Playing Pac-Man in Portville: Policing the dilution and fragmentation of drug importations through major seaports
| Author | Anna Sergi |
| Published date | 01 July 2022 |
| Date | 01 July 2022 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1477370820913465 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/1477370820913465
European Journal of Criminology
© The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/1477370820913465
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Playing Pac-Man in Portville:
Policing the dilution and
fragmentation of drug
importations through major
seaports
Anna Sergi
University of Essex, UK
Abstract
This article presents findings from a qualitative research project into organized crime, policing and
security across five major seaports (‘Portvilles’): Genoa (Italy); Melbourne (Australia); Montreal
(Canada); New York (USA); and Liverpool (UK). Through content analysis of confidential
judicial files, the article will construct the offenders’ scenarios and options for importing drugs in
Portville. Through also interviews with law enforcement agencies, police forces and security staff
in these seaports, the article presents the policing and security struggles to disrupt importations.
The main finding is that importation roles and security techniques change constantly and quickly,
as in a game of Pac-Man. Security and policing in seaports lead to the dilution and fragmentation
of drug importation, and only distribution tends to remain organized in Portville. In this chaotic
environment, it is the rules of trade that affect the success of drug importations the most, rather
than the failures of effective security and policing.
Keywords
Drug importation, drug trade, organized crime, maritime security, policing
Introduction
Cross-border drug trafficking has been the object of several studies (Hughes et al.,
2019; Zaitch, 2005) and it does not seem that the phenomenon has been decreasing in
recent years (UNODC, 2019). Drug trafficking is a package-crime comprising various
activities, which have often been studied as market-based offences (Beare and Naylor,
1999). Much like a legal market, drug trafficking involves multilateral exchanges of
goods across a number of actors and intermediaries – producers, brokers, importers,
Corresponding author:
Anna Sergi, Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester,
Essex, CO4 3SQ, UK.
Email: asergi@essex.ac.uk
913465EUC0010.1177/1477370820913465European Journal of CriminologySergi
research-article2020
Article
2022, Vol. 19(4) 674–691
distributers and consumers. Even though illicit drugs are indeed commodities that are
dependent on the economic rules of their own market, actors are often located in differ-
ent countries: different socio-political contexts will affect the success or failure of the
whole package-crime.
Depending on the type of drug, different drug shipment methods are employed: cars,
trucks, airplanes, SUVs, yachts and small/personal vessels, and also commercial boats,
including containers in large cargo ships, into main ports. Different smugglers will have
their preferred methods of trafficking. However, it is obvious that the world container
traffic has immensely changed the nature of legal commerce, as much as it has illegal
traffic through seaports (Nordstrom, 2007). Even though air transport now covers a large
portion of international shipping, sea shipping still remains a very effective way to move
large amounts of cargo across borders (Hummel, 2007).
Ports are unique environments, universes of processes and meanings, border zones,
transit areas, ontologically always in flux, cores of their cities’, regions’ and nations’
economic and political processes and investments (Brewer, 2014; Eski, 2016). The flow
of commodities and services, between and across national jurisdictions through the main
seaports, inevitably leaves some unregulated areas, because it is impossible to com-
pletely control and regulate sea waters.
Understanding the social and economic underpinnings of organized crime in the form
of drug trafficking across borders has been a priority for the international community for
the past two decades, especially since the 2000 United Nations Convention against
Transnational Organised Crime was signed in Palermo, Italy, and after 9/11 (Sergi,
2017). Indeed, securing borders is a challenge of today’s world concerned with the safety
of citizens as well as the security of infrastructure within national boundaries. The land-
scape of maritime security, too, has changed drastically, together with all the other secu-
rity threats after 9/11 (Eski and Carpenter, 2013). To this end, the International Maritime
Organization (IMO) in 2002 approved the International Ship and Port Facility Security
(ISPS) Code by adding Chapter XI.2 (Special measures to enhance maritime security) to
the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) of 1974. The ISPS in
2019 applies to 165 SOLAS members accounting for over 99 percent of world tonnage,1
thus creating an appearance of harmonization of security policies across states. The Code
contains a mandatory Part A outlining detailed requirements related to maritime and port
security, which SOLAS contracting governments, port authorities and shipping compa-
nies must adhere to; Part B of the Code provides a series of recommendatory guidelines
on how to meet the requirements of Part A.2 As indicated, ports are gateways and marine
borders, and therefore they are crucial spaces in any strategic effort to secure transit,
entry into and exit out of states. For this reason, maritime security has been developing
along the lines of policing of other security threats, including terrorism and organized
crime, especially illicit trafficking (Brewer, 2014; Zhang and Roe, 2019).
Research notes
This article will present some of the findings of a larger research project into organized
crime, policing and security carried out across five major ports: Genoa (Italy); Melbourne
(Australia); Montreal (Canada); New York (USA) and Liverpool (UK). All of these cities
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