David Leone Suber
Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellow
David Leone Suber lectures on organised crime at the Center for Criminology, and is a member of Border Criminologies.
He completed his PhD in 2025 at the UCL Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, researching survival strategies and adaptation dynamics of migrant smuggling groups vis a vis border enforcement measures, border violence and police corruption. He carried out extensive ethnographic fieldwork on the migration routes from West Asia (Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey), North Africa (Libya, Tunisia and Egypt) and the Balkan region (Greece, Bosnia Herzegovina and Serbia).
David also conducts research on the smuggling of natural resources, cultural heritage and narcotics. He regularly contributes as a freelance journalist on international media and has produced award-winning multimedia investigations and film documentaries. He engages as a consultant for NGOs and law firms, and participates as a speaker and organiser of cross-sector and cross-disciplinary seminars at universities and think tanks across the Mediterranean.
David is currently a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow, and an Associate Member of St Anthony’s College. He is conducting new research on Syria’s post-regime transitional phase, from the opening of known and secret prisons, to the management of justice, security and crime during the restructuring of government institutions and their legitimacy. He welcomes collaborations in this field from fellow researchers, journalists and students.
Publications:
Suber D, ‘Corruption and Bribery at the Border: Strategies of Survival and Adaptation between People Smugglers and Border Enforcement’ (2023) 709(1) The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 65 View
Pilati K and others, ‘Protest Demobilization In Post-Revolutionary Settings: Trajectories To Counter-Revolution And To Democratic Transition’ (2023) 71(3) Political Studies 634 View
Augustova K and Suber D, ‘The Kurdish kaçakçı on the Iran-Turkey border: corruption and survival as EU sponsored counter-smuggling effects’ (2023) 26(1) Trends in Organized Crime 48 View
Suber D and others, ‘Antiquities trafficking in conflict countries: A crime-mapping approach’ (2022) 29(4) International Journal of Cultural Property 531 View
Pilati K and others, ‘Between organization and spontaneity of protests: the 2010–2011 Tunisian and Egyptian uprisings’ (2019) 18(4) Social Movement Studies 463 View