People Smuggling - Smuggling Operations

Smuggling Operations

People smuggling operations range from small to large-scale actors operating in a transnational market. Small-scale smugglers generally arrange all aspects of the smuggling operations themselves. However, more commonly, smugglers engage and do business within a larger smuggling network where there is a division of work among the actors involved. In the past, smuggling rings tended to be more obscure, amateurish, and limited. As people smuggling has continued to grow, however, smuggling rings are far more extensive and organized. In Mexico, as Jim Chaparro—head of the anti-smuggling office at the US Immigration and Naturalization Service—puts it, the once small and informal smuggling business has evolved into a powerful web of "literally hundreds of syndicates, some at a low level and some at the kingpin level". (In fact, as the flow of illegal immigrants into the United States from Mexico has become more organized, there has opened an opportunity for smuggling groups within Mexico to market their services to non-Mexicans. Indeed, smuggling operations are often complex and smuggled persons often make stops at countries across the globe before arriving at their final destination.)

A Lebanese-Mexican Symbiotic smuggling network involved in human smuggling into the United States of America that came to the attention of law enforcement and counterintelligence has been described in the literature.

Over the years, smuggling has evolved into a sophisticated service industry, with certain routes and enclaves used by smugglers becoming practically institutionalized; for example: from Mexico and Central America to the United States, from West Asia through Greece and Turkey to Western Europe, and within East and Southeast Asia. Responsible for the flourishing business of people smuggling are a combination of interacting factors, from weak legislation and lax border controls to corrupt officials and the power of organized crime.

The complexity of the smuggling network is dependent upon the route to be taken and the nature of the journey. For routes that are well-known and tested, smugglers may function more as family enterprises and utilize fairly contained operations. The more complex the route, however, the more members of the smuggling network must be recruited. In general, the infrastructure of the people smuggling business is nontraditional, with no clearly identifiable organization and no rigid structure. The network of smugglers is diffused and decentralized. Smugglers form temporary business alliances, and the organization of smugglers can best be understood and described as ad hoc task forces, in which activities are specialized and controlled by individuals that deal with each other on a one-to-one basis. In the business of people smuggling, there is no single "godfather" figure who commands the activities of subordinates; rather, individuals conduct business on equal grounds and tend to consider themselves free agents. In fact, according to a Los Angeles-based smuggler, "The division of labor is really clear and refined. Everyone involved is useful in his own way and does his own thing only. There is no leadership in any smuggling rings. Leadership will not emerge because the work involved is so specialized".