The World Cybercrime Index (WCI), released in 2024, identifies the world’s key cybercrime hotspots. It measures the significance of the cybercrime produced in different countries, and then ranks these countries according to their “cybercriminality”: the impact of the cybercrimes produced there, and the skills of the cybercriminals who commit these crimes. The WCI is the first index to use expert survey data to map cybercrime geography.

The Index was developed as a joint partnership between the University of Oxford and UNSW Canberra, and was partly funded by the CRIMGOV Project and ERC Advanced Grant based at the University of Oxford and Sciences Po. It was published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Co-authors include Dr Miranda Bruce from the University of Oxford and UNSW Canberra, Associate Professor Jonathan Lusthaus from the University of Oxford’s Department of Sociology and Oxford School of Global and Area Studies, Professor Federico Varese from Sciences Po in France, Professor Ridhi Kashyap from the University of Oxford, and Professor Nigel Phair from Monash University.

To develop it, the co-authors of the study conducted a survey with 92 of the world’s top experts in cybercrime intelligence and investigations in 2021. These experts nominated up to five countries they believed were the most significant sources of five different cybercrime types – Technical products/services, Attacks and extortion, Scams, Data/identity theft, and Cashing out/money laundering. Experts then rated each country they nominated according to the impact of their cybercrimes, and the technical and professional skills of the cybercriminals who operate there. The co-authors then used this data to generate the World Cybercrime Index.

The WCI has been featured in more than 200 news items across the world, including national newspaper and magazine outlets, ABC News Radio in Australia, and "Somewhere on Earth: the Global Tech Podcast" in the UK.

In the early hours of 3 May 2023, 10 countries took action against the Calabrian mafia, the ‘Ndrangheta. More than 130 people were arrested, 30 of them in Germany. Prosecutors spoke of the biggest international strike so far, against one of the most notorious mafia organisations worldwide.

Following the arrests - the result of a three-year investigation - Dr Zora Hauser spoke to numerous news outlets about whether this operation will have any real impact on the ‘Ndrangheta.

Dr Zora Hauser was interviewed by Fluter, Germany's Federal Agency for Civic Education magazine, about her work investigating the presence of the 'Ndrangheta mafia in Germany.

Dr Martina Baradel appeared on the popular Japanese TV show, 'What are you doing in Japan?', discussing her research into the Japanese crime organisation, the yakuza. The appearance prompted writer Tomohiko Suzuki, an expert on the yakuza, to interview Martina about her perspective as a researcher and outsider.

Headlines were made when Sicilian mafia boss Matteo Messina Denaro was captured by authorities, after 30 years on the run. Messina Denaro is the boss of the Castevetrano mafia family and, in 2002, was sentenced in absentia to life in prison for multiple murders.

Messina Denaro was detained in Palermo at a private health clinic where he was receiving treatment for cancer. Federico Varese, Professor of Criminology, spoke to numerous press outlets about the arrest.

Book review by Matías Dewey of ExLegi Senior Research Fellow Jonathan Lusthaus' book (Industry of Anonymity: Inside the Business of Cybercrime) published in the American Journal of Sociology.

As part of the international network "Scholars at Risk" (SAR) and its Italian section SAR-Italia, the University of Milan is offering 4 positions for at-risk scholars. To be eligible, candidates must be Ukrainian citizens or other non-EU country nationals coming from areas where political and/or military crisis is underway.

Deadline: 2 pm (CEST, Italy) on April 22nd 2022

See the link for further details and requirements.

Speakers: T. Wing Lo (City University of Hong Kong), Hirosue Noboru (Ryukoku University), and Peng Wang (University of Hong Kong)

Time: 2-5.30 PM CET

Speakers: Costanza Curro (University of Helsinki, Finland), Davide Casciano (AnthroCrime EASA Network, University of Bologna, Italy), Federico Varese (University of Oxford, UK), Gavin Slade, (Nazarbayev University, Kazakhstan), Rustam Urinboyev (Lund University, Sweden), Rhiannon Dowling (CUNY, US), Vakhtang Kekoshvili (Georgian American University, Georgia), Maroussia Ferry (IHEID-CCDP, Switzerland), Svetlana Stephenson (London Metropolitan University, UK) and Judith Pallot (University of Helsinki).

Given the ongoing war in Ukraine, and the crisis unfolding in the region and beyond, this workshop run by Anthro Crime wants to provide a platform for discussion and reflection on how our knowledge and experience could help understand current events and future challenges, as citizens and as academics

On the ISF podcast, Federico Varese discusses the history of organised crime in Russia and around the world, as well as the mafia’s movement into cybercrime, and what the future may hold for these criminal organisations.