Doing business out of people's misery
The numbers seldom give the whole picture, but still they do help realise its true scope: the European outer borders have been crossed by more than a hundred thousand refugees for the last couple of months, Frontex data shows. Most of these people have used the "services" of traffickers, and many of these attempts have ended up with a tragic result: the UN committee on refugees reports that more than 2400 migrants have died this year, mostly attempting to cross the Mediterranean Sea.
At the same time, there are people making a fortune out of this misery. People who put these refugees in broken boats, stack them in cargo trucks, then leave them to their means. According to the UN organisation against drugs and crime, these illegal traffickers make about 150 million euro annually. But this is actually not an updated figure, because it was calculated on the basis of 55 thousand annual migrants. The situation has changed a lot since then. Now hundreds of thousands of refugees are crossing EU's borders every month, and it could turn out the traffickers are making close to half a billion a month.
The huge number of migrants who are trying to reach Europe is creating a vast market, which the traffickers now gladly service. There is place on this market for those who only occasionally aim at making a "hit", then leave the market - they may load a couple of refugees on their vehicle against the "modest" amount of 1500-2000 euro per person. And then there are those who have turned this into a regular business.
The fight against human trafficking is like the fight against that legendary dragon from the fairy tales, where three new heads pop up in the place of each head you have chopped off. And there could be only one way to defeat that problem: all data should be collected and processed at one place, where all the information about the traffickers and their aides in the countries of first entry could be collected - but also information about the transit countries along the route, and about the end destinations, where most of the refugees are heading. Based on that shared massif of information, the EU countries could then conduct coordinated actions against the traffickers. Because separate hits would definitely not tackle the problem - the entire criminal network should be disrupted, along with all its assistants and organisers. And it is particularly important to cut their access to fresh finances.
Granted, Europol can now boast of a few successful operations. In June, a large trafficking network was busted in Spain, originating in China. And in Germany and a few other European countries, dozens of human traffickers were arrested. But these separate successes are just a drop in the sea, and the trafficking groups are very hard to infiltrate. The traffickers almost always work only with people of their own nationality - for example the Nigerian traffickers do not transport Syrian refugees, and their Syrian counterparts do not deal with African refugees. And there is one more problem. The huge money flows in that illegal business almost always go outside the official banking system, which makes them impossible to track.
In the meantime, the reasons for the mass migration remain there to stay, and should not be neglected. The Syrian civil war continues to push hundreds of thousands of people towards Europe. It is a market that is driven by human misery and tragedy. Because these people are fleeing their homes, fearing certain death. They often see the traffickers as their only hope for survival, despite all the risks along the way. They prefer to take the risk, and at least know they had snatched that last chance.
There are of course particularities and specific differences between the various routes to Europe. For example, the West African migrants have to pay for each stage of the trip - and in advance. And that makes them the most vulnerable. The traffickers always get their money, no matter if the "cargo" has been delivered to the final destination or not.
The Syrian route operates in a very different way. The negotiated money is usually put in a neutral place (like a change bureau), and only paid once the migrant has reached the final destination, or at least some negotiated transit point on the way. If the trip is postponed or canceled, the money is returned to the migrant. The mediator takes some commission for the service, of course.
Meanwhile, hundreds of groups have popped up in Facebook, where information could be freely exchanged about the various refugee routes to Europe. These now feature reviews and ratings of the reliability of individual traffickers. There are advert videos promoting these routes, luring the potential customers with promises of an easy and quick trip to an accessible point at the other side of the EU border, the reality often mismatching the promises drastically (like, having to walk for days through a mountainous terrain as opposed to having the "10-kilometer walk across the border" they have been promised). There is also a Q&A section on those websites, where "customers" could inquire about specific details, and then receive the specific answers privately - along with the phone number of the trafficker.
Indeed, the information revolution that has affected this business, has its opposite side as well: there are campaigns against using traffickers all around the Internet now, and websites giving tips about reaching the EU without having to use the services of this business at all. And if the EU authorities want to find and understand the genesis of this "great flood of refugees", they could start by looking into all those sources.
At the same time, there are people making a fortune out of this misery. People who put these refugees in broken boats, stack them in cargo trucks, then leave them to their means. According to the UN organisation against drugs and crime, these illegal traffickers make about 150 million euro annually. But this is actually not an updated figure, because it was calculated on the basis of 55 thousand annual migrants. The situation has changed a lot since then. Now hundreds of thousands of refugees are crossing EU's borders every month, and it could turn out the traffickers are making close to half a billion a month.
The huge number of migrants who are trying to reach Europe is creating a vast market, which the traffickers now gladly service. There is place on this market for those who only occasionally aim at making a "hit", then leave the market - they may load a couple of refugees on their vehicle against the "modest" amount of 1500-2000 euro per person. And then there are those who have turned this into a regular business.
The fight against human trafficking is like the fight against that legendary dragon from the fairy tales, where three new heads pop up in the place of each head you have chopped off. And there could be only one way to defeat that problem: all data should be collected and processed at one place, where all the information about the traffickers and their aides in the countries of first entry could be collected - but also information about the transit countries along the route, and about the end destinations, where most of the refugees are heading. Based on that shared massif of information, the EU countries could then conduct coordinated actions against the traffickers. Because separate hits would definitely not tackle the problem - the entire criminal network should be disrupted, along with all its assistants and organisers. And it is particularly important to cut their access to fresh finances.
Granted, Europol can now boast of a few successful operations. In June, a large trafficking network was busted in Spain, originating in China. And in Germany and a few other European countries, dozens of human traffickers were arrested. But these separate successes are just a drop in the sea, and the trafficking groups are very hard to infiltrate. The traffickers almost always work only with people of their own nationality - for example the Nigerian traffickers do not transport Syrian refugees, and their Syrian counterparts do not deal with African refugees. And there is one more problem. The huge money flows in that illegal business almost always go outside the official banking system, which makes them impossible to track.
In the meantime, the reasons for the mass migration remain there to stay, and should not be neglected. The Syrian civil war continues to push hundreds of thousands of people towards Europe. It is a market that is driven by human misery and tragedy. Because these people are fleeing their homes, fearing certain death. They often see the traffickers as their only hope for survival, despite all the risks along the way. They prefer to take the risk, and at least know they had snatched that last chance.
There are of course particularities and specific differences between the various routes to Europe. For example, the West African migrants have to pay for each stage of the trip - and in advance. And that makes them the most vulnerable. The traffickers always get their money, no matter if the "cargo" has been delivered to the final destination or not.
The Syrian route operates in a very different way. The negotiated money is usually put in a neutral place (like a change bureau), and only paid once the migrant has reached the final destination, or at least some negotiated transit point on the way. If the trip is postponed or canceled, the money is returned to the migrant. The mediator takes some commission for the service, of course.
Meanwhile, hundreds of groups have popped up in Facebook, where information could be freely exchanged about the various refugee routes to Europe. These now feature reviews and ratings of the reliability of individual traffickers. There are advert videos promoting these routes, luring the potential customers with promises of an easy and quick trip to an accessible point at the other side of the EU border, the reality often mismatching the promises drastically (like, having to walk for days through a mountainous terrain as opposed to having the "10-kilometer walk across the border" they have been promised). There is also a Q&A section on those websites, where "customers" could inquire about specific details, and then receive the specific answers privately - along with the phone number of the trafficker.
Indeed, the information revolution that has affected this business, has its opposite side as well: there are campaigns against using traffickers all around the Internet now, and websites giving tips about reaching the EU without having to use the services of this business at all. And if the EU authorities want to find and understand the genesis of this "great flood of refugees", they could start by looking into all those sources.