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The Social Organization of Pet Trafficking in Cyberspace

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research volume 21, pages 353–370 (2015)Cite this article

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Abstract

Recent research has highlighted how deeply pet trafficking has been affected by the use of the Internet, to the point that it can be conceived as a hybrid market that combines both traditional and new social and economic opportunity structures. However, more must be learned about the extent to which the social organization of pet trafficking has changed due to the Internet, since the dynamics of relationships within and between criminal networks, as well as between criminal networks and non-offenders, matter as a potential object of intervention to counter this criminal activity. By focusing on the online market in animals for the Italian pet industry, this contribution offers an examination of the criminal structures and modus operandi of actors involved, using a socio-organizational level of analysis. It is based on case studies analysis and observational research carried out on cyber-hotspots for pet trafficking. These sources were used to identify and chart criminal networks, techniques, and social practices surrounding online sales. They were complemented by seven in-depth interviews with Italian law-enforcement officers and acknowledged experts from NGOs. The results offer empirical evidence for interpreting the impact of the Internet on the social organization of pet trafficking, thus providing a more complete understanding of how criminal actors behave in cyberspace.

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Notes

  1. Wildlife trafficking can be defined as “the taking, trading (supplying, selling or trafficking), importing, exporting, processing, possessing, obtaining and consumption of wild fauna and flora […] in contravention of national or international law.” (UN website, http://www.unodc.org/unodc/en/wildlife-and-forest-crime/overview.html).

  2. See, for instance, Regulations 998/2003 CE and 438/2010 UE, and Decision 2003/803 CE.

  3. Offenders are considered to operate in a professional way instead when the criminal activity is their major or unique source of income, and indeed a way of life (Mack 1972).

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments that greatly contributed to improving the final version of the paper. I would also like to express my gratitude to Steve Iafrati and John McDaniel who assisted in the proof-reading of the manuscript.

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  1. Faculty of Social Science, University of Wolverhampton, Millennium City Building University of Wolverhampton Wulfruna Street, Wolverhampton, WV1 1LY, UK

    Anita Lavorgna

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Appendix

Appendix

Table 2 Keyword search on Italian newspaper online archives. The following table presents the keyword search carried out on the most read Italian newspapers with a regional or macro-regional coverage to identify relevant case studies (http://www.primaonline.it/2012/03/19/103569/quotidiani-dicembre-2011/). The regions of Italy (n = 20) are the first-level administrative division of the State
Full size table
Table 3 Characteristics of different forms of the social organization of deviants. The following table presents Best and Luckenbill’s typology. It refers to the pattern of relationships among deviant actors in the context of a deviant activity, and it shows how the social organization of deviants varies along a dimension of sophistication
Full size table

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Lavorgna, A. The Social Organization of Pet Trafficking in Cyberspace. Eur J Crim Policy Res 21, 353–370 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10610-015-9273-y

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Keywords

  • Cyber-hotspots
  • Internet
  • Pet trafficking
  • Social organization
  • Virtual ethnography