[Translate to English:] Article published in "Trends in Organized Crime"

Trust, infrastructure and sociopolitics in online drug markets: an exploratory socio-technical analysis of cryptomarket uptake in Europe and Latin America, has been published in Trends in Organized Crime.

The article examines why online drug markets (cryptomarkets) have become well established in Europe while remaining comparatively marginal in Latin America. Rather than explaining these differences through technology alone, the authors conceptualize cryptomarkets as socio-technical infrastructures whose development is shaped by historically embedded forms of trust, sociopolitical conditions, and drug-use cultures. The study was co-authored by Meropi Tzanetakis, Tobias Boos, Julia Buxton, Matias Dewey, and Nigel South.

Drawing on an exploratory socio-technical framework, the study identifies four interrelated dimensions that influence regional patterns of cryptomarket uptake: cultures of trust, the socio-political embeddedness of drug markets, trust in technological and postal infrastructures, and trust in financial systems and digital payment mechanisms. By situating digital drug markets within their broader institutional and social contexts, the article contributes to ongoing debates on the digital transformation of illicit economies and outlines directions for future empirical research.

This research was funded in whole or in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under grant 10.55776/V961.

Link to the article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12117-026-09604-9