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Official websites use. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites. Correspondence to Dr Lobna Gharaibeh; l. Online purchasing, including drugs, increased dramatically in the last decade especially through the COVID pandemic. The aim of this study was to investigate the frequency and attitudes of consumers concerning online drug purchasing and assess their perceptions regarding the benefits and disadvantages. Primary outcome measures were extent of trust of the public in online drug purchasing using Likert scale. Multivariate linear regression was used to assess predictors of the trust score. Inclusion criteria; residents of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan 18 years or older. The questionnaire was distributed through snowball effect via different social media. A total of participants filled the questionnaire, their average age was Almost all participants, Fifty participants Participant who purchased drugs online had an increase in trust score of 0. In the multivariate model, participants with education level of high school or higher than high school, compared with those with education lower than high school had an increase in trust score of 1. The public recognises the risks in buying drugs online. Awareness campaigns and regulations that control and monitor online drug purchasing should be implemented. Degree of trust, perceived disadvantages and benefits of online drug purchasing were investigated. The internet has evolved over the past 20 years into a widely used method of making purchases of goods and services 1 and online drugstore purchases are no exception. These online portals build internet-based pharmacies that make it simple to buy a wide range of medications, such as generic over the counter medicines, complementary medicines and prescription-only medicines. An early definition by Fung et al stated that an online pharmacy is any supplier legal or illegal operating on the internet that sells medication. Online pharmacies are not the only source of purchasing drugs online, especially in countries such as Jordan, where online pharmacies are still in their humble beginnings and are not well established. Antibiotics sold online without a prescription were found to have substandard packaging and contained impurities and contaminants. The global phenomenon of buying prescription drugs online has substantial effects on the economy, society and health. Several studies, commenters and websites discussed the potential advantages, benefits and hazards of using internet pharmacies and different online sources. According to Fincham , 9 online illegal stores pose a hazard to global public health because they provide cheap, fake medications that have precarious effects on morbidity and mortality. In addition, consumers may obtain prescription-only medication without a prescription. Unrestricted online access to medications enables individuals to participate in illicit and irregular drug use, which might validate unhealthy lifestyle choices. Patients need to be informed about the medications they are taking and where to get them safely, legitimate online pharmacies can provide these services despite the prevalence of illicit ones. Currently, in Jordan, there are no online pharmacies due to prevailing restrictions. The only legal activity is for individuals to upload their prescription on the pharmacy website, facilitating the retrieval of medicines from conveniently located branches. So, any online drug purchase from an online pharmacy is not permitted. Multivitamins, supplements and dermocosmetics can be bought online from virtual shops and the public often mistakenly associates these platforms with online pharmacies. Efforts to establish legal framework in Jordan are necessary but should not be confined to the national level. Regulating the purchase of pharmaceuticals online requires cooperation between international, national and state entities, as well as between patients and medical professionals. This is the first study conducted in Jordan that explores issues related to online drug purchasing from the consumers point of view. This cross-sectional study aimed at investigating the frequency and attitudes of consumers who buy drugs online. The perceptions of consumers regarding advantages and disadvantages of purchasing medications online were also assessed. This was a web-based survey that was conducted in Jordan from November to February through the distribution of a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was developed after thorough and comprehensive literature review to capture most aspects of the subject. Participants were invited to take part in the survey voluntarily and anonymously. Inclusion criteria: residents of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan 18 years or older. A cover letter before starting the questionnaire described the aims of the study, importance and insured the confidentiality and anonymity of the information and participants. Only participants who consented and agreed to fill in the survey were able to access the questionnaire. The questionnaire was established in English was reviewed by two external examiners for scientific relevance and clarity, translated to Arabic by a language expert, and then back translated to English to insure matched meaning. Participants completed the Arabic version. Data in the questionnaire included sociodemographic information seven questions , practices and attitudes towards purchasing medications online nine questions , potential benefits of online drug purchasing four questions , potential disadvantages of online drug purchasing four questions and one single question on the trust score of participants in purchasing drugs from online resources. A pilot study was conducted with 20 participants to check the appropriateness of the questions, easy flow and clarity. Feedback and comments were taken into consideration and modifications were made. Responses from the pilot study were not included in the analysis. The Google Form was accessible from October to March The participants involved in the pilot study were contacted to provide feedback on the questions and different aspects of the questionnaire. Modifications were made accordingly. Independent samples t-test was used to compare the means of continuous data between two groups. The scores from the Likert scale were summed into a total score trust score and possible predictors of trust score were assessed using the univariate and multivariate linear regression. Participants were generally young with an average age of However, only 79 General and sociodemographic characteristics of the participants are shown in table 1. Half of the participants, Of those who purchased drugs online, 22 Most of the participants who purchased drugs online were satisfied with the services 43 Only four participants 9. Drugs that were bought from the online source were either prescription or non-prescription, and the online sources were versatile figure 1A,B. Types of drugs purchased and online sources. Online sources used were mainly local within Jordan 24 Almost two-thirds of the participants believed that non-prescription drugs should be sold online. Additionally, a large percentage also believed that prescription drugs should be available for purchasing online table 2. Different aspects related to the benefits and disadvantages of online purchasing of drugs were assessed using the Likert scale. Most of the participants did not agree that benefits included purchasing better quality drugs. Furthermore, a large percentage of the participants agreed that purchasing fraud drugs is a major disadvantage of online drug acquisition table 3. Participants who purchased drugs online had higher benefits score of online purchasing compared with those who did not buy drugs online, Participants who purchased drugs online had an increase in trust score of 0. Possible predictors of the trust score were assessed using univariate and multivariate linear regression table 4. Most participants in the study used the internet regularly, but only a small percentage shopped online regularly and fewer purchased medication online This process must start by training pharmacists and preparing them to protect their customers and communities since many are unfamiliar with resources that aid consumers in identifying legal online pharmacies. Comparison of the total scores of benefits and disadvantages of online drug purchasing showed a higher score of the disadvantages. This might explain the low percentages of participants who were involved in online drug purchasing. Easy delivery to remote areas and quick delivery were the most agreed on benefits, this finding was similar to results of a study conducted in Hungary by Fittler et al where benefits also included getting the drug past the opening hours and low prices. The risk of purchasing damaged drugs was a concern for the participants. The effective interaction between the patient and the pharmacist leads to better healthcare outcomes in terms of compliance and appropriate medication use. An important concern was the quality of drugs that can be bought online, most participants did not agree that they can obtain dugs of good quality online. Counterfeit medications are a global public health issue that can be distributed illegally, mainly through online sources. According to Shakour et al , counterfeit drugs include wrong ingredients, fake packaging, active ingredients that are not similar to those stated on the package, expired drugs and high quantities of impurities. Additional concerns include receiving incorrect information about drugs 31 and numerous order rejections. Individuals who had a higher trust score in online drug purchasing were those with higher education and those who bought drugs online. A possible explanation is that educated individuals search more for health information 33 and consequently drugs. Another possible reason is the confidence of educated individuals in dealing with different products, websites and processes during online purchasing, in addition to their ability to investigate and evaluate risks and benefits. Contrary to results from a recent review on online pharmacies, 23 most of the purchased drugs in this study were non-prescription drugs. However, a large percentage of participants believed that prescription drugs should be available online. In Europe, many prescription drugs such as stimulants, opioids and sedatives are sold on online pharmacies without the physician supervision. As mentioned previously, officially, there are no online pharmacies in Jordan. Obtaining these prescription drugs from rogue pharmacies constitutes an illegal activity and predisposes the public to serious consequences. These prohibited activities are also common in developed countries, where despite the prevalence of online pharmacies and the installation of regulations that control their businesses, most of them are poorly regulated, vary in quality and lack sufficient monitoring. Additionally, the fact that half of the participants heard of online pharmacies in Jordan reflects the misconception that websites that sell multivitamins, supplements and dermocosmetics online are mistakenly associated with pharmacies by the public. This confusion necessitates the prompt establishment of regulations and legal regulatory framework that governs and supervises these activities. Different social media proved unreliable sources for online drug purchase. In this study drugs were bought mostly from Amazone, Instagram and Facebook. These venues provide illicit sale of drugs to consumers from high-income and middle-income countries around the world. The study has several limitations including the convenient sampling and the fact that electronic surveys need individuals that can fill in these forms on their phones which might generate bias that could increase the percentage of online drug purchasing. The generalisability may not be affected by this bias since online drug purchasers must possess minimum amount of skill in internet use and technology expertise. Moreover, the cross-sectional nature of the study does not allow follow-up and evaluation of the drug purchases performed online by the participants. Public trend supports the disadvantages of online drug purchasing, which explains the low percentage of this practice. Among the numerous advantages perceived by the public is easy delivery to remote areas and convenience. The public also recognises the risks that are involved, which include receiving damaged drugs, lack of patient—pharmacist relationship and consequent absence of important drug information that can jeopardise the safety of the patient. Individuals with higher education have high trust scores which might be due to their ability to manage and investigate online purchasing processes and sources. In conclusion, alertness to this public health threat should be increased through awareness campaigns that inform the public of the hazards of online purchasing from rogue vendors and guide them to safe and legal online pharmacies or websites. Contributors: LG: author acting as a guarantor. LG: acquisition, analysis, interpretation of data, original drafting, reviewing the submitted draft, responsible and accountable for all aspects of the work. MAM: acquisition, interpretation of data, original drafting, reviewing the submitted draft, responsible and accountable for all aspects of the work. AYA-K: acquisition, interpretation of data, original drafting, reviewing the submitted draft, responsible and accountable for all aspects of the work. AAA: acquisition, interpretation of data, original drafting, reviewing the submitted draft, responsible and accountable for all aspects of the work. AA: interpretation of data, original drafting, reviewing the submitted draft, responsible and accountable for all aspects of the work. NK: interpretation of data, original drafting, reviewing the submitted draft, responsible and accountable for all aspects of the work. IDA: interpretation of data, original drafting, reviewing the submitted draft, responsible and accountable for all aspects of the work. Funding: The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors. Refer to the Methods section for further details. Supplemental material: This content has been supplied by the author s. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author s and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. A cover letter that explained the objectives of the study and guaranteed the anonymity of participants was placed at the beginning of the questionnaire. If the participant consents to participation, they will be able to fill the form. This section collects any data citations, data availability statements, or supplementary materials included in this article. As a library, NLM provides access to scientific literature. BMJ Open. Find articles by Lobna Gharaibeh. Find articles by Mariam Ahmad Alameri. Find articles by Aya Y Al-Kabariti. Find articles by Alhareth A Alsa'd. Find articles by Anas Abed. Find articles by Nida Karameh. Find articles by Ibrahim D Aldeeb. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. Open in a new tab. Provenance and peer review: Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed. Similar articles. Add to Collections. Create a new collection. Add to an existing collection. Choose a collection Unable to load your collection due to an error Please try again. Add Cancel. Prescription medicines drugs for asthma, diabetes and blood pressure. Non-prescription medication drugs for constipation, cough, diarrhoea, cold, vitamins and minerals. Lifestyle medicines such as Viagra and birth control pills. Easy delivery especially for those far from any community pharmacy. Purchasing drugs from online sources is easier and quicker. Online purchase is more susceptible to fraud and deceit such as damaged, counterfeit or drugs that were not ordered. Online purchase bypasses the health professional-patient relationship. Additional fees shipping fee, account set-up fee, delivery fees. Due to the delivery time, I'm getting the drug later compared with a pharmacy.

Amman buying MDMA pills

Matthew Levitt , Lauren von Thaden. Share via:. This is despite peace treaties with both Jordan and Egypt and parallel efforts on the part of those countries to patrol their sides of the border. The study focuses on the borders Israel shares with Jordan and Egypt, where disruptions of smuggling operations increased during this period. Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian officials interviewed by the authors independently reported that it has, both in terms of an increase in known smuggling cases and in the complexity of smuggling operations and the dangers of addressing the challenge. The authors further believe it is reasonable to infer from the growth in detected smuggling activity that more smuggling is taking place, but this cannot be assumed with certainty. The guns and drugs that are flowing into Israel are creating societal problems and public safety issues. The influx of weapons is also a major counterterrorism concern. Smuggled weapons have been a contributing factor to the surge of violence that has plagued the West Bank and Israel. The brothers knowingly sold the weapons to members of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and to criminals in southern Israel. Indeed, this increased arms smuggling 5 occurred against the backdrop of over a year and a half of violence that began with an day battle between Israeli forces and Hamas in May and continued through a string of terror attacks in the spring of that prompted a sweeping Israeli military campaign with nightly West Bank raids targeting terrorist operatives. Alongside the extensive collection of chemical materials to make explosives and hundreds of assembled explosive devices seized, authorities also found thousands of rounds of ammunition and weapons such as Ms, pistols, and shotguns. Of the terrorist attacks foiled by Israel security forces in in the West Bank or Jerusalem, were shooting attacks, underscoring the centrality of small arms smuggling to this spike in violence. The study then focuses in turn on smuggling attempts at the borders Israel shares with Jordan and Egypt, where authorities on both sides of the border report a significant increase in detected smuggling activity has taken place in the past two years. It is important to stress that the approximately two-year time duration means that their data sheds light on recent and what may only be short-term trends. The dataset draws from IDF and Israeli government press releases, news articles, and information gleaned from meetings with Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian government officials. The dataset is, by definition, not comprehensive because it is limited to information that is either publicly available in media reports or IDF press releases or that could be gleaned from documents shared with the authors and author interviews. Publicly available data does not uniformly report the details of each smuggling operation. For example, the types of detail provided in reports varies regarding the specific locations where smugglings take place, the identities of those involved, and even the quantities of contraband smuggled. Any quantity of drugs smuggled is especially difficult to quantify over time, as reports sometimes describe the amount of drugs seized by estimated cash value and other times by weight. Despite these constraints, the dataset tracks available information regarding event location, perpetrator identity, and smuggled items almost always weapons or drugs, but several cases involve money or gold. What Authorities Say Indeed, while the dataset is not an exhaustive list of each smuggling attempt during the March to April time period, the overall numbers in the dataset are nearly identical to those reported by Israeli authorities. Neither Jordanian nor Egyptian authorities provided overall figures to the authors. Israeli authorities confirmed to the authors the trendlines accurately reflect those observed by national counter-smuggling authorities. Where available, the authors provide these numbers for greater context. Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian authorities all report significant increases in known cross-border smuggling between early and early The actual pace of known smuggling fluctuates from month to month, but authorities in these countries report that the overall trendlines point up during the past two years. See Figure 1. See Figure 2. Israeli forces embarked on a concerted anti-smuggling campaign in alongside efforts by Egyptian and Jordanian counterparts. According to the IDF, the number of identified, thwarted, or disrupted smuggling attempts along the Egyptian border increased from in to in See Figure 4. Others point to changed circumstances to explain what they see as an ongoing threat from cross-border smuggling, even as the number of known smuggling attempts began to drop in early Figure 1. Due to the lack of other opportunities, more people were drawn into the growing smuggling industry. Because of these circumstances, authorities expect cross-border smuggling to remain an ongoing challenge. Subsequent investigation revealed that the Jordanian lawmaker reportedly carried out a dozen earlier smuggling runs starting in early In each, he leveraged his diplomatic passport to smuggle illicit goods: namely guns, electronic cigarettes, gold, and birds. This incident stood out both for the number of weapons smuggled and the fact that a parliamentarian was used to drive them across an official border crossing at the Allenby Bridge into the West Bank. Most smuggling attempts from Jordan involve criminal smuggling networks that span the Israeli-Jordanian border using members of Bedouin tribes as runners to deliver illicit goods to and across the border, typically at isolated portions of the border far from official border crossings. Israeli and Jordanian officials report that the level of arms smuggling from Jordan into Israel and the West Bank has increased over the past two years, in terms of what is being detected. As already noted, more detected smuggling is likely indicative of more smuggling getting through, and this appears to have fueled instability and a surge in terrorist and other violent activity. Figure 3. As already noted, many smuggling plots on both sides of the border are not publicly reported. Weapons smuggling benefits both terrorist and organized criminal groups but is primarily driven by criminal smuggling networks that recruit members of Bedouin tribes to help facilitate their smuggling operations. According to Jordanian officials, cross-border smuggling incidents as of late were occurring about once or twice a week. And there are likely more still that we never find out about. The Jordanian border spans the geographic areas of responsibility of three IDF commands north, central, and south , requiring robust coordination within the Israeli military to address security concerns. While the Jordanian military is fairly well-deployed along its side of the border, the Israeli military is more sparsely deployed along large portions of the border since the terrorism threat is comparatively lower there than in other parts of the country. Cases along the Jordan-Israel border mostly involve weapons smuggling attempts conducted by West Bank Palestinians and Israeli-Arabs from Bedouin communities in the Negev desert and their counterparts on the Jordanian side of the border, many of whom come from the same Bedouin tribes. What Is Smuggled, and Where? In some spots along the long and sparsely populated southern desert border, there is no security fence at all, just barbed wire. Here you can dig under, or simply cut a hole. Smuggling succeeds here because the border is too long to effectively patrol and the area is a sparsely populated wilderness. North of the Dead Sea, the Jordan Valley is a rollercoaster of small hills running along the Jordan River marking the borderline between Israel and Jordan. The few smuggling attempts that did not occur within these aforementioned boundaries occurred south of the Dead Sea Map 1. As noted earlier, Jordanian MP al-Adwan allegedly attempted to smuggle three bags of weapons across the Allenby Bridge, including some handguns and about a dozen AR style assault rifles. On average, weapons busts along the Jordanian border include roughly 15 handguns and one or two assault rifles. Only after his arrest did authorities learn that starting in February , the Jordanian parliamentarian allegedly made a dozen smuggling runs moving a variety of contraband across the border. In April , Israeli police confiscated 63 handguns and arrested a Bedouin Israeli citizen suspected of smuggling weapons from Jordan. Earlier, in December , Israeli authorities arrested two Israeli Bedouin brothers and a Palestinian from the northern West Bank on charges of smuggling weapons and ammunition that was then sold to members of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad in the West Bank and criminals in southern Israel. The overwhelming majority of smuggled weapons coming in through Jordan are handguns, which account for about 90 percent of smuggled weapons seized at or near the Jordan-Israel border, according to the IDF. Not all reported smuggling cases fully document what weapons were seized at or near the Jordan-Israel border, but collating the data from those that do reveals over weapons were seized from March to April , including handguns and 90 assault rifles. Without providing details other than the total number of weapons seized per year, the IDF reported in May that were seized in , in , and in the first five months of not including weapons parts, which appear in about 50 percent of smuggling runs. The other 10 percent of guns smuggled across the Jordan-Israel border are M and AK style assault rifles and shotguns, officials report. Many of these are stolen from IDF armories or sold on the black market by IDF soldiers, 59 but some are also smuggled into the country from Jordan. In fact, one reason Israeli officials believe they have had more success thwarting arms smuggling from Jordan is an intelligence collection shift from drugs to guns. The precise location of each smuggling operation from Jordan is often unknown. Both government press releases and media reports identify where arrests take place, which is typically near the border, but not where the actual cross-border smuggling occurred. Rarely do smugglers cross the border themselves, instead preferring to come up to the border fence and either throw bags of weapons over the fence or leave them there for someone on the other side to pick up after cutting a hole in the fence. At some points, the space between the border and the fence can be as wide as meters. In July , Jordanian armed forces thwarted an attempt to smuggle 54 handguns, five shotguns, and ammunition from Syria. The sharp increase in prices appears to be a function of both the impact of counter-smuggling efforts, which have put some constraints on the supply of weapons and ammunition, and continuing high demand for weapons in Israel and the West Bank. In fact, demand is so high that guns are often smuggled across the border before buyers are lined up. As the February terrorism wave spread, applications for gun licenses by Israelis spiked by percent. In , 51 Israeli-Arabs were reportedly killed by organized criminal gangs in Galilee, the so-called Triangle bordering the northern West Bank and the Negev. You want a gun? You can buy a gun in an hour. You can buy a handgun. You can even buy a machine gun, an assault rifle. But demand is very high. So it is a very good business. Israeli organized criminal networks are another source of violence and instability in the West Bank. In , seven criminal gangs were active in Arab communities, and over Palestinians were killed by organized gangs. The influx of guns has factored in the sharp increase in terrorist activity in the West Bank. Smuggled weapons are flowing in from Jordan, but that is by no means the only source of black-market arms. In November , for example, thieves stole approximately 70, bullets and 70 grenades from an IDF base in the north of the country. Israeli forces confiscated 92 kg of heroin and cocaine and 28 kg of hashish from the vehicle. Bedouin smugglers in the Negev typically traffic marijuana and hashish grown in the Sinai Peninsula. In rare cases like this one, harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin have been smuggled as well. Here, drugs are the primary illicit commodity smuggled across the border. Israeli authorities said that, as of late , there were typically one to two smuggling attempts a day along this border. While some reports imply that the increase in drug smuggling is tied to terrorism, 96 evidence suggests otherwise. Iran, they assess, has not done so either. Israeli and Egyptian authorities point to increased identified, thwarted, or disrupted drug smuggling from Figure 4 , which is the result of several factors including long-term neglect by the Egyptian government and rampant unemployment. In , a tribal leader pointed to unemployment as the primary driver behind crime and violent extremism in the Sinai. Egypt flooded tunnels under the popular Rafah crossing, collapsing the tunnels and the illicit economy they created. Between the two, smuggling pays far better and is the only growth industry in the area. Until then, there was no need for, and thus market for, dedicated smugglers, because anybody could smuggle items across the then-open km border with an easily-breached fence. The new fence includes sophisticated sensors and is 5 to 8 meters high, depending on the location. Due to the lack of economic opportunities in the region, some of these tribesmen, now better armed, are believed to have turned to smuggling once the Islamic State in Sinai was effectively defeated. The Egyptian-Israeli border runs for just over km, along which there are several hotspots where most of the cross-border smuggling takes place. Three of the most significant hotspots are along a km run of the border starting at the Nitzana border crossing border stone 26 and running south to Mount Harif border stone 49 and Mount Sagi border stone Smuggling also occurs further north, near the Kerem Shalom crossing at the point where the Israeli, Gaza, and Egypt borders meet, and closer to the city of Eilat and the Red Sea. The topography of the Egypt-Israel border area favors smuggling, with its many dry river beds wadis that complicate surveillance and reconnaissance efforts by military and police and block lines of sight. Large water pipes run under some of the roads and provide cover. Periodic bluffs overlooking the border provide natural lookout spots for smugglers. On the Egyptian side of the border, smugglers emerge from staging areas around Jebel Khali and other mountains and cross the flat plateau that leads to the border fence. On the Israeli side, they do much the same, exiting from staging areas around Mount Hanif and Mount Sagi. Many more drug-smuggling runs were not disrupted. Office on Drugs and Crime report on the global cocaine market, cocaine seizures in Israel increased dramatically from to Though much smaller in scale, there is also some limited smuggling from Israel into Egypt. This typically involves marijuana plant seeds first smuggled into Israel from the Netherlands onward into Egypt for cultivation there. The final product is later smuggled back into Israel for sale. As the pace of disruption rose, disrupting the flow of drugs in both directions across the border, smugglers developed more sophisticated and aggressive tactics to move their product. Countermeasures to evade counter-smuggling efforts include investing in surveillance and intelligence collection, fine-tuning smuggling tactics at the border and developing aggressive maneuvers for situations when military or police encounter smugglers. If needed, they will move on to another area or wait until security forces leave to patrol another area. The criminal networks running drugs across the Egypt-Israel border also invest significant sums of money to hire teams of couriers, drivers, lookouts, and scouts, as well as operations officers to oversee each smuggling operation. Smuggling operations officers seek financially unstable Bedouin in the Negev Desert area who have either completed their IDF service or still serve in the IDF, including as trackers in anti-smuggling efforts, to obtain advanced knowledge of Israeli patrols and other intelligence. While smugglers along the Jordanian border operate in small groups, one-way smugglers along the Egyptian border cope with increased patrols is to overwhelm them by sending groups of up to 30 people at a time. Large groups of well-armed smugglers can effectively keep such Egyptian forces at bay while they withdraw from the border fence and escape. A typical smuggling run takes just two to three minutes at the border fence, with smugglers converging from either side to send and receive goods. A long smuggling operation might run up to eight minutes, but they are intended to be quick to decrease the risk of disruption or capture. At the Egypt-Israel border, smugglers typically throw bags of drugs and other contraband over the security fence, which is five meters tall in most places but six to eight meters tall at smuggling hotspots along a 17 km stretch of the border. Smugglers operating on the Egypt-Israel border tend to be more violent in cases when they are engaged by authorities and have large quantities of drugs in their possession. In some cases, smugglers run off into the wilderness carrying the drugs and leave their vehicles behind. The cost of losing a car is the cost of business, as long as the drugs are not confiscated. Smugglers on the Egypt-Israel border are growing increasingly sophisticated and are known to operate quadcopter drones to collect intelligence and evade patrols. They have also been known to run chains or place other impediments across roads to disable military or police vehicles, which must stick to the roads. Smugglers about to be cornered and desperate to evade capture have been known to attempt to ram military and civilian vehicles with their SUVs. According to the World Drug Report, many countries, including Israel, reported overall growth in drug consumption and relapses since the start of the pandemic. While the majority of drugs consumed in Israel are smuggled into the country from abroad, domestic marijuana production is on the rise, with organized criminal groups growing the illegal crop in greenhouses in parts of the Negev desert classified as live firing zones. The plants were grown in trenches dug in a live fire zone with beige nets spread over them to make the area blend in with the desert. Aside from the public health threat posed by the flow of drugs into the country, Israeli officials are concerned about the increasingly aggressive and militant nature of these drug smuggling operations. In December , Israeli soldiers shot dead a suspect attempting to smuggle drugs from Egypt after smugglers fired at the soldiers as they arrived at the scene. When IDF forces arrived at the various smuggling scenes, the smugglers fired at them. In the nearby Israeli border community of Kadesh Barnea, farmers complained that chickens were killed in the crossfire when they shot at the vehicles of arriving Israeli forces. Conclusion In early June , Israeli forces thwarted a smuggling attempt in the middle of the night, and hours later, an Egyptian police officer crossed the border into Israel and shot and killed three Israeli soldiers. This case along with that of Jordanian Parliamentarian Imad al-Adwan attest to the increased need for cross-border security cooperation. The Jordanian foreign ministry released a statement noting it was following up on reports of the arrest with the relevant authorities. The reason all sides displayed such restraint in these cases is that the three countries work diligently to prevent terrorist and criminal activities across and along their shared borders. It should therefore not come as a surprise that while al-Adwan was detained in Israel, Jordanian authorities ran a parallel investigation and arrested several suspects believed to be involved in the smuggling. Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian authorities all report a sharp rise in cross-border smuggling over the past couple of years. The downward slope in detected smuggling attempts since late see figure 1 suggests that counter-smuggling efforts may be having the intended impact; however, it is still too early to draw firm conclusions. Some of the counter-smuggling success is attributable to enhanced cooperation between Israeli military and security agencies and the completion of border defenses. Furthermore, Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian officials all stressed to the authors the importance of their cross-border coordination and cooperation. Officials are increasingly willing to make such statements publicly. In the final analysis, Israel, Jordan, and Egypt all see counter-smuggling and border security as a shared interest and a security function they perform for their own benefit. Many of the circumstances that have contributed to the increase over the last two years in detected smuggling are highly likely to persist, from regional instability and the ready availability of guns to the massive profits criminals stand to make from narcotics sales. Commercial incentives mean that smugglers will likely become more violent and more creative, from digging tunnels under border fences to deploying drones to transport packages over them. Cooperation between the three countries will continue to be crucial. Treasury Department. He has written for CTC Sentinel since Substantive Notes \[a\] For every smuggling attempt identified, thwarted, or disrupted, an unknown number of others presumably get through without authorities ever learning about them. The authors believe the numbers detected by authorities is likely to be indicative of the true larger total. Israeli, Jordanian, and Egyptian authorities also made this point in interviews with the authors. Significant caveats apply, however. It should also be noted that, all other things being equal, more thwarting and disruption of smuggling could be expected to lead to a reduction in smuggling attempts over time. In other words, a higher number of interdictions could theoretically be associated with a decreasing rather than increasing problem set, though this would likely occur over a longer period of time than that studied here. Indeed, while most officials interviewed for this study reported that increased disruption of smuggling attempts was taking place against the background of an increased trend in smuggling activity, one Israeli official expressed the opinion that what has changed at the Jordanian and Egyptian border is not the overall level of smuggling, but rather the number of smuggling attempts that are identified, thwarted, or disrupted. Determining why the rate of detected smuggling goes up or down is complex, is not a result of any one factor, and may elude simple explanation. It only includes data on assembled guns smuggled across the Jordanian border. It does not include weapons parts or grenades. The IDF compiled higher numbers of weapons seized in the past three years because they include smuggling attempts that were not made public, but they do not differentiate between types of weapons. The larger number of weapons seized at or near the border appears to reflect a broader category than just those seized in specifically counter-smuggling operations. Author Levitt interview, Israeli official, May Sometimes it quantifies the amount of drugs seized by weight, and sometimes by estimated worth in dollars or shekels. Some material was shared at these meetings, and more was provided in follow up communication via email, WhatsApp, and Zoom. Field research along the Israeli-Jordanian border was conducted in September Anything Goes! The red dots represent areas where there have been thwarted smugglings at or near the borders of Jordan and Egypt. The red pins show smuggling hot spots. IDF data relayed to the authors 95 While some reports imply that the increase in drug smuggling is tied to terrorism, 96 evidence suggests otherwise. The line shows the wider area where smugglings most frequently occur according to Israeli officials interviwed by the authors. CTC Dr.

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