Maryland Smith’s Raghavan Heads NSF Research on Illicit Drug Trafficking
Maryland Smith’s S. Raghu Raghavan is the principal investigator for a five-year National Science Foundation collaborative research award worth nearly $1 million to look into drug cartels: Discovery, Analysis, and Disruption of Illicit Narcotic Supply Networks. As transnational drug cartels continue to grow in size and scope, their trafficking networks have become more complex and fragmented. This project takes a multidisciplinary, scientific approach to build better insight and optimization of U.S. counternarcotics efforts. The researchers will refine analytic methods to develop an understanding of the network structure and models of the flow of cocaine. The research will support the disruption strategies of anti-narcotics and other law enforcement agencies.