Introduction

The Project Ciel data was reconstructed by the UCINET team from Carlo Morselli’s 2009 book ‘Inside Criminal Networks’. This data represents a small drug-importation network operating in Montreal from 1996 to 1997, with information having been collected through law enforcement electronic and physical surveillance records. Consisting of 25 nodes, the data is representing in a weighted matrix with directed ties.

Abstract

Project Ciel is based on a small drug-importation network that was importing liquid hashish from Jamaica to Montreal. This network was targeted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and the Montreal Police from May 1996 to June 1997, with the main target of the investigation being the ‘organizational leader’. Other key targets include the leader’s ‘lieutenant’, and lower level mid-management individuals. The investigation produced three separate seizures, with two taking place at Mirabel airport near Montreal and another occurring at Sangster airport in Jamaica. Using law enforcement data, primarily collected through electronic and physical surveillance records, Carlo Morselli, author of the book Inside Criminal Networks, evaluated the network using popular centrality measures to identify and understand how this dark network was centered around key participants. The Ciel network was identified as being a tightly controlled organization with a relatively traditional hierarchy structure, with the ring leader distancing themself from the operation, delegating day-to-day operations to a ‘lieutenant’ who controlled lower level drug mules. Morselli primarily uses centralization and centrality measures (in particular, degree centrality and betweenness centrality) to explain the role of indirect and direct centrality to a network, and it’s correlation to operational vulnerability and the desire to mitigate risks within the organization even when not directly involved with the actions of subordinate members of the group.

Code Book

Sociogram

Get the Data

Citation

Morselli C (2009). Inside Criminal Networks. Springer, New York.