Illicit trade as a structural segment of the global shadow economy: from infrastructural asymmetries to the crypto-financial architecture

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to conceptualize illicit trade as a structural segment of the global shadow economy rather than as a collection of isolated criminal incidents, and to substantiate the mechanism through which the infrastructural and institutional asymmetries of globalization, together with the emerging crypto-financial architecture, simultaneously facilitate both licit and illicit circulation. The article demonstrates that illicit trade should not be interpreted as a set of individual customs, criminal, or administrative offenses but rather as an integral structural component of the contemporary global economy, whose functioning is determined by the configuration of international production, logistics, trade, and financial networks.