The Migrant Mafia
Originally published in 1995, this monograph could just as easily have been written today
Introduction
I wrote this monograph entitled The Migrant Mafia during the spring of 1995 while I was stationed in Warsaw, Poland. It was researched and prepared for a series of experts meetings that were held in 1995/96 and attended by senior government officials, policymakers and aviation security experts who were confronted with the growing phenomena of human trafficking in Europe. The paper was revised and updated in January 1996 and became the basis for a BBC Panorama program by the same name that was aired in July 1997. It lay dormant on an old hard drive until this week when I rediscovered it. I thought that in light of current events - as it impacts so many in Europe - I would share it with subscribers. If any readers that are researchers of migration matters or students of history from the early post cold war era, have questions, I would be happy to respond.
In the meantime. enjoy the trip back in time!
Thomas A. Tass
Editor BORDERPOL JOURNAL
The business of trafficking in human beings earns more than seven billion dollars annually worldwide in untaxed profits. In Europe alone, this figure is estimated to be in excess of one and one-half billion dollars. Organized criminality has made an industry out of targeting the displeased, the disadvantaged and the dispossessed of the world. It has developed the capability to recruit, assemble, transport and deliver human beings to Western Europe and North America with almost total impunity .
Trafficking in human beings is as abhorrent a social phenomena as was the slave trade of the 18th century. Many trafficked people find themselves delivered to the sweatshops in America and elsewhere. Others are forced to become drugs smugglers in servitude for services rendered. Some traffickers market babies through bogus adoption rackets, others are linked to the gender specific exploitation of women.
The international law enforcement community has determined that the migrant mafia is linked with other areas of organized transborder criminality. These activities include document counterfeiting, money laundering and narco-trafficking. Their ability to smuggle criminal or terrorist elements, along with migrants into target nations also should not be underestimated. Syndicates may even possess political capabilities. Using their influence, they could overburden the social systems of targeted countries with their clients and thus undermine the social fabric of these societies. Their industry can create negative public opinion regarding migrants which in turn jeopardizes legal migration policies and undermines accepted protections afforded to refugees under international law. Respected international organizations tasked with the responsibility for protecting refugees, promoting legal emigration and the transport of migrants, have unwittingly aided and abetted the traffickers through timid support of anti trafficking legislation.
Continued economic decline in the countries of the third world, various wars in Africa, unrest in the Islamic states, ethnic strife in countries such as Bosnia - Herzegovina and Sri Lanka, and the recent economic crisis in south east Asia have contributed to the intense migratory pressures flowing towards Western Europe and North America. As in all human endeavors, the challenges of the many become opportunities for the few. Trafficking in human beings has become one of the spectacular growth industries of one of the nineties. It has exposed many weaknesses which hamper the efforts of border and police services to track, apprehend and successfully prosecute criminal elements involved in the movement of unqualified migrants. To understand the problem it is important to understand that migrant trafficking is an activity managed and directed by organized criminality. Organized transborder criminality can at times be reckless in pursuit of their primary goal - monetary profit. This is evidenced by a numerous and serious international incidents linked to migrant trafficking.