Migrant Smuggling

The smuggling of migrants is a global phenomenon that affects^[9] a large number of countries. Routes are multiple and can also involve the crossing of several continents – from internal African routes towards north and south Africa, to Asian and African routes towards Europe, the United States and the Middle East, or to wealthier countries in South-East Asia and the Pacific. It should be noted, however, that migrant smuggling often simply involves movement across the borders of two adjacent countries. For example, after the outbreak of the war in Syria in 2011, large numbers of Syrians used smugglers^[10] both to go to and return from neighbouring countries – such as, Jordan, Turkey or Lebanon. Some countries can be the final destination for migrants, while others are transit areas where they stop, waiting to move on further. In many cases, there is no clear distinction between transit and destination countries. Libya, for example, has long been a destination country for migrants from Sub-Saharan Africa. However, the fall of the Gadhafi regime in 2011, and the ensuing political violence, turned the country into a crucial transit point to Europe.

Smuggling routes can also change rapidly.^[11] Multiple factors can lead to a swift change in the volume of smuggled migrants across a route. These include, but are not limited to: wars, poverty, political turmoil, and the fast-changing scenario of border control. For example, in 2015 (the year Russia & the US entered the conflict in Syria), the European Border and Coast Guard Agency, Frontex, registered^[12] record numbers of irregular border crossings to Europe — around 1.2 million people (compared to 330,000 detected irregular border crossings in 2022). These were mostly Syrians, Afghans and other asylum seekers who entered Europe^[13] via Turkey and Greece, mostly with the help of smugglers. A large share of these migrants have now made their way to EU Member States via the so-called Eastern Mediterranean route. The escalation of the Syrian conflict, the re-emergence of political instability in the region, and radical changes in transit countries’ border controls substantially increased the number of migrants traveling along this route, as well as the number of smugglers enabling their irregular journeys.

While routes change, the locations where migrant smugglers offer their services tend to remain stable^[14] over time. These smuggling hubs can be large capital cities or remote villages where migrants wait for days, weeks, or even months as they attempt to cross borders, earn enough to live on, hire smugglers, secure food and shelter, find protection or decide to stay where they are. Istanbul and Izmir in Turkey, Tripoli in Libya, or Tijuana in Mexico have long been crucial  hubs in the changing landscape of migratory routes. 

In the long term, however, these transit hubs are also susceptible to change^[15] . Agadez in Niger, for example, has traditionally been a crucial transit point for smuggling flows, where smugglers have arranged transportation services towards North Africa for hundreds of thousands of migrants from West Africa and other regions. However, the closure of land borders following the outbreak of the COVID pandemic in 2020 and heightened surveillance by law enforcement agencies at both the Libyan and Algerian borders, contributed to the decline of Agadez and led to the emergence^[16] of new transit hubs such as the city of Tahoua in Niger. Tahoua is easily accessible by the local transport system and advantageously located near the Algerian border.

Empirical research^[17] undertaken across the world has shown that human smuggling involves very different ways of doing things depending on the origin of the smugglers, the client group, and the smuggling route. Smuggling groups can vary from single-service providers to multi-service networks. 

Smuggling Group Structures: Single Service Providers

Single service providers are small groups that run border crossings and often have solid roots in local communities.

Smuggling groups are the operative unites that run smuggling operations, from the crossing of national borders between two countries to journeys that involve the crossing of several continents. Professional smugglers are at the core of these groups. The bigger the smuggling group is, the larger is the number of people operating at different phases of the journey.

Smuggling Group Structures: Multi-service Networks 

At the other end of the spectrum, larger and wider-ranging networks have offshoots in migrants’ countries of origin. These organizations operate either land, air or sea routes and provide customers with a variety of services that range from border crossings to detention center releases. These types of migrant-smuggling services are often used^[19] by migrants who are barred from legal entry to transit countries. In such cases, the smuggling of migrants occurs through a pre-organized, multi-stage process. It is worth pointing out, however, that even wide-ranging networks do not have the sturdy hierarchical structure^[20] that has been observed within military or larger criminal organizations, such as mafia groups. Rather, they are a chain of independently but closely interacting ‘stage coordinators’ who organize the migration process by outsourcing certain smuggling activities to local coordinators – often individuals with solid ties in the local community of transit countries. The latter, in turn, subcontract border crossings to the local service providers.

It should be added that both single service providers and multi-service networks often delegate some of the logistics to individuals who participate in smuggling ventures only occasionally.^[21] These are often locals who work as “freelancers” by providing a range of services to ensure that the smugglers can operate undisturbed. These services might include renting out their car or boats, sub-leasing their lands as points of departure or crossing, or selling goods such as life jackets.

Methods of Migrant Smuggling

There are many different techniques^[22] that migrant smugglers employ to move migrants across international borders. Generally air routes are safer, but more expensive than land and sea routes. Land crossings, however, remain the most widely travelled smuggling corridors. Overall, the methods used to smuggle migrants depend on a number of factors, such as border control, migration policies, cost of smuggling services, geography, and the personal relationship between smugglers and migrants. 

In the Mediterranean, for example, smugglers capitalize^[23] on the presence of aid and border control agencies, counting on the moral and legal obligations to assist migrants in distress at sea. They operate remotely and generally maintain contact by phone with migrants who pilot the boat. On the other hand, concealment and hiding is the most common strategy to smuggle people across the US-Mexico border – for example, border control is circumvented^[24] by moving migrants through desert areas or hiding them in concealed compartments in trucks, private vehicles, and freight trains.

Structure of and Personnel in Migrant Smuggling Organisations

Empirical evidence has also demonstrated^[25] that smuggling groups operating across the globe are generally small and independent with roles that are not integrated into rigid hierarchies or bound by long-term agreements. These flexible organizations have, however, a few recurring figures that can be pinpointed. These include the group coordinator, who oversees the smuggling operations and the overall management of the organization; the recruiter, in charge of establishing contact between smugglers and migrants; and the ‘passeur’, responsible for escorting migrants across borders. A number of other figures participate in the business: forgers, enforcers, receivers, and drivers. Finally, these relatively loose and small organizations attract a considerable number of people – often locals – who work as freelancers. They could work for a fee, for example, as lookouts, by using lights to signal the presence of police forces patrolling shores or borders, or as costly taxi-drivers who take migrants to embarkation zones or stash houses. Embarkation zones are where migrants are loaded onto boats heading somewhere, e.g. Bodrum in Turkey (embarkation zone) for boats heading to Lesbos in Greece. Stash houses are where migrants are “stashed” (at times — other times they just hang around in the city or elsewhere), waiting for the next leg of the journey. The wait depends on a number of factors — money sent by the family to pay the smuggler, better weather conditions for making the crossing etc.).The loose structure of human smuggling makes it difficult to draw an accurate financial assessment of the phenomenon. In other words, it is difficult to define how much money flows into the pockets of smugglers as many and different actors benefit from the revenues generated by this business.

Smuggled migrants are generally young men in their twenties and early thirties. However, the smuggling of women and children – either travelling alone or with their own household – is common^[26] . The gender and age composition of smuggled migrants often depends on many factors, including the reasons they need to move. For example, communities escaping violence and armed conflict often travel in small family groups. 

Smuggled migrants are generally young adult males, although large numbers of women and minors have been recorded along certain routes. The gender and age composition of smuggled migrant flows is influenced by the circumstances driving their mobility. In case of conflict, insecurity and environmental disasters, families often resort to smugglers.

The relationship between smugglers and migrants ranges from altruistic assistance provided by family members or friends to dynamics of exploitation based on the intent of hardened criminals. Although violence and abuse are recurring features of the migrant-smuggler relationship, trust and satisfaction toward the smuggler seems to be^[27] the rule rather than the exception among migrants and asylum seekers. Ethnographic data collected across origin and destination countries seems to confirm^[28] a general feeling of satisfaction with smuggling services among migrants. A study^[29] across the US-Mexico border examined the smuggler-migrant relationship by drawing on more than 1100 surveys with recent deportees in six Mexican cities. While only 45% of deportees reported that they would recommend their facilitator to friends and family members, 75% indicated being satisfied with the services.

Moreover, migrants also get involved in providing smuggling services to finance their own journey or accomplish other goals. Some North Korean migrants smuggled to South Korea, for example, have willingly decided to become smugglers themselves to make money and protect their fellow migrants from the same abuses they had to endure during their irregular journey. 

Regardless, the social bonds, kinship, and friendship between smugglers and migrants do not always protect migrants against exploitation and violence, especially when it comes to collecting money and enforcing contracts. Several testimonies have documented^[30] the case of migrants being deceived, abused, or even coerced into human trafficking or forced to carry drug or other illicit goods by their smugglers. Telling of these dangers is the high number of deaths^[31] among smuggled migrants along two of the most deadliest corridors worldwide, the Mediterranean Sea and the US-Mexico border – respectively around 49% and 6.5% of the total migrant deaths (48500) recorded since 2014.

Furthermore, recent empirical research^[32] suggests that interactions between migrant smuggling and other crimes is sometimes the result of the long term vulnerability and precariousness of migrants’ situations. For example, recentstudiesSource: Sanchez, G. and Zhang, S. Rumors, Encounters, Collaborations, and Survival: The Migrant Smuggling–Drug Trafficking Nexus in the US Southwest. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2018.show how migrants from Mexico and other countries in Latin America carry drugs as temporary strategies to bypass controls along the US–Mexico border. A lack of financial resources often determines a migrant’s decision to exchange transportation of drugs, either for monetary compensation or in lieu of smuggling fees. In other words, while immediate danger or the search for better economic prospects can push migrants to embark on dangerous journeys, without adequate social and financial capital, the cost of the journey can lead migrants to devise new strategies for paying for their own travel, such as engaging in forced labor or moving drugs across borders.

Notwithstanding smugglers’ different modus operandi across major smuggling corridors, the policy imperatives that have guided efforts to address human smuggling in much of the so-called developed world and beyond, remain overwhelmingly focused on implementing an approach that favours strict migration policies and increased support for border surveillance and controls. In Europe, for example, the creation of the border agency, Frontex, in 2004 has been a clear step toward this path. EU members have further tried to tighten border controls and are shifting asylum responsibilities to third countries. Europe’s ongoing collaboration with the Libyan coastguard, to intercept and return scores of migrants and refugees to Tripoli, points precisely in this direction.

This approach has been criticized for failing^[33] to reduce the number of facilitators and number of migrant deaths. Studies have shown how the offshore model mentioned above has infringed upon the international and human rights standards set out for the protection of migrants and increases the risks faced by migrants . Even in the case of successfully preventing migrants from leaving transit countries, it has been questioned^[34] whether this outcome would ultimately benefit them or aggravate their plight. Several human rights groups and international organizations have reported countless abuses and violence against migrants, perpetrated by local authorities in these countries. For example, a 2021 report^[35] by Amnesty International, highlighted how European states and institutions continue to provide material support and pursue migration policies which enable the Libyan authorities to detect migrants despite severe forms of physical violence against them which have shown no indication of diminishing over the past decade.

Author’s Note: Alternatives to Current Migrant Smuggling Methods

If the intended goal is to suppress smuggling networks and protect vulnerable migrants, security measures might be effective, only if, implemented judiciously and alongside other solutions. Against this background, collaborations with third countries should occur after a detailed human rights impact analysis and investigation of the impact on local political economies where anti-smuggling policies are implemented. Careful considerations must be made to ensure that third country partners’ migration management activities do not impede individuals’ right to seek asylum. It should cease any assistance from developed countries to countries where migrants face the risk of inhumane and degrading treatment; meanwhile return operations of migrants must not be used as a deterrent to irregular migration and human smuggling. Furthermore, collaboration with transit countries should be expanded to increase their capacity to properly carry out refugee status determination and provide international protection, while taking into account age, gender and diversity specific vulnerabilities and protection challenges. 

Most importantly, the fight against migrant smuggling should focus on the opening of new channels of legal entry and the reinforcement of existing ones for refugees and asylum seekers who make up a large share of smuggled migrants. An effective answer to human smuggling might require countries – especially receiving countries – to concentrate on reducing the “demand” of smuggling services more than curbing “supply.” Smugglers often constitute the only available option for those migrants when fleeing a situation of immediate danger and distress. Accordingly, a decisive step towards a more durable radical solution for this phenomenon demands the opening of new legal entry channels and the reinforcement of existing ones for refugees and asylum seekers, a large share of smuggled migrants.

It is often assumed that migrant smugglers run their business alongside a number of other illegal trades – most notably drug, human, and weapon trafficking. According to this claim, mafia and other criminal organizations are increasingly taking control of smuggling businesses. 

If human smuggling is a booming multibillionaire business, there is indeed plausible reason to believe that larger criminal groups could rely on the practice of smuggling for self-financing. This belief has often overestimated the extent and dimension of smuggling organizations. This seems to be supported by recent empirical evidence^[36] that shows how large criminal groups in Mexico and the Middle East have not consistently entered into the business of smuggling refugees as a means of financing. When interactions between these organizations and smuggling groups occur, they mostly involve the taxation of smugglers who move people across the areas under their de-facto jurisdiction. 

For example, disaggregated data^[37] retrieved by U.S. Special Forces from Islamic State (IS) financial records in Iraq and Syria show how this organization relies on rather diversified mechanisms of revenue generation, including the sale of natural resources (notably oil and natural gas). The records also outline a broad range of economic activities that involve a number of external, profit motivated intermediaries (such as truckers, traders, and cash couriers) who were taxed passage fees and custom duties to move goods across the areas under IS’s de-facto jurisdiction. Yet, smuggling of migrants is never mentioned in the budgetary documents.