The Illicit Medicines Trade From Within

In recent decades all sorts of illicit medicines have been increasingly traded world-wide: from antibiotics to weight loss drugs, and antimalarial tablets to steroids. The illicit medicines market is generally associated with considerable health risks for its users, as well as with high revenues and a perceived growing degree of criminal organization. It is therefore important to gain extensive criminological insights into this global market. This book provides in-depth and empirically-grounded theoretical insights into the online and offline trade in illicit pharmaceuticals, with particular reference to lifestyle pharmaceuticals. Trade in the Netherlands and manufacturing in China are taken as extended case studies. The author primarily focuses on the activities, dynamics and structure of the illicit market in the Netherlands, and on the production and transnational distribution of illicit medicines in and from China. In order to understand how actors operate, compete and develop trust relations, as well as how the illicit market is structured, this study is built on a mixed-method approach of both qualitative and quantitative data. By means of interviews with actors directly involved in the trade, analysis of court cases, a survey study and an online analysis, this book provides thorough and rich insights into the actors, dynamics and social organization of the flourishing illicit medicines market.