Ocean’s Thirteen in the port of Antwerp. Reflections on how IT specialists were rounded up by maritime cocaine smugglers.

EasyChair Preprint no. 264

Abstract

Technological innovation continues to shape society and economies and - by extension - the serious and organized crime landscape in Europe as well as in other parts of the world. The fourth industrial revolution will undoubtedly bear consequences for the entire spectrum of crime. Society will increasingly face complex technological crime issues while new – cyber driven - criminals will continue to appear upon the horizon.

The cybersecurity research community recently started to broaden its vision (Leukfeldt, 2017). It is now moving away from primarily discussing technological aspects towards the analysis of non-technological issues such as the human factors and other socio-technical matters related to cybersecurity and -crime. In doing so, the expectation is held high that this approach will enable society to take the step from merely discussing technological aspects of stopping cyber incidents and attacks, to understanding and preventing individuals who are involved in, or seek to commit, cybercrime or cyberterrorism.

This article aims to contribute to this objective as it discusses a recent case where so-called white or ethical hackers joined forces with a traditional organized crime group and assisted the smuggling of narcotics representing a value of several tens of millions of euros. The focus of the paper is not so much on the technological aspects of this cooperation but on exploring the social dynamics which led these guys to experience their worst nightmare.

Keyphrases: cocaine smuggling, Cybercrime, Cybersecurity, Human Factors, organized crime, social dynamics

@Booklet{EasyChair:264,
  author = {Rafael Rondelez},
  title = {Ocean’s Thirteen in the port of Antwerp. Reflections on how IT specialists were rounded up by maritime cocaine smugglers.},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint no. 264},
  doi = {10.29007/2dhz},
  year = {EasyChair, 2018}}