Trends in the Detection of Erythropoietin Receptor Agonists (ERAs) in Anti-Doping: An Analysis of Recent Adverse Analytical Findings (AAFs).

Anti-doping efforts aim to reduce the prevalence of doping through a combination of education, deterrence, and detection. Detection of doping practices, for example through testing and/or investigations, aims both to catch committed dopers and deter potential dopers. To date, little empirical evidence is available examining the ability of detection strategies to deter athletes from doping.

Illicit drug profiling practices in Finland: An exploratory study about end users' perceptions.

Illicit drug profiling (i.e. chemical and/or physical profiling) to compare and relate illicit drugs samples has been actively used in routine case work at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Finland.

When does the cutting of cocaine and heroin occur? The first large-scale study based on the chemical analysis of cocaine and heroin seizures in Switzerland.

Background: Illicit drug profiling can provide knowledge about illicit drug markets, informing on the level of distribution and its evolution in space and time. Illicit drug profiling is usually limited to impurities originally present in the illicit drug (e.g.

Forensic drug intelligence and the rise of cryptomarkets. Part II: Combination of data from the physical and virtual markets.

Technology provides new ways to access customers and suppliers while enhancing the security of off-line criminal activity. Since the first cryptomarket, Silk Road, in 2011, cryptomarkets have transformed the traditional drug sale by facilitating the creation of a global network of vendors and buyers. Due to the fragmented nature of traces that result from illegal activities, combining the results of concurrent processes based on traces of different nature should provide supplementary benefit to understand the drug market.

Characterising the online weapons trafficking on cryptomarkets.

Weapons related webpages from nine cryptomarkets were manually duplicated in February 2016. Information about the listings (i.e.

Forensic drug intelligence and the rise of cryptomarkets. Part I: Studying the Australian virtual market.

Analysing and understanding cryptomarkets is essential to become proactive in the fight against the illicit drug trade. Such a research seeks to combine a diversity of indicators related to the virtual (darknet markets) and physical (the traditional "offline" market) aspects of the illicit drug trade to provide information on the distribution and consumption as well as to assess similarities/differences between the virtual and physical markets. This study analysed data that had previously been collected on cryptomarkets from December 2013 to March 2015.

A geographical analysis of trafficking on a popular darknet market.

Cryptomarkets are online marketplaces, located on the darknet, that facilitate the trading of a variety of illegal goods, mostly drugs. While the literature essentially focus on drugs, various other goods and products related to financial or identity fraud, firearms, counterfeit goods, as well as doping products are also offered on these marketplaces. Through the analysis of relevant data collected on a popular marketplace in 2014-2015, Evolution, this research provides an analysis of the structure of trafficking (types and proportions of products, number of vendors and shipping countries).

The study of doping market: How to produce intelligence from Internet forums.

Despite the predominant role played by Internet in the distribution of doping substances, little is currently known about the online offer of doping products. Therefore, the study focuses on the detection of doping substances and suppliers discussed in Internet forums. It aims at having a comprehensive understanding of products and sellers to lead an operational monitoring of the online doping market.

Buying drugs on a Darknet market: A better deal? Studying the online illicit drug market through the analysis of digital, physical and chemical data.

Darknet markets, also known as cryptomarkets, are websites located on the Darknet and designed to allow the trafficking of illicit products, mainly drugs. This study aims at presenting the added value of combining digital, chemical and physical information to reconstruct sellers' activities. In particular, this research focuses on Evolution, one of the most popular cryptomarkets active from January 2014 to March 2015.

Chemical profiling: A tool to decipher the structure and organisation of illicit drug markets: An 8-year study in Western Switzerland.

Illicit drug analyses usually focus on the identification and quantitation of questioned material to support the judicial process. In parallel, more and more laboratories develop physical and chemical profiling methods in a forensic intelligence perspective. The analysis of large databases resulting from this approach enables not only to draw tactical and operational intelligence, but may also contribute to the strategic overview of drugs markets.

The cutting of cocaine and heroin: A critical review.

The illicit drug cutting represents a complex problem that requires the sharing of knowledge from addiction studies, toxicology, criminology and criminalistics. Therefore, cutting is not well known by the forensic community. Thus, this review aims at deciphering the different aspects of cutting, by gathering information mainly from criminology and criminalistics.

Qualitative, quantitative and temporal study of cutting agents for cocaine and heroin over 9 years.

Forensic laboratories mainly focus on the qualification and the quantitation of the illicit drug under analysis as both aspects are used for judiciary purposes. Therefore, information related to cutting agents (adulterants and diluents) detected in illicit drugs is limited in the forensic literature. This article discusses the type and frequency of adulterants and diluents detected in more than 6000 cocaine specimens and 3000 heroin specimens, confiscated in western Switzerland from 2006 to 2014.

First systematic chemical profiling of cocaine police seizures in Finland in the framework of an intelligence-led approach.

For the first time in Finland, the chemical profiling of cocaine specimens was performed at the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI). The main goals were to determine the chemical composition of cocaine specimens sold in the Finnish market and to study the distribution networks of cocaine in order to provide intelligence related to its trafficking. An analytical methodology enabling through one single GC-MS injection the determination of the added cutting agents (adulterants and diluents), the cocaine purity and the chemical profile (based on the major and minor alkaloids) for each specimen was thus implemented and validated.

Time for change: a roadmap to guide the implementation of the World Anti-Doping Code 2015.

A medical and scientific multidisciplinary consensus meeting was held from 29 to 30 November 2013 on Anti-Doping in Sport at the Home of FIFA in Zurich, Switzerland, to create a roadmap for the implementation of the 2015 World Anti-Doping Code. The consensus statement and accompanying papers set out the priorities for the antidoping community in research, science and medicine. The participants achieved consensus on a strategy for the implementation of the 2015 World Anti-Doping Code.

Chemical profiling of different hashish seizures by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and statistical methodology: a case report.

Limited information is available regarding the methodology required to characterize hashish seizures for assessing the presence or the absence of a chemical link between two seizures. This casework report presents the methodology applied for assessing that two different police seizures were coming from the same block before this latter one was split. The chemical signature was extracted using GC-MS analysis and the implemented methodology consists in a study of intra- and inter-variability distributions based on the measurement of the chemical profiles similarity using a number of hashish seizures and the calculation of the Pearson correlation coefficient.

Study of common database feeding with results coming from different analytical methods in the framework of illicit drugs chemical profiling.

Analytical results harmonisation is investigated in this study to provide an alternative to the restrictive approach of analytical methods harmonisation which is recommended nowadays for making possible the exchange of information and then for supporting the fight against illicit drugs trafficking. Indeed, the main goal of this study is to demonstrate that a common database can be fed by a range of different analytical methods, whatever the differences in levels of analytical parameters between these latter ones. For this purpose, a methodology making possible the estimation and even the optimisation of results similarity coming from different analytical methods was then developed.

The differentiation of fibre- and drug type Cannabis seedlings by gas chromatography/mass spectrometry and chemometric tools.

Cannabis cultivation in order to produce drugs is forbidden in Switzerland. Thus, law enforcement authorities regularly ask forensic laboratories to determinate cannabis plant's chemotype from seized material in order to ascertain that the plantation is legal or not. As required by the EU official analysis protocol the THC rate of cannabis is measured from the flowers at maturity.