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ORI GIN AL PA PER

Understanding the Structure of a Large HeroinDistribution Network: A Quantitative Analysis ofQualitative Data

Mangai Natarajan

Published online: 9 June 2006� Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 2006

Abstract An analysis is reported of 2,408 wiretap conversations gathered in the course of

prosecuting a heroin dealing organization in New York City in the 1990s. The five-step

analysis, which included a social network analysis of phone contacts, revealed a large,

loosely structured group of 294 individuals, most of whom had very limited contacts with

others in the group. The group’s active core comprised 38 individuals with extended contacts,

little status differentiation and some task specialization. A smaller more tightly connected

group of 22 individuals was somewhat independent of the remainder of the core and appeared

to constitute a ‘‘communal business’’. The existence was not confirmed of the large criminal

conspiracy described by the prosecution that operated at all levels of trafficking and dealing,

from wholesale distribution to street sales. Rather, it appeared that the 294 individuals

comprised one segment of the heroin market in the city. However, the discrepancy could be

due to the fact that the prosecution drew upon a wider set of information about the individuals

concerned than provided by the wiretap data. The study supports recent analyses that see

organized crimes, such as drug trafficking, as mostly the work of small groups of loosely

linked entrepreneurs rather than large, highly structured criminal syndicates.

Keywords Network analysis Æ Wiretap data Æ Organized crime Æ Drug trafficking ÆMid level drug dealing Æ Heroin distribution network

Introduction

As recently noted by Pearson and Hobbs (2001), the vast bulk of research on drug dealing

is concerned with retail or ‘‘street level’’ dealing. Ethnographers have assembled a

M. Natarajan (&)Department of Sociology, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 899 Tenth Avenue, New York,NY 10019, USAe-mail: [email protected]

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considerable body of knowledge about how drug dealing at this level is organized and

carried out, the kinds of individuals involved, the roles they play, how they avoid detection

and prosecution, the extent to which they use drugs themselves, how they package and

adulterate drugs, the street price of drugs and how much profit they make. In contrast,

ethnographers have rarely been able to gain access to the earlier stages of the drug dis-

tribution process, known as middle or upper level dealing, and Pearson and Hobbs were

only able to identify a handful of relevant studies (Adler 1985, 1992; Reuter and Haaga

1989; Dorn et al. 1992; Ovenden et al.1995, Natarajan and Belanger 1998; Dorn et al.

1998; DesRoches 1999; Natarajan 2000).1 Consequently, knowledge of these levels is

extremely limited. In particular, little is known about the topic of this paper—the structure

and organization of groups operating at these levels. Following Pearson and Hobbs (2001)

and Reuter (2004), the present state of this knowledge can be summarized as follows:

1. Little evidence supports the idea that upper and mid level dealing is controlled by

tightly organized, complex and hierarchical organized crime groups that operate

around the world. Even the Medellin and Cali ‘‘cartels’’ seem to be only loose syn-

dicates of independent entrepreneurs, who sometimes collaborate but who also com-

pete with each other and with other, smaller organizations.

2. Market power is elusive at these trafficking levels; it is only at the level of a few streets

that drug dealing organizations have the power to exclude others or to set prices.

3. Considerable variety exists in upper and mid level drug dealing groups and the roles of

supplier and buyer are generally interchangeable. Some regional or local ‘‘corporate’’

style groups exist, and there are also some fairly large ‘‘family’’ businesses or ones

founded on ethnic ties among individuals with links to source countries for drug

production and with access to smuggling routes.

4. However, most criminal networks involved in upper and middle market drug distri-

bution are small, led by one or two individuals, who control the money and who have

contacts with a small number of producers or wholesalers. These individuals employ

small teams of runners, sometimes on a casual basis, who collect and deliver batches

of drugs to customers.

The considerable variety of drug dealing organizations operating at mid and upper levels

means that these conclusions, based on only a few studies, must be treated as provisional

and incomplete. However, they gain some support from the similar findings of contem-

porary research on organized crime (e.g. Kleinknecht 1996; Klerks 2001; Moore 1987;

Albanese 2004; Clarke and Brown, 2003; Guerette and Clarke 2005; Fijnaut et al. 1998;

Finckenauer 2000; Kleemans and van de Bunt 1999; Zhang and Chin 2003). These studies

have concluded that trafficking and smuggling, whether of humans, drugs or other com-

modities, are not generally committed by traditional organized crime groups such as the

‘‘Cosa Nostra’’. Rather, they are committed by loose networks of small groups of entre-

preneurs who are exposed to the opportunity to participate in these crimes by family and

ethnic ties, and who engage in the crimes for personal profit not organizational gain (Zhang

and Chin 2003).2 The networks might form quickly to accomplish specific transactions and

be dissolved equally quickly once these are complete. This is made possible by the fact that

1 Their review omitted Fuentes (1998) and subsequent to their review two further studies have beenpublished Browne et al. (2003) and Pearson and Hobbs (2003).2 Members of traditional criminal organizations might sometimes participate in deals, but again this wouldoften be on a personal basis.

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many of the individuals in the networks involved have legitimate ways to make money and

engage in the crimes as a sideline. These networks provide many operational advantages for

engaging in smuggling and trafficking: ‘‘Such small-sized groups can adapt well to ever-

changing market constraints and uncertainties. They have little vertical bureaucratic

structure, even though their operations may involve highly specialized tasks. They ally with

only those with valuable resources to contribute to their objective of making a profit.’’

(Zhang and Chin 2003, p. 478). Furthermore, small groups have certain important security

advantages because ‘‘the fewer the number of people involved in a smuggling ring, or

knowledgeable about its activities, the greater the chance of keeping the operation con-

cealed from law enforcement agencies.’’ (Zhang and Chin 2003, p. 478)

Given the consistency of findings from the organized crime and drug trafficking liter-

atures, it could be that quite widespread changes in the nature of organized crime have

been taking place in recent years, and that it might now be more often correct to refer to

these crimes not as organized crime, but as ‘‘crimes that are organized’’ (Finckenauer and

Waring 1998; Hobbs 2001; Potter 1994; Zabludoff 1997). This represents a new paradigm

for understanding mid and upper level drug dealing, as well as organized crime in general

(Brown and Clarke 2004; Hobbs 2001; Zhang and Chin 2003, 2004), and it also has far

reaching implications for interdiction.

Before embracing this view, however, it would be important to undertake more in-depth

studies of specific drug dealing organizations. There is a particular need to understand their

structure, the roles of individual members, the network of contacts among them, the degree

to which they specialize in particular tasks, the extent of communication within and

between sub-groups, and the degree to which they are geographically concentrated. Tra-

ditionally, this type of understanding has been produced by ethnographic and interview

methods, but Natarajan (2000) has shown that analysis of wiretap records collected in the

course of prosecuting trafficking organizations can also yield detailed knowledge on these

points. She studied a large, 28 member organization involved in importation and wholesale

distribution of cocaine, which was prosecuted in New York City in 1996. The organization

included a large number of individuals, with a clear division of labor and a recognizable

hierarchy. It therefore met the criteria of a ‘‘corporate’’ style organization in Natarajan and

Belanger’s (1998) classification of drug dealing organizations.

The present study adapts and extends Natarajan’s (2000) methodology in studying

another, somewhat larger and more loosely structured heroin trafficking operation suc-

cessfully prosecuted in a New York City court at the end of 1993 after an investigation

lasting three years. The prosecution claimed that they had unmasked an international drug

trafficking conspiracy, with links to mafia families, which had acquired $144 million in

assets. The organization was said to be responsible for transporting, receiving and selling

more than 200 hundred kilograms of heroin per year (approximately 193 kg were recov-

ered during the investigation). As for its structure, 35 defendants were identified who

controlled a series of 15 independent yet interrelated narcotics distribution groups involved

in importing, processing, packaging and distributing narcotics for resale in wholesale and

retail quantities. These reached from street level sellers of individual glassines of heroin

and operators of heroin ‘‘mills’’ who sold small quantities by the ‘‘bundle’’, through to

middle level wholesalers of heroin and to high-level traffickers within the structure of

traditional organized crime groups. The prosecution document (page 3 of exhibit C)

claimed that:

‘‘Due to the many different groups responsible for importing and distributing the

narcotics in this case, the far flung enterprise uncovered during the course of our

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investigation is not always divisible into easily defined categories. Moreover, at any

given time, a particular subsidiary within the overall criminal conglomerate may be

fulfilling several roles in relation to other subcomponents within the organization.

However, despite the unique characteristics associated with each particular group

within the illicit enterprise, we have learned that what were first viewed as inde-

pendent narcotics trafficking groups are now recognizable as interrelated segments of

the overall trafficking mechanism.’’

This portrayal fits the ‘‘communal business’’ type of drug dealing organization de-

scribed by Natarajan and Belanger (1998). These organizations are composed of small

cliques of people forming a larger entity. They have a relatively flat hierarchy and a

flexible division of labor (some people taking multiple roles). Their operations tend not to

be confined to one geographic location and they mostly deal in one drug type (heroin in this

case). There are usually strong ethnic ties among the members of the organization (Italian

in this case) and most members are older. The organization also fits the description of a

‘‘network organization’’ that has been described in the business literature as follows:

‘‘...a network organization maintains permeable boundaries either internally among

business units or externally with other firms. Management is less hierarchical,

deriving its authority more from expertise than from rank... Communication is direct

and point-to-point rather than ‘‘through channels’’, while knowledge of emerging

problems and opportunities may arrive via multiple loose associations or weak ties.

Resources are specialized and customizable within a given product or service scope

yet they are less vertically integrated than their hierarchical counterparts. Purposeful

agents within the network may establish ties to other agents and organizations to

wrest control for themselves or thwart competitors’ attempts to do the same Tasks

are more project and less functionally driven, leading to shorter runs of more dif-

ferentiated products. Networks reintegrate staff conception and line execution such

that local concerns are more locally addressed. ’’ (Van Marshall 1997, p. 3)

Despite the apparent fit with the literature, a major difficulty with the prosecution’s

portrayal of the organization is that no previous study of drug trafficking organizations has

identified one with such a broad span of operations. In particular, Natarajan and Belanger’s

(1998) study of 39 large drug trafficking organizations prosecuted in the Federal courts in

New York City between 1984 and 1997 found none that was engaged in all levels of

trafficking (smuggling, wholesale distribution, regional distribution and retail) and, indeed

the tasks performed by the majority (24) fell into just one of these levels. This does not

mean of course that no organizations exist with such a broad span of operations, but if they

do, they are rare.

A second potential difficulty with the prosecution’s portrayal is that it might have been

influenced by the intention to secure convictions under conspiracy law. This has several

advantages for the prosecution including that conspiracy charges attract additional pen-

alties, they encourage and reward those in the organization who inform on others, and they

make low level operators as culpable as the leaders. In these cases, the courts have most

often treated drug trafficking enterprises as ‘‘chain’’ conspiracies that involve large

numbers of persons divided into layers or groups of personnel. The prosecution must show

direct connections between all the members of the conspiracy and must establish that they

are knowingly involved in a single enterprise to purchase and distribute illegal drugs (see

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United States v. Sobamowo, 892 F.2d at 94). It can be assumed that participants understand

that they are participating in a joint enterprise because success is dependent on the success

of those from whom they buy and to whom they sell (Marcus 1995). Where two or more

chains are connected to a hub by core conspirators the courts usually view the entirety as a

single enterprise.3 (See United States v Mallah, 503 F2nd at 984.) In other words, to

successfully prosecute the organization under the laws of conspiracy, the prosecution must

portray it as an enterprise with a single objective to distribute narcotics at different levels

including importing, wholesale and retail operations.

Given these two difficulties with the prosecution’s portrayal of the organization, it is

reasonable to ask whether the prosecution had in fact identified a discrete organization.

While there is no reason to doubt that the individuals identified in the case were involved in

the distribution and sale of heroin, they might not really have been linked together in a single

organization. It could be that the investigation had identified a segment of the heroin market

in New York City, not a definable organization, as a result of scooping into its net a multitude

of unconnected deals made by various groups and individuals who had intermittent and

tenuous contacts with a core group of individuals originally targeted in the investigation.

The study reported below seeks to shed light on this question by analysis of the wiretap

records collected in the case: Has the prosecution identified a heroin-dealing organization

or has it identified a segment of the heroin market in New York City? If it is a definable

organization one might expect to see: evidence of some hierarchy, with a recognizable

leader and some status differentials; regular contacts among the members of the organi-

zation, particularly among the core group; some division of labor and organizational and

geographical division of responsibilities among lieutenants. If these expectations are not

met, it might be concluded that the prosecution had identified a market segment, not an

organization.

A second purpose of the research, pursued in tandem with the first, was to provide a

detailed picture of the organizations—if that is what it really was. This picture would be a

significant addition to the small literature on drug trafficking organization. The prosecution

materials provide quite detailed information about the nature of the organization, about its

day-to-day operations, and about its links to organized crime and to overseas suppliers.

This information was needed to mount a successful case against the individuals in the

higher reaches of the organization. The prosecution did not describe other features of the

organization that were not directly relevant to its case, but which would round out a more

scientific description. These include:

1. The approximate size of the entire organization.

2. The relative status of members and the degree of task specialization.

3. The cohesiveness of the organization; the size of the core group; the number and

nature of contacts between this group and peripheral members; and the numbers of

definable cliques within the organization.

4. The geographic extent of operations within New York City and the links between

street selling and wholesale distribution.

The study reported below attempts to provide this and other information about the

organization by undertaking a series of separate but linked analyses of the wiretap data

gathered in the course of prosecuting the case.

3 An ‘‘enterprise’’ includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity andany union or group of individuals formed to create and deliver products to customers (Marcus 1995).

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Methodology

The data

The data for this study consisted of English translations of more than 2,000 pages of

transcripts in electronic form of wiretap conversations gathered in the course of prose-

cuting the case. These transcripts were imported into a Folio Views database. Folio Views

is a hypertext software program that can materially assist theoretical understanding of large

and complex textual files. Every word in the infobase4 is indexed and can be manipulated

using Boolean operators and other search techniques to find instant answers within massive

amounts of information.

For the purposes of the present study, each wiretap conversation was created as a

separate record in the Folio Views database. A record is a unit of information (usually a

paragraph, sometimes several paragraphs) in an infobase. Records are basic building

blocks of the infobase, which may be grouped by topic, assigned levels to simplify for-

matting and organization, or modified to enhance or emphasize portions of the infobase.

The transcripts yielded a total of 2,408 conversations, ranging in length from one minute

to ten minutes gathered from 21 wiretapped phones. To give a flavor of their content, the

following is a conversation recorded between two ‘‘sellers’’, X and FF, who are discussed

later in the analysis:

Seller X: Hello.

Seller FF: Yeah, hello.

Seller X: What’s up bud? How you doing?

Seller FF: Alright. What’s happening?

Seller X: Yeah. Listen. I want to see you man.

Seller FF: Yeah.

Seller X: I want to give you that thing before they fucking steal it off of me, man. (Laughs)

I’m getting a hair cut right now. I could see you in an hour.

Seller FF: Oh alright, cause ‘‘Y’’ thought he had an appointment with you at 4:00, but I’ll

get a hold of him then.

Seller X: You know, alright, no, I won’t make in by 4:00.

Seller FF: So what time do you want?

Seller X: (Inaudible) Queens. Alright in ah hour, in exactly an hour from now. You want

me to call you when I’m down there?

Seller FF: (Inaudible).

Seller X: It don’t take you but 10 min to get to me.

Seller FF: Yeah, yeah.

Seller X: Alright, so I’ll call you back.

Seller FF: Alright. You wanna talk to, you wanna ...

Seller X: I wanna talk to you man.

Seller FF: Alright, have you spoken to ‘‘him’’ at all?

Seller X: No, I beep him, he don’t answer me. I mean I talked to ‘‘V’’ last night but he

don’t know what was going on.

Seller FF: Yeah.

Seller X: Let’s talk in person me and you. How about that? Huh?

4 Infobase is a freeform collection of information (both text and graphics) with a comprehensive index. Textin an infobase may be searched, grouped by topic, linked, and edited.

176 J Quant Criminol (2006) 22:171–192

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Seller FF: Yeah alright, because I’m trying to arrange, I don’t know what’s the way to

go. I want to explain to you what ‘‘he’’ told me and maybe you can make fucking sense out

of it.

Seller X: Oh, OK. Listen, so I’ll call you as soon as I’m finished with my haircut.

Seller FF: OK.

Seller X: Later.

Seller FF: Bye

Table 1 provides the number of conversations and the number of identified individuals

for each of the 21 phones5 intercepted in the course of the investigation from 1991–1993.6

The data summarized in Table 1 provide the basis for the analyses reported below about

the organization and it is important to be clear about their limitations as a source of

information. Many of these derive from the practical and legal constraints on gathering

wiretap data for a criminal investigation. In particular, wiretap interceptions must be

authorized by the relevant court upon a detailed showing of probable cause. Specifically,

the investigating officer must provide a detailed affidavit showing there is probable cause

to believe the phone is being used to facilitate a specific, serious, indictable crime.

Undoubtedly, chance will help to determine which phones are targeted by the investigators

and there is no guarantee that they will succeed in identifying all the phones involved, or

even the most critical ones. Beyond demonstrating probable cause, very little information

was provided in the present case about the reasons for selecting a particular phone.

Table 1 Wiretap conversationsfor 21 phones, 1991–1993

Phone Number of individuals Number of conversations

1 58 8012 50 5043 94 2324 42 1735 30 1096 44 967 26 908 10 799 26 6610 33 6011 6 3812 11 3213 12 3114 11 2915 13 2116 18 1917 2 1118 7 1019 2 420 2 221 3 1

Total 2,408

5 A total of 39 applications for wiretap orders were made during the case, but many of these were forextension orders or for pager devices. Three of the 21 phones tapped were mobile phones which were then inuse.6 Though this case is closed and the case data are publicly available, IRB required keeping the identity ofphones or individuals as anonymous. Nine conversations from three phones were non-usable and wereeliminated from the analyses.

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At an average in 1992 of $46,492 per authorized wiretap (Delaney et al. 1993), costs

also limit the number of wiretaps that can be placed.7 This means the suspects targeted for

wiretapping may not be representative of the organization as a whole. Their phones may be

tapped for relatively brief and possibly unrepresentative periods. They often speak in a

foreign language (as in the present case) and translation may result in loss of important

information. They also sometimes speak in code that may not be easy to decipher.

The conversations included in Table 1 are only a small proportion of all calls intercepted

in the case and comprised only the conversations judged ‘‘pertinent’’ by the prosecution.

Under the ‘‘minimization’’ rules, the law enforcement officer performing the surveillance

must turn off the intercept when the conversation is not pertinent to the investigation. In

cases where the conversation is in code or in a foreign language then it can be recorded and

minimization deferred until a qualified person is available to interpret the code or provide

translation (Delaney et al. 1993). To illustrate the attrition of calls resulting from these

procedures, phone 1 (Table 1) had a total of 3,087 calls during 1991–1992, of which 1,411

were not completed or were beeper calls. Of the 1,676 calls that involved conversations (868

incoming and 808 outgoing calls), only 174 calls were considered pertinent by the prose-

cution. These conversations involved only the individuals who were indicted and only

involved matters relevant to the case. For all these reasons, it is apparent that the data

analyzed below comprise a small and possibly unrepresentative sample of the telephone

communications involving the members of the organization. This means that considerable

caution must be exercised in reaching conclusions from the study.

Methods of analyses

Following Natarajan (2000), a series of separate but linked analyses were undertaken of the

wiretap conversations to study different aspects of what was assumed to be an organization

and of the roles of individual members within it. The analyses were as follows:

1. Contact analysis: For each identified individual in the database, counts were made of

the number of other people with whom he or she had telephone contact. This led to the

identification of 38 ‘‘core’’ individuals who had extended contacts and repeated

transactions with others. The analyses listed below are mostly based on these 38

individuals.

2. Role analysis: The major tasks performed by each of the core individuals were

identified through inspection of the content of conversations in which he or she was

involved.

3. Status analysis: Using a coding guide developed from Natarajan’s (2000) study, the

relative status of the core individuals was determined through an analysis of the

conversations in which each was involved.

4. Network analysis: Links between core individuals and others were analyzed using a

UCINET VI software program for social network analysis.

5. Geographic analysis: The addresses of outgoing telephone calls from the tapped

phones were examined to see if this revealed any geographic specialization among the

core group.

7 The 39 wiretap applications made in the case account for a sizeable proportion of all wiretap authorizationsin New York State during the period covered by the investigation; for example, in 1992, 117 such appli-cations were authorized in New York State.

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Each analysis was designed to build upon previous ones. Thus, the role analysis of core

individuals in the organization builds upon the base line information provided by the

contact analysis and was undertaken to clarify each core member’s organizational

‘‘niche’’. Information provided by the status analysis was designed to improve under-

standing of the organizational structure (i.e. the degree to which it is hierarchical or

egalitarian), the chain of command and the accountability of core members. The network

analysis explores the nature of the connections between and among these core members,

the existence of cliques, and the contacts between core and peripheral members of the

organization. Finally, the geographic analysis explores whether there was any evidence

that individual sellers confined their operations to a particular part of the city.

Findings

Contact analysis

In order to identify the core and peripheral members, a count was made using Folio Views’

query feature of the individuals participating in the 2,408 telephone conversations. In 557

of these conversations it was not possible to identify the people speaking. For the

remaining 1,851 conversations, 294 individuals were identified by name. Of these 294, 208

(nearly 70%) were a mix of overseas contacts, street level buyers, and an assortment of

friends, family and casual contacts, who spoke with only one other person in the database.

The remaining 86 individuals spoke with 2 or more others (see Table 2). These 86 indi-

viduals were involved in more than half the conversations in the database (1,299) and

spoke to 2–76 people.

Table 2 suggests that the database falls quite naturally into two groups; one large group

composed of individuals who spoke to only one other person in the organization and

another smaller group with extended contacts. In fact, the smaller group proved to be quite

heterogeneous when the number of conversations they were involved in was counted. On

average each of these 86 individuals was involved in six conversations, but some were

involved in many more than this, up to a maximum of 81. This suggested that many of the

86 individuals who had more than one telephone contact were in fact also peripheral

members of the organization. It was decided to define the ‘‘core’’ members of the orga-

nization on the basis of a combination of number of contacts and number of conversations.

On this basis, 38 core members were identified who had two or more contacts and were

involved in five or more conversations.

There is only a moderate degree of overlap between these 38 core individuals and the 35

defendants in the criminal case: only 23 individuals both fell into the core group and were

prosecuted. Thus, fifteen members of the core group were not prosecuted and of the 35

individuals prosecuted on criminal charges, nine were not in the core and another three

Table 2 Telephone contacts for294 identified individuals

Telephone contacts per individual Number of individuals

1 2082 283 164 125 56 57+ 20

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were not in the database at all. Some of these differences were no doubt due to evidential

requirements for prosecution. Thus, the prosecution might have been well aware of the

importance of some of the core members not prosecuted, but might have been unable to

muster the necessary evidence for successful prosecution. With respect to those prosecuted

who were not in the core, the prosecution might have known about their importance in the

organization from sources other than wiretap data—for example from direct surveillance or

from informants.

Role analysis

The contact analysis provided a general description of the organization in terms of the

number of people involved, the frequency of contacts and the size of the organization’s

active ‘‘core’’ of 38 members. This next stage of the analysis explores the roles in the

organization of these core members. In doing this, content analyses were undertaken of

three sets of conversations: (i) those among the 38 core members (the 45 randomly selected

conversations used in the ‘‘status’’ analysis reported below were used for this purpose);

(ii) those between the core members and the other 48 members (i.e. 86 minus 38) with

more than one contact (a random sample of 20 conversations; (iii) those between the core

members and 208 members and 208 members with only one telephone contact (a further

random sample of 20 conversations).

The content analysis revealed that the 38 core members performed one of four primary

roles: sellers, brokers, retailers and secretaries/assistants. These are described in more

detail below.

Sellers (N = 18)

This group consisted of individuals who were mostly involved in selling drugs in quite

large quantities (a pound or more), but who were also involved to a more limited extent in

brokering deals. Fourteen of the sellers were prosecuted. Some of the group had con-

nections with overseas suppliers.8 Sellers dealt primarily in heroin and were particular

about the quality of drugs they dealt. They usually examined consignments before agreeing

to purchase them and were sufficiently knowledgeable to make comparisons with products

from other sources. Money transactions were very informal among the sellers despite the

large sums often involved. These were referred to using code words. They frequently

operated on credit and regularly lent each other supplies. Most were older and were

friendly in their dealings. A few of the sellers sold drugs other than heroin in small

quantities for retail sales to the 208 people with only one contact.

Retailers (N = 8)

Retailers bought exclusively from sellers. They were of all age groups and included some

women. They knew the sellers on a friendly basis and there was relatively little bargaining on

price. Code words were used in arranging deals. The price and amount quoted in conver-

sations suggested that most deals involved between a quarter of an ounce to four ounces.

Sometimes retailers asked for drugs by price rather than amount. Retailers were very

8 These suppliers are found among the 208 individuals with only one contact. They were often contacted inhotels in other states such as New Jersey and Florida, but the content of the conversations showed they hadconnections with South America.

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particular about the quality of drugs. Many of them bought on a regular basis and tried to

arrange deals with a variety of sellers as and when they obtained the orders. They generally

made the pick-up arrangements in some specified location, say ‘‘69th on the West End’’.

Brokers (N = 8)

Brokers were middlemen between sellers as well as between sellers and retailers. They set

up meetings to inspect drugs and helped negotiate the price. Retailers sometimes com-

plained to brokers about the quality of the drugs they purchased, which is why they took

responsibility for assessing quality. Once an agreement was reached between retailers and

sellers, the broker arranged a place for them to meet and conclude the deal. Brokers

seemed to be relatively young with connections around the city, mainly among relatives.

These connections often notified the broker of the arrival of supplies from out of town. The

brokers passed on this message to sellers and made the arrangements for them to buy from

the suppliers. Brokers were the lynch pins in the organization and played an important role

in bringing people who did not know each other together to conduct business.

Secretary (N = 4)

These women were generally wives or girlfriends of the active members. They passed

messages to buyers, sellers and brokers. They were well known to those involved in buying

and selling.

Status analysis

In order to establish the relative status of these 38 core members, a content analysis of their

conversations was undertaken using Natarajan’s (2000) six-point scoring scheme. This

allows the relative status to be established of two individuals engaged in a single con-

versation, or conversational dyad. This coding scheme assumes that the higher status

individual would generally:

(a) express satisfaction

(b) request information

(c) not provide information

(d) give orders

(e) not seek clarification of orders

(f) not use the word ‘‘sir’’ when talking to others.

For the individuals in each dyad, the numbers of segments were counted that contained

instances of each of the six items above. A conversational ‘‘segment’’ is a continuous,

uninterrupted utterance by an individual. This definition can be clarified by the following

fictitious example with three segments:

Person 1: Hello! How are you?

Person 2: All right. And you?

Person 1: Can’t complain!

Reliability and validity of coding scheme

Before coding the conversations, the reliability of Natarajan’s guide had to be determined

when used with the present data. For this purpose, a random sample of 20 conversations in

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which the 38 core members were involved was selected. Two coders then independently

coded each segment of the 20 conversations. Correlation coefficients were calculated

between the ratings made by each rater for both individuals involved in the 20 conver-

sations. Each conversation thus had two correlation coefficients, one for each of the

individuals speaking. The overall correlation between the two coders was 0.91, somewhat

higher than in Natarajan’s original study (0.80), and indicating a satisfactory level of

reliability.

If the coding scheme is a valid measure of status, its individual items ought be inter-

correlated. In fact, in Natarajan’s original application of the coding scheme, five of the 15

correlations between items were significant. This was taken to indicate a reasonable degree

of consistency in the measure. Because it could not be assumed that the measure would be

equally valid when applied to a quite different type of organization, correlation coefficients

were calculated for a random sample of conversations drawn from the 45 conversational

dyads in which the 38 core members were involved.

The procedure was as follows. One conversation for each dyad was randomly selected9

and each segment of the conversation was scored using the coding scheme. In fact, no

conversational segment contained the item ‘‘Sir’’10 and this item was not included in the

calculations. For the remaining five items, only two coefficients were found to be signif-

icant at the 0.5 level: between ‘‘request information’’ and ‘‘provide information’’ (0.23);

and between ‘‘give orders’’ and ‘‘express satisfaction’’ (0.21). This was many fewer than

in Natarajan’s (2000) study and one of these correlations (between ‘‘request information’’

and ‘‘provide information’’) was in the opposite direction. In sum, ‘‘sir’’ was almost never

used, few of the items were inter-correlated and there was a positive association between

requesting and providing information.

This pattern of results suggests that the present organization is quite different from the

highly structured corporate type organization, with a clear hierarchy of employees, which

Natarajan studied earlier. Rather, the present organization seems to be much less hierar-

chical and more loosely structured. In such an organization the status scores of individual

members are likely to show much less variation.

Results of the ‘‘status’’ counts

In fact, very little variation was found among the 38 core members of the organization in

mean status scores. The range was 0–2 with an average of 0.97. This represents much less

status variation than found by Natarajan (2000) in the ‘‘corporate’’ organization she

studied, where the range was 1–5, with an average of 1.6. Of the 15 individuals who scored

higher than 1.0, 13 were sellers (the remaining two were buyers), but none of these

individuals scored so much higher than the remainder as to suggest he might be a boss, in

charge of the entire group. In sum, though there was some level of status differentiation,

with most of the sellers being of higher status than the remainder, the status analysis

provides further evidence that the present organization has a flat, egalitarian structure with

little differentiation between the core members.

9 Systematic random sampling procedure was used to select the 45 conversations of 45 dyads i.e. every 6thconversation of each dyad was used for analysis.10 To check whether this was an artifact of the selection of conversations, the entire database was searchedfor the word ‘‘sir’’. Inspection of the 41 hits revealed that the word was most commonly used by higherstatus individuals when addressing each other.

182 J Quant Criminol (2006) 22:171–192

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Network analysis

The three previous analyses provided information about the nature and structure of the

organization, about the relative status of individual members, and about the tasks they

performed. However, the links among individual members are unclear and, in order to

understand these, social network analysis was undertaken. Social network analysis is the

mapping and measuring of relationships and flows between people (Borgatti et al. 2002;

Borgatti and Everett 1992; Borgatti and Foster 2003; Berkowitz 1982; Breiger 2004; Burt

1976; Klerks 2001; Kilduff and Tsai 2003; Knoke and Kuklinski 1981; Moreno 1934; Scott

1991; Sparrow 1991; Wasserman and Faust 1994; Watts 1999; Wellman 1992). It con-

siders primarily: the number of people; the proportion of people that are not connected to

each other, the number of sub-groups or cliques, the strength of links and the degree to

which power seems to be centralized on particular individuals.

Using the 2,408 conversations, sociomatrices were developed of contacts11 among,

(i) the 294 individuals in the organization, (ii) the 86 with more than one contact, and

(iii) the 38 core members. These were analyzed using UCINET VI, a powerful software

program (Borgatti and Everett 1999) to answer the following questions:

1. How cohesive is the organization?

2. Are there are any subsets or groups within the organization?

3. Are there any particular individuals who are more powerful than others?

Cohesiveness/density

Barnes’s set analysis was used to measure the degree of inter-relatedness or network

‘‘density’’ of contacts between individuals or teams (Ianni and Ianni 1990). This yielded

the ‘‘percent density’’ values shown in Table 3.

The percent density values for all three groups are well below 80%, which is the critical

value suggested by Barnes (1972). This indicates that this is a sparse, loosely connected

organization, with many isolated individuals and with relatively few contacts among the

people in the organization. Sparsely knit networks provide people with considerable room

to act autonomously and to switch between relationships.

Sub group/cliques

The software program can identify sub-groups, or cliques, with a minimum of three

members, within the broader network. Because so many of the individuals in the network

were isolates, sub-groups were sought only among the 38 core members.

Table 3 Density scoresNetwork Percent density

Entire organization (N = 294) 0.97Those with more than one contact (N = 86) 5.88The core group (N = 38) 12.37

11 The taped calls were both outgoing and incoming and for the purposes of the network analysis (which wasbased on only a sample of all calls intercepted) the contacts were assumed to be directional, mutual anddichotomous (Wasserman and Faust 1994).

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Twenty-nine (29) cliques were identified when a clique was defined as having a min-

imum of three members; when defined as four members, eight cliques were identified;

when defined as five members, no cliques were identified. This reveals that there were a

number of small groups with considerable overlapping membership. In fact, 29 of the 38

core members belonged to at least one clique (when these were defined as having a

minimum of three members). The nine individuals who did not belong to any clique were

three retailers, two brokers, three sellers and one secretary.

The cliques fell into two broad groups, one consisting of 16 cliques associated with

Mr. DD (a seller) and the other of 13 cliques associated with Mr. X, Mr. J, Mr. FF and

Mr. F (all of whom were sellers). There were limited direct contacts between these groups,

though both were separately connected to Mr. Y, which suggests that he also played a very

important part in the organization. Indeed, he was recognized as an important figure by the

prosecution. UCINET’s net draw procedure was used to see whether Mr. DD and Mr. X

were ‘‘cut points’’,12 i.e. network members whose removal would cause the network to fall

apart (see Bonacich 1987; Freeman 1979; Friedkin 1991; Wasserman and Faust 1994).

However, when they were removed, the network structure did not completely fall apart but

was maintained by links among the remaining members (Fig. 1).

The special case of sellers

Sellers were included in every one of the 29 cliques with a minimum of three members. In fact,

15 of the cliques were exclusively composed of sellers. There were no exclusive cliques of

any of the other groups (broker, retailers or secretaries). While they do form cliques, Fig. 2

shows that the interconnections among the 17 sellers (excluding Mr. EE) and five of the eight

brokers (not including Mr. R, Ms. Q and Mr. P) were quite extensive. Together with their

common role, this fact suggests that the sellers and half the brokers might have comprised a

Fig. 1 Network structure of 38 core members

12 The divisions into which cut-points divide a graph are called blocks.

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separate, coherent organization that, despite the variety of business links with other members

of the ‘‘core’’ group, was somewhat independent of it. However, the low density score (14.46)

for this group of 22 sellers and brokers suggests that even if the organization existed, it was not

very tightly knit and might be more accurately termed a network.

Power scores

Power in social networks may be viewed either as a micro property (i.e. it describes

relations between actors) or as a macro property (i.e. one that describes the entire popu-

lation). Bonacich’s power analysis (1987) takes into account any single individual’s

connections in relation to the connections of the other individuals in the group. It connects

the individuals to the structure of the network facilitating the micro-macro link

(Markovsky et al.,1988, 1993). It assumes that power arises from connections to weak

others, as opposed to strong others. According to Bonacich (2001), some actors have more

transaction partners than they can possibly transact with; they must choose some and reject

others. Power accrues from having potential partners who have no alternative choices.

The mean power score for the core members was 4.56, with fourteen of the 38 achieving

scores higher than the mean. Mr. DD and Mr. X obtained the highest scores (respectively,

21 and 18) which was consistent with the sub groups analysis discussed above. Ms. CC

(Mr. DDs secretary/girlfriend) also scored highly (10), as did Mr. Y and Mr. FF (both 8),

Mr. BB (7) and Mr. J (6). With the one exception of Ms. CC, all these individuals were

sellers and all were identified as important players in the earlier analyses.

Links between street level and mid level operations

The flow of drugs from mid level to the street can be illustrated by the personal (‘‘ego-

centric’’) network of Mr. M, one of the sellers (See Fig. 3). Mr. M. was based in Manhattan

Fig. 2 Sellers and brokers network (N = 26). N.B. Shaded circles denote brokers

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and obtained drugs through a variety of sources: from Mr. AA (who in turn obtained them

from Mr. DD), and from Mr. F, Mr. J and Mr. HH, core members who sold directly to him.

Mr. M was connected to 53 of the 208 peripheral individuals with only one contact.

Inspection of a sample of these contacts found that these 53 individuals seemed to be a mix

of acquaintances and street level dealers.

Geographical analysis

The geographic analysis explores whether there was any evidence that individual sellers

confined their deals to particular part of the city, as would be expected if they belonged to a

single organization. If no evidence were found of any geographic specialization, this would

suggest that the sellers operated independently of one another.

Only a few of the conversation transcripts (a total of 172 records) enabled the addresses

of the numbers that were called to be identified. The great majority of these addresses were

within the five boroughs comprising New York City. Two thirds of the calls were made to

addresses in high/medium drug arrest areas (identified from precinct arrest data for 1993)

in the respective boroughs—showing again the probable links between midlevel and street

level operations. (One central player in the organization, Mr. Y, actually resided in a high

drug arrest area).13

Fig. 3 Links between street level and mid level operations

13 A few phone calls were made to Cali, in Colombia, and there was some evidence that women courierswere bringing in small quantities from Colombia. Some conversations related to travel to Greece and Europeto seek supplies. Some other places called from the tapped phones included Boston, Washington DC,Tampa, Miami, Jamaica, Mexico and Taiwan.

186 J Quant Criminol (2006) 22:171–192

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The data permitted a limited geographical analysis of the phone contacts of the two

most active sellers—Mr. DD and Mr. X. For the 284 phone calls made from Mr. DD’s

tapped phone, 51 listed addresses and for the 250 phone calls made from Mr. X’s tapped

phone, 26 listed addresses. Table 4 shows the geographic distribution of the addresses for

Mr. DD and Mr. X’s phones.

It can be seen there is no significant difference in the distribution of the addresses called,

at least for this crude geographic differentiation, and for the small perhaps unrepresentative

sample. Nonetheless, it provides little reason to think that there was an agreement either

formal or informal between these two key sellers to serve different parts of the city.

Instead, it would appear that they found customers and made deals wherever they could

and, generally, the analysis is consistent with the picture that has emerged from the other

analyses reported above: The organization seems to have been very loosely structured, with

few organizing principles, and with individual operators who formed ad hoc relationships

with a handful of others as needed to conduct deals.

Summary of findings

The contact analysis found that most of the 294 identified individuals had very limited

contacts with anyone else in the organization and that the active core was quite small,

consisting of 38 individuals. The role analysis of this core found that they could be

sorted into one of four groups: sellers (18); retailers (8); brokers (8) and secretaries (4).

However, these individuals sometimes switched roles in the furtherance of particular

deals. The status analysis showed that there was little status differentiation among the

core members and the organization had a flat, egalitarian structure. The network

analysis complemented this picture by characterizing the organization as sparse and

loosely connected, with many isolated individuals and with relatively few contacts

among those in the organization. Among the 38 core members, there were a number of

small sub groups, or cliques, dominated by sellers, with considerable overlapping

membership. These sub groups fell into two broader groupings, associated with two

very active sellers (Mr. DD and Mr. X). There were few direct contacts between the

two halves, but both were separately connected to another important seller (Mr. Y),

who thus seems to have played a central role in the organization. In addition, the

network analysis suggested that the sellers and half the brokers constituted a coherent,

more tightly connected network of 22 individuals that was somewhat distinct from the

rest of the core. Finally, though it was severely constrained by lack of data, the

geographic analysis found little evidence of geographic separation in the operations of

key dealers.

Table 4 Geographicdistribution of calls made fromthe phones of the two most activesellers

Mr. X Mr. DD

Manhattan 16 36Brooklyn 0 2Bronx 5 8Queens 2 0Yonkers 3 1NJ 0 2Upstate 0 2

Total 26 51

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Discussion and conclusions

The analysis reported above using wiretap data collected in the investigation of a large

heroin trafficking case in New York City was undertaken with two linked objectives. The

first was to fill out the picture of what the prosecution had successfully argued was a large

international drug trafficking conspiracy, dealing in more than 200 kg of heroin each year.

It was claimed that the 35 criminal defendants had controlled fifteen narcotics distribution

groups, reaching from street level sellers through to middle level wholesalers and high-

level traffickers with close links to organized crime groups. In Natarajan and Belanger’s

(1998) terms, the prosecution’s description loosely fits the ‘‘communal business’’ type of

drug dealing organization, albeit a large one, composed of small cliques of people forming

a larger entity, with a flat hierarchy and a flexible division of labor. On the other hand, no

drug trafficking organization with such a large span of operations, whether ‘‘communal

business’’ or not, has previously been described in the research literature and it is possible

that, rather than having identified a discrete drug trafficking organization, the prosecution

had identified a segment of the heroin market in New York City. The second objective of

the analysis was therefore to see what evidence could be found to support either this

interpretation or the prosecution’s view of the case.

It might have been expected that the picture of the organization provided by the analysis

reported in this paper would differ considerably from the prosecution picture. The quan-

titative analysis was based only on the wiretap data presented (which suffers from the

various limitations discussed above), while the prosecution drew on much wider sources of

information. In many respects, however, such as the large extended operations, the rela-

tively flat hierarchy, and the division of the organization into multiple drug dealing cells,

the wiretap analysis supported the picture presented by the prosecution. The analysis also

filled out the prosecution’s picture by providing considerably more information about

certain aspects of the organization, including its large size (294 individuals were identified

in the wiretap database); the relative lack of status differentials among members; the

frequency with which they switched roles; the loose organizational structure; the many

overlapping cliques within the organization; the number and nature of contacts between a

relatively small core group and the large number of peripheral members; the wide geo-

graphic extent of operations within New York City; and the links between street selling and

wholesale distribution.14

However, there were some important differences between the two pictures, including

only a moderate degree of overlap among the 35 individuals prosecuted and the 38

identified in this paper as falling into the ‘‘core’’ of the organization. Furthermore, the

wiretap analysis provided no information concerning the involvement of organized crime

groups, nor did it properly reveal the extent and nature of the contacts with overseas

suppliers—features that would have been important for a successful prosecution.

14 Apart from measuring status differentials, the content of the wiretap conversations was not subjected todetailed analysis, but some useful information emerged from informal reading of the transcripts about thedaily lives of those involved in the organization. For example, many members of the core group appeared tohave legitimate jobs besides drug dealing. They participated in many ordinary activities, such as going tobirthday parties, ball games and family celebrations and visiting friends and relatives in the hospitals.Informal reading of the content of the wiretap conversations also suggested that, at the wholesale level,ethnic and family ties provide the backcloth of trust for the drug-dealing transactions. This may be whyviolence was rarely mentioned and seems to have been rarely used. In fact, the transactions were conductedlike those of any other cooperative businesses with the price and quality of drugs appearing to be the factorsweighing most heavily in the deals.

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As explained, these differences between the prosecution picture and that revealed by the

wiretap analysis could have resulted from evidential requirements for prosecution and from

the additional information available to the prosecution about the organization.

It is impossible to make a definitive judgment from these results whether the prose-

cution had identified a large dug trafficking organization with a very wide span of oper-

ations or merely a segment of the drug market in New York City. Perhaps the most likely

interpretation is that the 294 individuals identified in the wiretap analysis constitute a

segment of the drug market. However, among the 38 ‘‘core’’ members was a smaller group

of 22 sellers and brokers, who were interconnected in a loose network and who were

somewhat independent of the wider core. Deals made among them were characterized by a

high level of trust and it is tempting to argue that it is this group which comprised a

‘‘communal business’’ of the kind identified by Natarajan and Belanger (1998). Even

though this group interacted frequently with some of the other members of the core, these

latter might not have been true members of the communal business.

While some of the key players in the organization appear to have had links with

organized crime families, the organization as a whole did not fit the traditional organized

crime model, Instead, as explained, the picture that emerges is one of a loosely structured

network of all groups or cliques, with little or no hierarchy. This reinforces the view

advanced in recent publications (Pearson and Hobbs 2001; Reuter 2004) of drug deal-

ing—and indeed of organized crime in general (see Introduction)—as a highly fragmented

business, consisting of a large number of entrepreneurial groups separately engaged in

exploiting the lucrative opportunities presented by the demand for drugs. As mentioned in

the Introduction, these kinds of drug dealing enterprises would be described as ‘‘network

organizations’’ (Van Marshall 1997) in the business literature. Burt (1992) characterizes

large, low density/low hierarchy networks, such as the present one, as ‘‘entrepreneurial’’

organizations which are composed of entrepreneurs who bridge a number of diversified,

unconnected groups.15 According to transitivity theory (Granovetter, 1983, 1985, 1995) a

large organization with weak ties, like the present one, provides individuals with greater

business opportunities and access to resources. Weak ties permit change and mobility, both

crucial for sustaining a drug dealing enterprise when core members are arrested. Even if

law enforcement dismantles the core of a large network, the extended connections at the

periphery with importers and with organized crime permit its regeneration with a new cast

of core actors.

While this picture is consistent with a broad range of research, the findings reported here

are also consistent with an alternative, untested model. It might be that the ‘‘organization’’

described in this paper had no real structural existence beyond that imposed on it by the

actions of law enforcement. It may be that the individuals and cliques identified in the

analysis were all independent operators, owing no particular allegiance to other individuals

or cliques. They might simply have been exploiting what they regarded as opportunities

that came their way in the ordinary course of business or opportunities that they created to

make some money. While they might routinely have done business with some other

individuals or groups in the ‘‘organization’’, many of them might just as regularly have

done business with other individuals or groups quite outside the borders of this particular

organization. Indeed, the ‘‘organization’’ might have been defined only by the resource

limitations of a law enforcement operation. This raises the intriguing possibility that, in

reality, it might be incorrect to think of drug dealing, at least in a large city like New York,

15 Sparsely-knit, fragmentary, loosely bounded networks make it possible to reach many people throughshort chains of ‘‘friends of friends’’ (Boissevain 1974).

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as being conducted exclusively or even primarily by a relatively small number of differ-

ently structured organizations. These have been identified in past research and they might

continue to exist (there is no way of knowing this given the lack of contemporary studies).

On the other hand, it might also be the case that drug dealing has been evolving in response

to changing opportunity structures for this type of business brought about by diversification

of supplies, proliferation of substances and expansion of trafficking routes and methods.

These changes would make it easier for drug dealing to be conducted by large numbers of

entrepreneurial individuals or small groups, who forge business deals with first one entity

and then another as opportunity dictates. When law enforcement dips its ladle into this

bubbling broth of entrepreneurial activity it might scoop out a random collection of

small groups and individuals that, by its network of contacts, is defined as a criminal

organization.

While this is mere speculation at this point, the implications for criminological

understanding of drug trafficking and its prosecution are so important that it should be

tested in further research. The view that drug trafficking is primarily conducted by small

groups of entrepreneurs who almost randomly come together to conduct particular deals

and then disperse, perhaps to reconvene at a later date to conduct a new deal with some

other entity, presents law enforcement with a difficult challenge. It is much harder to hit a

moving target than a static one, such as that presented by a large criminal organization.

Furthermore, there are many advantages for law enforcement in portraying themselves as

engaged in a fight against a powerful, highly organized enemy. This attracts resources and

media attention. Fighting loose networks of opportunist entrepreneurs is not only more

difficult, but is less glamorous and somehow less worthwhile.

Finally, this study supports Natarajan’s (2000) contentions about the utility of wiretap

data, with all its limitations, for analysis of drug dealing operations. It shows how modern

software programs make it possible to conduct rigorous quantitative analysis of textual

data, and how wiretap data can be used to analyze the network structure of illegal orga-

nizations. It also confirms the generally robust nature of the methodology she described,

despite the limited value of the status analysis in discriminating among core members of

the organization which, as argued above, was probably the result of the flat egalitarian

structure of the enterprise studied.

Acknowledgments This research was primarily supported by a grant from the National Institute on DrugAbuse (1K21DA00242). Viewpoints in this paper do not necessarily represent the official positions of theU.S. Government, National Institute on Drug Abuse or John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Earlierversions of the paper were presented at a NIDA Drug Abuse Workshop, October 2004, Bethesda, MD andthe 11th Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis Seminar held at University of Cincinnati in June2003. The author acknowledges the assistance of Ms. Haley Kobilinsky with coding and wishes to thankProf. Ronald V. Clarke of Rutgers University and Dr. Bruce Johnson of National Development ResearchInstitutes, Inc, New York City for their advice and support. She also thanks Zachary Weiss, AssistantDistrict Attorney, White Plains NY, for facilitating this analysis of court data. Finally, the author wishes toacknowledge the insightful comments made by the anonymous reviewers.

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