Are Swedish gangs becoming the hitmen of Scandanavia?

 We're accustomed to drug violence among gangs even in wealthy countries, but here's a story from The Times (of London) suggesting that the drug and biker gangs in Sweden are going in for contract killing as well.

How Swedish gangs are exporting young contract killers across Scandinavia. Crime bosses are behind a wave of youths being hired for attacks in Denmark and Norway, with fears the trend could spread further

"Sweden is accused of exporting its gang violence problem to its Nordic neighbours after at least 25 young Swedes on suspected contract-killing or bombing missions were arrested in Denmark over the past four months.

...

"Part of the problem, according to Markus Kaakinen, a criminologist at the University of Helsinki, is that Sweden’s notoriously trigger-happy drug gangs are outgrowing their home market. As a result they are not only setting up distribution outposts in countries such as Norway and Finland but are also moving in on “transit” states that serve as conduits for the international drug trade, such as Denmark and Spain, where they compete with the local criminal networks.

...

"Yet that is not the main thing that bothers experts. What really worries them is a previously unknown phenomenon: Swedish youths are being anonymously hired through social media for acts of violence in Denmark, as though they were Deliveroo drivers.

“This is something very new: the recruiting of very young, completely unknown adolescents,” Kaakinen said. “There’s increasing demand for violence and these gangs have noticed that it’s less risky for them to use these channels.”

...

"he Swedish authorities are already having a hard enough time getting a grip on their country’s conventional gang wars, where kingpins with nicknames such as the “Kurdish Fox”, “The Strawberry” and “The Greek” pursue their vendettas through teenage amateur assassins hired on a semi-freelance basis.

...

"Danish ministers feel their state has dealt relatively well with its own problems along similar lines. There are estimated to be about 1,500 active gang members in a population of 5.9 million, while Sweden has roughly 14,000 in a population of 10.5 million."

Barter of Russians in prison for prisoners in Russia--Redemption of Captives

 Barter is alive and well in diplomacy, as evidenced by yesterday's multi-country multi-party prisoner swap.  Among the highlights was a journalist for a hitman.

The Washington Post has the story, with multiple headlines.

Biden: Prisoner swap ‘a feat of diplomacy’. U.S. reporter, others freed in complex, landmark, multicountry exchange with Russia

U.S., Germany trade convicted assassin to Russia for political prisoners in major swap The landmark prisoner swap freed Russians jailed in the West, including a convicted killer, . for U.S. journalist Evan Gershkovich, dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza and others. By Shane Harris, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Mary Ilyushina and Souad Mekhennet, August 1, 2024

"In the largest prisoner exchange since the height of the Cold War, officials of the United States, Russia, Germany and other countries met on an airfield in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday and swapped at least 24 people — capping months of painstaking diplomacy involving negotiations at the highest levels of nine governments.

"Those released included a Russian assassin convicted of murder in Berlin; the American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who was accused of espionage without any known evidence; and several Russian dissidents whose only misdeed was demanding freedom and democracy or criticizing the war in Ukraine, including Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Washington Post Opinions contributor.

"White House officials called it the largest and most complicated international prisoner exchange in decades, and one of the biggest diplomatic accomplishments of Joe Biden’s presidency... But the deal was also fraught, raising questions about the West’s willingness to deal with authoritarian regimes that imprison innocen..t people for negotiating leverage."

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All the exchanged prisoners were serving time, so this could be viewed as a bizarre variety of the time swaps in yesterday's post.

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Pidyon shvuyim (Hebrew: פִּדְיוֹן שְׁבוּיִים, literally: Redemption of Captives) is a religious duty in Judaism to free hostages. Historically, many captives have been redeemed, as when Jewish refugees were brought out from behind the Iron curtain with payments to the governments preventing them from emigrating.  (At equilibrium, this means Jews are often taken hostage, as  in the Hamas attack on October 7.)

Hitmen are common in film but otherwise scarce

 The NYT considers the prevalence of hitmen in movies, and why it's hard to find one in real life.

Hit Men Are Easy to Find in the Movies. Real Life Is Another Story.  By Jesse McKinley

"experts in law enforcement and international espionage say that murders-for-hire are notoriously difficult to successfully arrange, let alone get away with.

"Take, for example, what prosecutors say was a recent foiled plot to kill a Sikh separatist in New York City, which American intelligence officials believe was ordered by the Indian government. Once the plot reached the point where the alleged conspirators needed to employ a killer, things got complicated: The would-be hit man turned out to be an undercover agent working for the U.S. government.

...

"Law enforcement officials and academics who study killers-for-hire put them into several large buckets. There are the civilians engaged in everyday murder plots, which often end in sloppy or tragic fashion.

"There are also hit men for the mob, the enforcers working in-house to illegally police the criminal underworld. These killers, perhaps the source of most urban lore about the illicit profession, have been luridly overexposed in shows like “The Sopranos” and films like “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas.”

"Employed in a similar fashion are so-called sicarios, whose use by drug cartels has been heinously prolific at times. And of course there are also the professionals employed by government intelligence agencies, who have been suspected in assassinations in London and elsewhere.

...

"Statistics from the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services show that in 2022 there were only seven arrests statewide for contract killing, which the state considers first-degree murder. And that was a banner year for arrests for such badness, matching the total for the five previous years combined. Murder for hire is also a federal crime, with penalties ranging from fines and lengthy prison time for failed attempts to life imprisonment or the death penalty “if death results.”

HT: Jlateh Vincent Jappah

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Earlier:

Thursday, February 3, 2022

The market for hitmen

Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Forbidden Transactions and Black Markets

Kim Krawiec interviews me about repugnance on her podcast Taboo Trades

 Kim Krawiec interviews me on her podcast Taboo Trades:

She writes "Al Roth and I discuss hitmen, drugs, kidneys, paid sex, and other repugnances. We’re joined by co-hosts Madison White and Alex Leseney (both UVA 3Ls), with appearances from UVA 3Ls Thalia Stanberry, Caitlyn Stollings, Jackson Bailey, and Autumn Adams-jack. A good time was had by all!"

The podcast starts with a cold open, drawn from the body of the interview, in which I ask her co-hosts to help me hire a hitman to rub out a negative referee.  But mostly we talk about transactions that have no easily measurable negative externalities, yet that third parties nevertheless object to.

The market for hitmen

Why are laws against hitmen more effective in most of the world than laws against drug dealers?  Yesterday's post was about a paper that models this, but that paper didn't try to look empirically at hitmen.  

The model suggests that the different availability of hitmen and heroin dealers might have something to do with how you would react if I asked you where I could buy heroin or where I could hire a murderer. In both cases I would expect  you to tell me what a bad idea that was...but you might proceed differently after that.  I think it is unlikely that you would call the police to report that I asked about buying heroin, but you might well call the police if I asked about murder. (And the police would likely react differently to the two potential calls.)

Over the course of writing our paper, I collected news stories that featured  attempts to hire a hitman, many of  which went wrong from the very beginning. The search for a hitman often ends with finding an undercover policeman.  The rest of this post consists of those news stories. (This isn't meant to substitute for serious empirical work; it's just a rouges' gallery of news stories...)

Here's an example from the U.S., where the police were immediately brought in:

‘Help me kill my wife,’ Monroe man accidentally texts to his former boss

"A 42-year-old Monroe man apparently thought he was texting a hit man when he offered to split a $1.5 million life-insurance payout for killing his wife and young daughter, according to Snohomish County prosecutors.

But the text addressed to “Shayne” was actually sent to the man’s former boss, who called 911 Tuesday evening and showed the message to sheriff’s deputies, says a statement of probable cause outlining the case against the suspect."
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Here's another:  Woman charged in Craigslist plot to kill Israeli ex-husband

"The affidavit said a person who responded to the ad contacted the FBI after meeting with Layman at a coffee shop in May. The affidavit said Layman used a PowerPoint presentation called "Operation Insecticide" and that the person who responded to the ad provided the written instructions to the FBI."
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And here's another:
Woman sentenced to prison after allegedly trying to hire hitman
"A District woman who was charged this summer with trying to hire someone to kill her estranged husband was sentenced to a year in prison Friday after she later pleaded guilty to attempted assault with a dangerous weapon.

Prosecutors say 39-year-old Brandi Myles of the District agreed to pay a man about $25,000 to kill her estranged husband ...

"The unidentified man notified authorities of Myles’s plan. Detectives then orchestrated an undercover operation in which Myles allegedly agreed to pay the man to kill her husband last November. The killing never occurred."

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and another
Oklahoma Dentist Accused of Killing Mistress' Baby Now Charged with Ordering a Hit on Mother
"KOCO News 5 reported Franklin approached an inmate being held at Oklahoma County Jail about the possibility of killing a witness in the murder case against him. The inmate was an informant for police, unbeknownst to Franklin."
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On the other hand, there are places where there are a lot of murders. Colombia was once one, when Pablo Escobar paid a bounty on policemen. Mexican journalists are now particularly vulnerable, see this NY Times story:
In Mexico, ‘It’s Easy to Kill a Journalist’

The story makes clear that journalists who run afoul of either corrupt politicians or drug gangs are often murdered.
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And in Ukraine, as told to the WSJ:
Requiem for a Hit Man
A doomed hired gun unburdens himself in a jailhouse interview that sheds light on the shadow battle between Russia and Ukraine

"Ukraine has become a magnet for hired guns as Kiev tries to fight its former master Moscow’s bid to reassert control. With a stalemate on the battlefront between Russian-backed rebels and the government, Moscow and Kiev appear to have turned to contract killings to settle scores and winnow the ranks of commanders in the war, Western diplomats say.
...
"In Kiev, many of the triggermen appear to be freelancers, moonlighting from their jobs in the Ukrainian armed forces or police, say law-enforcement officials and Western diplomats.
...
"Mr. Makhauri came to Ukraine, he said, to hunt down the agents Moscow sent to eliminate opponents abroad. He said the killings ordered by Russia came from two distinct directions—from Moscow’s federal security services, as well as the Russian-backed Chechen leader, Ramzan Kadyrov.

“I know who to look for and to stop them before they do anything,” he said from under a mop of long black hair, speaking politely in a vernacular Russian that earned him the nickname “Zone,” referring to someone from a penal colony. “There is a small number who do this kind of thing.”
**********
And from the NY Times:
Russia Ordered a Killing That Made No Sense. Then the Assassin Started Talking.

"Assassinations happen frequently enough in Ukraine that they are often just blips in the local news cycle. In 2006, Russian President Vladimir V. Putin signed a law legalizing targeted killings abroad, and Ukrainian officials say teams of Russian hit men operate freely inside the country.

“For the intelligence services, as bad as this sounds, murdering people is just part of the work flow,” said Oleksiy Arestovych, a retired officer in Ukraine’s military intelligence service. “They go to work, it’s their job. You have a work flow, you write articles. They have a workflow, they murder people.”
**************

It's not clear whether the hitmen are part of a for-hire marketplace, or if they are simply employees of the politicians and drug gangs.
Judging from cases in which organized crime hitmen turn state's evidence against their bosses, hitman is a job description for some American organized crime outfits as well. See e.g.
How An Infamous Mafia Hitman Rebuilt His Identity From Scratch
Heinous Boston mob killer became government informant
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And even if you find someone who says he's a hitman, there's a good chance you are talking to a policeman:

Ex-escort gets 16 years for trying to have husband killed
By TERRY SPENCER, ASSOCIATED PRESS WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Jul 21, 2017,
"Circuit Judge Glenn Kelley imposed the sentence on Dalia Dippolito, who was convicted last month of solicitation of first-degree murder. She was recorded on video and audio in 2009 as she plotted to have Michael Dippolito killed, telling an undercover detective she was "5,000 percent sure" she wanted her husband dead."

‘$500 and he’s a ghost’: Man accused of enlisting white supremacists to kill his black neighbor
"A South Carolina man tried to enlist a white supremacist group to kill his black neighbor and burn a cross in that person’s front yard, authorities say.

Federal investigators say they learned of Brandon Cory Lecroy’s plan in March after a confidential informant told them that the 25-year-old had reached out to a white supremacist organization and said he needed help to kill his neighbor, a federal complaint says. The following day, March 20, an undercover FBI agent spoke with Lecroy, who offered payment for the job."



Amateur hour (with low quality amateurs):  Florida mom killed in case of mistaken identity in murder-for-hire love triangle

"Lopez-Ramos, 35, is accused of hiring Alexis Ramos-Rivera, 23, and his girlfriend Glorianmarie Quinones-Montes, 22, to murder the woman.

On Jan. 7 and the early morning hours of Jan. 8, the suspects planned the robbery and murder, and mistook Zengotita-Torres for their intended victim when she left a store at a shopping center Sunday night.

The suspects then followed her home, kidnapped her and forced her into her own car before driving away, Gibson said. They then made Zengotita-Torres give them her ATM card and pin number and used it to withdraw money, he said.

During the incident, Lopez-Ramos and Ramos-Rivera “realized that they had mistakenly taken the wrong person,” he said."
************

Doctor who ran a drug ring in collaboration with a motorcycle gang (and apparently succeeded in hiring a hitman from the gang)
Doctor accused of arranging wife’s killing to protect his drug ring is found dead in apparent suicide
"Kauffman, 68, of Linwood, a small town outside Atlantic City, was charged with first-degree murder this month, more than five years after his wife, local radio personality April Kauffman, was found dead inside their home. Ferdinand Augello, who prosecutors said was a co-conspirator, is also charged with first-degree murder.
...
"Prosecutors later outlined the prescription drug ring they said James Kauffman and Augello ran out of Kauffman’s office with the help of the Pagan Outlaw motorcycle gang.
...
"Augello was solicited by James Kauffman to kill his wife, and he found another man, Francis Mullholland, a cousin of a Pagan associate and a member of the drug enterprise, to do the deed, officials said.
...
"Prosecutors said they think Mullholland shot April Kauffman and was paid for the job.

"The drug enterprise, meanwhile, continued for years after the killing, until James Kauffman’s June arrest.

"Mullholland died after what officials say was an accidental overdose in 2013, NJ.com reported."
*************
Here's a case of successfully hiring a hitmen from former army colleagues:
Former Army Sniper, 2 Other Ex-Soldiers Accused of Becoming Hitmen
Published on Apr 3, 2018
"A former U.S. Army sniper and two other ex-soldiers have gone on trial in New York on charges they became contract killers for an international crime boss.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Patrick Eagan said in opening statements Tuesday that Joseph Hunter recruited the others for a cold-blooded hit on a real estate agent in the Philippines in 2012.

Defense attorneys said in their openings that evidence against them was too weak to convict them. All three have pleaded not guilty to murder conspiracy.

The case is expected to offer a window into the clandestine world of private mercenaries willing to kill for money. The trafficker has pleaded guilty and agreed to testify for the government."

More from the NY Times
New York Trial Will Explore the Secret World of Mercenary Soldiers
By ALAN FEUERAPRIL 2, 2018

"Joseph Hunter, 52, a former United States Army sergeant with Special Forces training, stands at the center of the trial, accused of planning the murder of the Filipino woman, Catherine Lee, while serving as the chief of security for a globe-trotting criminal named Paul Le Roux.

 

U.S. Reveals Criminal Boss’s Role in Capturing a Mercenary FEB. 1, 2015

In Real Life, ‘Rambo’ Ends Up as a Soldier of Misfortune, Behind Bars DEC. 20, 2014

Ex-Army Sniper Gets 20-Year Sentence in Murder-for-Hire Scheme

By Benjamin Weiser May 31, 2016

"In late 2012, as part of the sting operation, Mr. Hunter began assembling a security team for what he had been led to believe were Colombian narcotics traffickers but were actually confidential sources working under the direction of the D.E.A., the government has said. "

*********

Here's a case of a woman jailed for trying to hire her handyman to kill her husband (the handyman turned her in) now trying to hire a fellow inmate to kill the handyman:
Woman accused of hiring hit men to get out of her hit-man-related troubles
By Alex Horton March 11  (Washington Post)

************
Here's the career of a prolific hitman, who seems to have been a contractor for rather than employee of drug cartels:
The Life Of One Of America’s Bloodiest Hitmen
https://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicagarrison/martinez-hitman-cartel-black-hand-mano-negra-contract-killer
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Here's the story of a successful amateur hit
Texas teen, girlfriend hired gunman to kill man's jeweler father, police say
"Nicholas Shaughnessy allegedly asked multiple people whether they would be willing to get paid to kill someone in the months before the shooting, investigators said. "
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There are scam sites that advertise hitmen:
https://allthingsvice.com/2016/05/14/the-curious-case-of-besa-mafia/
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And here's a parody site that got some serious looking inquiries and forwarded them to law enforcement: https://rentahitman.com/ 
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Here's a story of a "successful" murder, but the hitmen were caught...
A veteran pulled over to help a stuck truck. Its driver was a hit man hired to kill him. Washington Post, Sept 7, 2018, By Taylor Telford

"McFoley was a “thug of thugs,” Chitwood said, with a lengthy criminal record that showed his capacity for violence. After the road-rage incident, McFoley was charged with aggravated assault and unlawful possession of a firearm by a felon. He was slated to go to trial in early December 2017. To avoid going back to prison, Capt. Brian Henderson said, McFoley hired someone to take Cruz-Echevarria out.

"That’s where Benjamin Bascom came in. The 24-year-old had a reputation as a killer, Henderson said, adding that investigators have tied him to open murder cases in Orange County, Fla. Bascom and McFoley were “criminal associates,“ investigators said, and McFoley reached out over the phone, offering Bascom money to silence Cruz-Echevarria."
**********

Hit Men and Power: South Africa’s Leaders Are Killing One Another, NY Times, September 30, 2018, By Norimitsu Onishi and Selam Gebrekidan

"Political assassinations are rising sharply in South Africa, threatening the stability of hard-hit parts of the country and imperiling Mr. Mandela’s dream of a unified, democratic nation.

"But unlike much of the political violence that upended the country in the 1990s, the recent killings are not being driven by vicious battles between rival political parties.

"Quite the opposite: In most cases, A.N.C. officials are killing one another, hiring professional hit men to eliminate fellow party members in an all-or-nothing fight over money, turf and power, A.N.C. officials say."
*******

Polish diplomat admits ordering hit on wealthy mother of his partner
Wojciech Janowski confesses to being behind killing of billionaire after years of denial
At a 2018 trial in France for a 2014 hit. There are 10 defendents, including the two accused hitmen and an intermediary.
*********
July 2019 Atlantic Magazine
People Who Pay People to Kill People
*********
The trial of the alleged Dan Markel gunman and bag woman begins.
************
Guardian, Oct 22, 2019
The five reluctant hitmen of China: group jailed over botched contract killing
Court hears job was outsourced repeatedly before fifth hitman offered to stage the death and pocket the payment

200万雇凶杀人层层转包后成10万！“杀手”与被害人演戏……判了！

GT: "2 million hired murderers will be subcontracted into 100,000! The "killer" acted with the victim... sentenced!"

someone was trying to buy a hit for 2 million yuan, but after a chain of brokers, the killer only got paid for 100k. And the killer eventually thought it was not worth it and didn't carry out the crime. It is interesting that in the end, the original buyer was sentenced for the longest time, and the sentence decreased going down the chain. You may be able to read it yourself if you use google translate: https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/87651845

********
Washington Post Jan 22, 2020
Zookeeper who killed tigers and tried to have rival murdered is sentenced to 22 years in prison
"An Oklahoma City jury found him guilty of twice trying to hire hit men to kill the activist.
One of the men Maldonado-Passage tried to commission was an undercover agent for the FBI...
***********

2 Attorneys Arrested In Alleged Murder For Hire Plot
They're accused of hiring an undercover police officer to kill another attorney.
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Ex-Lesotho PM paid gang to murder his wife, police say
Thomas Thabane and his current wife allegedly agreed to pay hitmen $179,485 to carry out killing
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/11/ex-lesotho-pm-paid-gang-to-his-wife-police-say-thomas-thabane

**********

Washington Post, Feb. 2, 2021

A Louisiana man hired hit men to kill a woman accusing him of rape, police said. Instead, they allegedly killed his sister.    By Andrea Salcedo

***********

NY Times, Feb 5, 2021

N.Y.P.D. Officer Accused in Plot to Kill Husband Will Plead Guilty

**********

Washington Post, Feb 9, 2021

Journalists thwarted a murder-for-hire plot while reporting a story, prosecutors say

**********

People: (March 18, 2021): https://people.com/crime/father-ambushed-shot-9-times-knew-ex-wife-sent-hit-man/ 

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Washington Post May 10, 2021 :

A paroled murderer called himself a ‘good dude’ — before hiring a hit man to kill an ex, feds say  By 

Jaclyn Peiser

"Three months after he was released from prison on parole, Derrick D. Jackson parked his tan sedan on a residential street in Detroit and met with a man he hoped could solve a problem for him — Jackson wanted his ex-girlfriend dead, according to an affidavit.

“I just want head shots, just quick,” Jackson told the man, court documents said.

"Jackson, a convicted murderer, was looking for revenge on the woman, who lived in Ohio, claiming she stole money and drugs from him.

"He didn’t know it at the time, but the man Jackson was arranging to pay $11,000 for a murder-for-hire was an undercover special agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

"And the agent was wearing a wire."

***********

From Alex Chan:

There is this one newspaper article:

https://washingtoncitypaper.com/article/208854/straight-dope-how-many-people-get-killed-for-money-each/

that used some extrapolations with violations of "chapter 18, section 1958 of the U.S. code" (The "murder-for-hire" statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1958, was enacted as part of the Comprehensive Crime Control Act of 1984) and claimed that there are approximately 416 hits done by hitman in the US.

and an analysis of online/dark web ads: https://cina.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/An-Assessment-of-Hitmen-and-Contracted-Violence-Providers-Operating-Online.pdf

Seems like there is a NYTIMES pieces commenting on it (this paper) too:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/04/technology/can-you-hire-a-hit-man-online.html

***************

A Michigan woman tried to hire an assassin online at RentAHitman.com. Now, she’s going to prison. By Jonathan Edwards, Washington Post,  November 22, 2021  

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At Last, Girlfriend in House of Gucci Murder Drama Speaks Out. Sheree McLaughlin had a years-long affair with Maurizio Gucci, which gave him the courage to leave his marriage with Patrizia Reggiani. It was a decision that would get him killed.

"The story of Maurizio Gucci and his untimely death is infamous in Italy—and will soon be viewed by audiences around the world as it’s retold by director Ridley Scott in the film House of Gucci. Adam Driver plays Maurizio, and Lady Gaga portrays Patrizia, the glamorous wife who was eventually convicted of paying a hit man to have him killed. 

...

"Maurizio had been killed by a hit man as he walked up the steps of his office building in Milan. Two years later, Patrizia was arrested for hiring the killer, after a tipster went to the police. Judge Renato Samek, when issuing her sentence in November 1998 after a five-month trial, said that Maurizio had died not for who he was but for what he had: a formidable patrimony and an internationally recognized name. “Patrizia Reggiani did not intend to give these up,” said Samek, looking out over the courtroom. She was sentenced to 26 years in prison and released on parole after 18 years."

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If you got this far, you might also be interested in listening to this podcast:

Friday, February 4, 2022

Kim Krawiec interviews me about repugnance on her podcast Taboo Trades

Forbidden Transactions and Black Markets

 Here's a paper that was just published early online. (Only now do I see that I left out the middle initial I always use, but I'm one of the coauthors...)  

The idea of the paper is to understand when a repugnant transaction can be effectively banned, versus when a ban will lack sufficient social support to succeed. We present a simple to state (but tricky to analyze) model of conditions in which banning a market is likely to lead to a difficult to extinguish black market.

Two prominent examples are narcotic drugs (big black market) and hired killers (not so much, at least in the U.S.).  So we could have called the paper Heroin and Hitmen. (Hitmen were little more than a metaphor in this paper, but I expect to say a bit more about the actual market for hitmen in tomorrow's post.)

 Chenlin Gu, Alvin Roth, Qingyun Wu (2022) Forbidden Transactions and Black Markets. Mathematics of Operations Research  Published online in Articles in Advance 28 Jan 2022  . https://doi.org/10.1287/moor.2021.1236  (It's an open access article, so you can read the full paper: here's the pdf.)

 Abstract: "Repugnant transactions are sometimes banned, but legal bans sometimes give rise to active black markets that are difficult if not impossible to extinguish. We explore a model in which the probability of extinguishing a black market depends on the extent to which its transactions are regarded as repugnant, as measured by the proportion of the population that disapproves of them, and the intensity of that repugnance, as measured by willingness to punish. Sufficiently repugnant markets can be extinguished with even mild punishments, while others are insufficiently repugnant for this, and become exponentially more difficult to extinguish the larger they become, and the longer they survive."

Here are the first two paragraphs of the introduction:

"Why are drug dealers plentiful but hitmen scarce? That is, why is it relatively easy for a newcomer to the market to buy illegal drugs but hard to hire a killer? Both of those transactions come with harsh criminal penalties, vigorously enforced: in the United States, almost half of federal prisoners have drug convictions,1 and murder for hire2 is treated as a federal crime for both the buyer and the hitman.3

More generally, many transactions are repugnant, in the specific sense that they meet two criteria: some people want to engage in them, and others think that they should not be allowed to do so (Roth [48]). But only some repugnances become enacted into laws that criminalize those transactions, and only some of those banned markets give rise to active, illegal black markets. Only some of those black markets are so active yet so difficult to suppress that the laws banning them are eventually changed so as to allow the transactions that cannot be suppressed to be regulated. Laws that exact harsh punishments but are ineffective at curbing the transactions that they punish may come to be seen as causing harm themselves. Some well-known examples include Prohibition era laws against selling alcohol in the United States or laws in much of the world that once banned homosexual sex (and, in some places, still do)."

Inter-caste marriage as a repugnant transaction in India: a hired hitman and a murdered groom

In the U.S. we've had long periods where the future of inter-racial and same-sex marriages were in doubt. In India, inter-caste marriage can still be dangerous.

Here's a story from the Washington Post, about a mixed-caste marriage, a hired hitman, and a murdered groom...

A young Indian couple married for love. Then the bride’s father hired assassins.
By Joanna Slater

"Hundreds of people attended the festivities on Aug. 17, 2018, but Amrutha’s parents were notably absent. Rao, her father, had already begun to plot Pranay’s murder, court documents say. The month before, he agreed to pay $150,000 to have his son-in-law killed, using a local political leader as an intermediary. Rao, 57, passed along a photo of the pair from their reception invitation to make it easier for the killers to identify Pranay, the documents allege."