Results of a study published in October 2020 will presented. Recorded cases of burglary in the first year of the
pandemic (March 2020 - March 2021) are compared to the two previous years. The changes in burglary rate
are compared to other forms of break-ins (commercial, institutions, holiday homes) as well as other forms of
property crime. Comparisons are made for geographical changes, changes in time and modus operandi. Also
the profile of known burglars as well as the take has been subject of the study.

The overall conclusion is that the burglary rate follows the severity of the lock down: the more restrictions, the
less burglaries and visa versa. This phenomenon is independent of geography; the same tendency is
observed in all police districts, larger cities and small towns. There are not much signs of displacement -
maybe to internet-related crime to a certain extent - and also a drop in other forms of break-ins is observed.

In the presentation attention will be paid to (possible) interpretations of the results and (likely) lessons learned
in regard to burglary prevention.

Economic and organised crime statistics have always been the subject of moral entrepreneurship, and fraud is a component of this. Arguably most fraud is cyber-enabled in some form, but the elapsed time to detection may be more common in offline frauds. Data are very patchy between countries, within and outside the EU. However this paper reviews what is known about cyber-enabled fraud during the pandemic and addresses the question of what we might mean by ‘excess fraud’.

There is debate about the simultaneous occurrence of human smuggling and the transnational trafficking of goods, the current evolution in reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the threat that the convergence of these crimes represents for society. However, empirical evidence of the degree to which the smuggling of migrants converge with the trafficking of goods is scant. We test whether convergence occurs, and if so, to what extent. For this end, we design and implement an innovative methodology based on text analytics and open source data. Results show that although there is a convergence between human smuggling and other transnational crimes, this occurrence is rather episodic (3.4% of episodes). In addition, exploratory results suggest that COVID-19 has not had an impact on the simultaneous occurrence of human smuggling and the transnational trafficking of goods. The results expand extant knowledge about the functioning of human smuggling and provide policymakers with concrete solutions to combat its convergence with other transnational crimes.

Although murder cases in Lithuania show a negligent share of all registered crimes, and during the last decades, their number has significantly decreased, the country still belongs to the group of European states with a relatively high murder rate. There are different explanations and interpretations of this phenomenon, most of which emphasise specific cultural, social or situative circumstances that course murders in the country. COVID-19 pandemic transformed the traditional forms of social control and the public perception of safety in society. It inevitably provoked questions about changes in the crime situation, particularly murders. The paper analyses the trends in murder statistics in Lithuania before and throughout the pandemic. It also observes how the local media presents this problem in public discourse and brings particular attention to the initial stage of the pandemic. There, one can detect the apparent elements of the infodemic when the media publications, misinterpreting statistical data, raise the alarm about the dramatic growth of the murder cases in society. However, differently than expected, the number of murder cases only slightly increased during the first pandemic year; the following year, it decreased again, reaching a lower level than in the pre-pandemic period.