THE ONLINE TRADE IN COUTERFEIT PHARMACEUTICALS Chair: Georgios Antonopoulos Chair: Georgios Antonopoulos

children’s problem behaviour is challenging because of the complex interrelatedness of risk factors and paternal detention. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of father’s number of prison spells on children’s externalising behaviour, considering a large number of known risk factors.

METHODS: We studied fathers and children that were part of the larger Dutch nationwide longitudinal Prison Project. We asked incarcerated fathers to complete questionnaires on their mental health (BSI) and educational level. In addition, we collected official data about current detention length, number of previous prison spells and convictions of the fathers. Finally, we asked mothers to complete questionnaires (CBCL) about both the behaviour of the children (n

= 84) at home, and about financial alterations after incarceration of the father. We used linear regression analyses to determine associations between fathers detention frequency and children’s externalising behaviour.

RESULTS: In multivariable analyses, adjusting for poor mental health, delinquency and low educational level of the father and financial decline in the family, there was a significant association between number of prison spells and externalising behavior of children.

CONCLUSION: There is a clear association between the number of detentions of fathers and the development of externalising behaviour in considering sentencing of fathers and counselling programs for their families.

3.5 THE ONLINE TRADE IN COUTERFEIT PHARMACEUTICALS

159 encountering counterfeit or substandard medicines, and credit card fraud and PC viruses. Yet, despite the potential risks it appears that many people use the Web to purchase medicines.

This is undeniably illegitimate behaviour in the eyes of the authorities, who seek to police such risky behaviour. This is regardless of whether the individuals view themselves with the same harm discourse. Nevertheless, there appear to be significant numbers of online pharmacies and reportedly increasing sales of medicines (and illegal drugs) via the Web.

Combining theoretical and empirical research, this paper presents evidence of how the Web facilitates potentially deviant behaviour tangentially in relation to online medicine purchasing.

Erving Goffman’s concepts of the presentation of self and interaction have been reworked and applied with Sykes and Matza’s techniques of neutralizations to provide insight to the accounts people provide for engaging in behaviour that is on the cusp of deviancy. The indication is that individuals who see themselves as ordinarily law-abiding and virtuous are able to deviate from legitimate standards of practice and moral integrity, perhaps in part due to the anonymity granted by the Web. It may be argued that this protection allows these groups of people, to some extent, to avoid the social stigma and ostracising previously afforded to those more easily categorised as deviant. However, the suggestion is that some people present themselves as being aware that their actions are illegitimate and in the public domain, and as a result offer justifications to avert negative perceptions in order to maintain respectability.

0201 - THE ONLINE TRADE IN COUNTERFEIT MEDICINES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: A TRANSIT ZONE AND END-USER MARKET

Alexandra Hall (United Kingdom)¹; Georgios Antonopoulos (United Kingdom)¹ 1 - Teesside University

It is widely argued that the trade in illicit pharmaceuticals in the United Kingdom (UK) is a growing and underestimated problem, especially in the context of the ever expanding market reach presented by the Internet. However, this extensive, extremely profitable, and ultimately life-threatening online market has yet to be fully unpacked empirically or theoretically by criminologists. Drawing upon the authors’ own criminological investigation into the online trade in counterfeit, falsified and illegally traded pharmaceuticals in the UK - based on research collected as part of the wider European project ‘www.fakecare.com’ - this paper will offer an empirically-grounded social scientific analysis that drills down into the underlying transnational, cultural and political-economic forces currently shaping the trade in fake medicines over the Internet.

For suppliers of fake medicines the UK serves two distinct roles. Firstly, it is a transit zone located between Asian producers and consumers in the USA and other Western European countries. Secondly, it is an end user market targeted for higher profit margins due to the greater price of medicines and heightened consumption patterns in comparison to most other European countries; with figures revealing that as much as 50 per cent of the medicines bought online by UK consumers are fake (Walsh, 2011) and 16 per cent of UK consumers have knowingly bought counterfeit medicines (Smithers, 2013). It is in this context that the

paper discusses the nature and dynamics of the trade, including a discussion of both the supply and demand dimensions. After an initial exploration of the legal and regulatory framework relating to illicit pharmaceuticals in the UK, the paper focuses on the typology of online sites supplying fake medicines to UK consumers, the illicit suppliers and their social organisation, the most popular fake medicines being bought and sold online in the UK, the customers most at risk of consuming fake medicines, and the principal contributing factors pushing UK consumers online to buy illicit medicines. As the argument unfolds the analysis centres on the rise of the Internet as one factor working in conjunction with the nondigital in a dynamic way, along with a variety of social, cultural, political and economic processes, to enable increased production and consumption of fake medicines.

0202 - ON LINE PHARMACIES & PHARMACEUTICAL CRIME: COUNTERACTING ACTIVITIES AND CASE STUDIES

Domenico Di Giorgio (Italy)¹; Georgios Antonopoulos (United Kingdom)² 1 - Italian Medicine Agency - AIFA; 2 - Teesside University

Since 2007, AIFA developed ad hoc activities focused on the study of the Internet as distribution channel for counterfeit medicines: sampling projects from suspect sites, characterization of the available online offer, IT studies aimed at better defining the three different types of e-pharmacies (legal, illegal and fake), development of black lists of sites devoted to computer fraud, studies on the use of social networks as a promotional channel for illegal pharmacies.

The presentation will offer a summary of the key activities and results, with some specific case studies explaining the tools that Italy developed in the different areas (enforcement, regulation, training, publications, risk communication...) considered as critical in the counteracting action against the criminal organisations managing the illegal web market.

0203 - HOT MEDICINES. UNDERSTANDING WHY SOME MEDICINES ARE MORE COMMONLY COUNTERFEITED THAN OTHERS

Mara Mignone (Italy)¹

1 - RiSSC-Research Centre on Security and Crime

The increasing presence of counterfeit medicines on both offline and online markets is becoming a major issue for Health Authorities and Law Enforcement agencies at a national and global level.

161 dynamics, ceaseless technological development and emerging interests of organised criminal groups and terrorist organisations worldwide.

Furthermore, also geographic/regional locations, prominent health risks, consumers’ level of awareness and empowerment, social construction and economic development seem to play a vital role and to considerably impact on the appearance of new crime typologies and trends in medicines counterfeiting.

In recent years, the Internet itself has contributed to completely change the structure and rules of the production and distribution of bogus medicines. In fact, it has projected the phenomenon on a worldwide scale and has multiplied the opportunities for crime for both individuals/little groups and organised syndicates. Nevertheless, Internet has also highlighted the remarkable differences existing between developed and poor countries in assessing, preventing and managing the risks, as well as in protecting both citizens and the global/local legal supply chain.

From the criminological standpoint, the online trade of fake medicines cannot be considered as a separated phenomenon because it is not possible to draw a sharp line between the “real world” and the “online dimension”. They are strictly interrelated in terms of criminal opportunities and dynamics, interactions between victims-offenders and modi operandi.

In synthesis, the phenomenon of counterfeit medicines is extremely broad, complex and changeable. This impacts on the analysis of products’ vulnerability, and makes it extremely difficult to understand and assess what are the key-factors that make a medicine become a

“hot medicine”, intended as the likelihood of a product being counterfeited and traded online.

It seems plausible stating that the likelihood of a medicine being counterfeited and traded online results from a wide range of assorted factors that compose the interaction between the online and the offline demand and supply of (counterfeit) medicines.

Based on this scenario, the presentation tries to go beyond the existing knowledge base and to focus on the typologies of products which are and/or may be at risk in the short-term and on the main key-factors.

0204 - THE ONLINE TRADE OF FAKE MEDICINES IN EUROPE. EVIDENCE FROM THE EUROPEAN PROJECT WWW.FAKECARE.COM

Andrea Di Nicola (Italy)¹; Elisa Martini (Italy)¹

1 - eCrime - ICT, law & criminology - Faculty of Law, University of Trento

The counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals and the online trade in medicines are two closely intertwined phenomena reaching alarming proportions and having an increasingly detrimental impact on public health. Without the Internet, the trafficking in counterfeits would not have expanded to the extent it has in recent years, particularly in developed countries. Internet use enables criminals to sell potentially dangerous products on a large scale, directly to buyers, whilst circumventing conventional and secure distribution channels. This has largely been

facilitated by the emergence of the so-called online pharmacies since the 1990s. These retail pharmacies operate partially or exclusively over the Internet and ship orders to customers by mail. In little over a decade, the number of these websites has grown exponentially.

Unfortunately, criminals who are likely to sell counterfeit and dangerous medicines run the majority of the online pharmacies.

The presentation illustrates some of the results of the European project

‘www.FAKECARE.com’, which aims at producing and disseminating knowledge, counterstrategies and tools across the EU to solve and mitigate the online trade of fake medicines (OTFM). More specifically, it focuses on the understanding of the demand side mechanisms of the OTFM by adopting an innovative methodological approach based on a triangulation design. Namely, it foresaw: 1) extended web survey, 2) virtual ethnography in which researchers took part in the OTFM online discussion forums, actively joining social media groups (e.g. Facebook), pretending to be customers; and, 3) data-gathering via “honey-pot websites” resembling illegal online pharmacies. Discussing the data gathered in countries targeted by the research (Italy, Bulgaria, France, Germany, The Netherlands, United Kingdom, Spain), actual and potential customers’ attitudes, motivations, risk perceptions and behaviours, as well as which products are more in demand will be addressed.

3.6 FP7 PROJECT ALTERNATIVE: JUSTICE AND SECURITY IN INTERCULTURAL SETTINGS