Anti-drug investigators around the world will soon have to develop new skills… in online video games, platforms increasingly used by dealers and cartels to sell drugs or recruit small hands.
In order to raise awareness about this problem, the Council of Europe’s International Cooperation Group on Drugs and Addictions (“Pompidou Group”), which brings together 41 countries, is organizing with the Mexican authorities, who are at the forefront on this subject, a forum on December 19 and 20 in Mexico to examine, among other things, this issue.
Drug traffickers are no longer only equipped with weapons of all kinds: “they are very comfortable with new technologies, like the famous Sinaloa cartel, whose Twitter account has more than 100,000 subscribers” (this account has been suspended on the social network X), explains Benjamin Shultz, analyst of malicious foreign influence at Deloitte, during a presentation to the Council of Europe.
The cartels’ hunting ground for selling drugs or recruiting personnel has modernized and expanded, and network games like “Grand Theft Auto” or “World of Warcraft” for example are ideal places to operate in complete security. tranquility.
According to Mr. Shultz, around 60% of online players are under 35 years old and a majority are young men, favored targets of traffickers.
Conversation by emojis
“The darknet is losing popularity among cartels, because authorities have become quite effective in monitoring it. But video games are a very important field of resources, and they are almost not monitored,” continues Mr. Shultz.
“In online games, my character can enter into a relationship with any other player, teenagers can chat with complete strangers, and there are not many controls,” continues this cybercrime specialist.
The internal messaging of these online games is indeed extremely difficult to monitor… especially when traffickers come into contact with young players through emoticons.
In the United States, for example, the electrical outlet emoji means “dealer” for those in the know. The little palm tree looks innocent? “Marijuana.” The key ? “Cocaine.” And an entire conversation can be improvised just with these little icons, without any suspicious words popping up in chats.
Police in Mexico were the first to spot this type of practice and reported the case of three teenagers aged 11 to 14, initially contacted by traffickers on the game “Garena Free Fire”.
They offered them $200 a week to act as lookouts in northern Mexico and the person who contacted them had already bought them bus tickets.
The recruiter basically told the three boys that they were going to love the job he was offering them “since you like guns (like in the violent video game they were playing) and you’re going to make a lot of money.” The trio was intercepted before boarding the bus.
“Not an isolated phenomenon”
“This type of transaction or action is more developed on Instagram or Snapchat, but several cases of recruitment via online games have been observed near the border between Mexico and the United States,” continues Benjamin Shultz.
“It’s a global problem and the idea is to have a forum where we can raise awareness among governments and authorities about this phenomenon,” explains Thomas Kattau, deputy director of the Pompidou Group, about the conference in Mexico. .
“Authorities in Mexico were the first to detect this phenomenon and we are starting to see people trapped in this way in the UK. This is not an anecdotal or isolated phenomenon, it is spreading quickly, it is worrying many countries. »
To stop this type of practice, MM. Shultz and Kattau call for better information on online risks for young players and their parents and stronger controls by online gaming creators and platforms, including by improving monitoring software using artificial intelligence.