LockBit, the world's largest ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) provider suffered a very public takedown by an international law enforcement task force, Operation Cronos.

The ransomware behemoth quickly relaunched just days later. But in a world where trust is key, might the reputational damage be too great?

This is the story of the rise of LockBit, its relationship with other infamous cybercriminal groups, its uneasy relationship with some affiliates, its curious leader LockBitsupp, the public takedown and the relaunch, and what this means for the future of ransomware-as-a-service.

Speaker(s):

Koryak Uzan, Co-founder & Managing Director of PRODAFT

Links:

GITOC - The Rise and Fall of the Conti ransomware group

PRODAFT - LockBit: Behind the Lines of the Notorious RaaS

PRODAFT - The Demise of LOCKBIT: Disrupting the Most Prominent Ransomware Gang by Utilizing Upstream Threat...

Russian organized crime has a mythology attached to it - the brutal tattooed men of the Vory v Zakone. But those days are long in the past, rapid globalisation saw a new type of organized criminal take the reins in the Russian underworld, spreading their influence as criminal facilitators across the world.

But the war in Ukraine has changed that. It's changed the relationship between organized crime and the Russian state, the status quo within the established criminal order, the potential vacuum left by those criminals who fight and die in the conflict, the establishment of Russian criminal groups outside of the country, the flows of illicit goods themselves have evolved, and then Ukraine, once so critical to those illicit flows, is currently lost.

Such is the uncertainty surrounding organized crime that there have been rumblings about a possible return to a dark period in Russian history, known as the 'Wild 90s' - a period of anarchy that is etched into the Russian psyche.

Speaker(s):

Mark Galeotti, the Executive Director of Mayak Intelligence, honorary professor at University College London, member of the GI Network. Author of ‘The Vory: Russia’s Super Mafia' and the GI-TOC paper: Time of Troubles: The Russian underworld since the Ukraine invasion

Links:

(GI Paper) Rebellion as racket: Crime and the Donbas conflict 2014-2022

(GI Paper) Evolving drug trends in wartime Ukraine

(GI Analysis) The devil’s not-so-new psychoactive substance: Alpha-PVP, a highly addictive synthetic drug, is experiencing growing demand in Ukraine.

(GI Paper) Crossroads: Kazakhstan's changing illicit drug economy

(GI Paper) Port in a storm: Organized crime in Odesa since the Russian invasion

(Podcast) “Death Can Wait”: Drugs on the Frontline in Ukraine

Research Links:

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2023/10/23/russian-artist-fined-for-extremist-toy-doll-with-prison-tattoos-a82852

https://tass.ru/obschestvo/9218777

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2020/08/17/russia-outlaws-childrens-criminal-underground-movement-a71178

At the start of the year masked gunman burst into a television studio in Guayaquil, Ecuador. The cameras were live and the entire event was broadcast. The video shows gang members shouting at staff, pushing them to the ground, threatening them with guns and explosives. These pictures subsequently travelled around the world.

But this event was just one in a series to hit Ecuador in a short space of time. Car bombs, kidnappings, murder, prison riots, prominent prisoner escapes, and another national state of emergency.

Criminal violence has washed over the country as competing gangs like Los Choneros and Los Lobos battle in prisons and on the streets over control of the lucrative cocaine trafficking business. Foreign organized criminal actors like the Mexican Sinaloa and Jalisco New Generation Cartels, the Albanian Mafia, FARC dissident groups from Colombia, and others, are all active in Ecuador, a country described as a "cocaine superhighway".

In the space of just five or so years, Ecuador has gone from one of the safest countries in Latin America to a country with one of the highest murder rates. In this episode we are going to talk about how this happened.

Speaker(s):

Felipe Botero Escobar, the Head of Andean Programmes at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime

GI-TOC:

(Paper) Organized crime declares war: The road to chaos in Ecuador

(Blog) Fernando Villavicencio - Assassination Witness Project

The Global Organized Crime Index - Ecuador Country Profile

(Paper) Transnational Tentacles: Global Hotspots of Balkan Organized Crime

(Podcast episode) The Index - Ecuador

(Paper) The cocaine pipeline to Europe

Additional...