law enforcers based in Britain; 10 law enforcers based in

Ethnicity

Home Office data relating to South Asian drug offenders in custody show a predominance of Pakistanis (226) as opposed to Indians (84) and Bangladeshis (27). The majority (83%) of such offenders were between the ages of 16–35, and, therefore, more likely to be born in Britain.

Education and employment

The educational profile of the dealers we interviewed also appeared to be mixed, with about half poorly educated and half having achieved GCSEs, with one or two attending university courses. In occupational terms, however,

Doing business at the middle level

Most informants noted that the spread of drug use, in their own experience, occurs within enclaves formed by close friends and acquaintances. These enclaves tend, at times, to be mono-ethnic in composition and include individuals who are described as socially marginalized as well as respectable individuals who are regularly employed and well educated. A dealer interviewed in prison said he only ‘hung around with Pakistani people’, who constituted his using and dealing network. Dealing outside

International drug trafficking

Finally, we attempted to identify the trafficking routes and methods, which were felt to be of importance in relation to BSA networks. Our findings revealed a variety of trafficking modalities. ‘The drug supermarket of the Netherlands’, as it was termed by one interviewee, remains the major option, where “large dealers are mixed with all different traders of all sorts of goods that operate in cities”. Rotterdam is a major port, and many things go through’. In Amsterdam local observers describe

Discussion

Our findings suggest that involvement in the drug economy does not necessarily imply embracing a specific drug subculture. Importing or distributing illicit substances was, among our sample, almost unanimously determined by the profit prospect, and was perceived as a one-off remunerative enterprise or as a regular occupational choice. Whether this is a specific feature of BSA dealing networks is impossible to tell from this study. But, we find this to be a relatively new phenomenon, as previous

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Fleur Nichols, Trevor Bark and Gary Potter who, in the capacity of research assistants, conducted some of the interviews and discussed issues with us. We also thank Raja Salman Aziz for providing us with contacts with key informants in Pakistan.

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