Ebook: Human Trafficking, Smuggling and Illegal Immigration

Organised crime is not in recess. It is spreading far and wide and, contrary to the image some may have of it, much more harmful than terrorism. Yes, individuals do get arrested, or ‘eliminated’, but criminal organisations remain. They do not disappear. They shift and mutate, but they never lose their criminal character.

Understanding criminal systems requires geographical, historical and political analysis - in much the same way as a military manoeuvre. What would one say of an army launching a campaign against the enemy without first considering its resources, organisation and tactics, or determining its own short-, middle- and long-term strategies? It doesn't take an expert to realize that a campaign lacking such forethought would be doomed to failure. All too often arresting one or more branches of criminal organisations not only does not weaken this criminal sector but, on the contrary, reinforces it, given that police forces often (knowingly or unknowingly) become instrumental in the doings of criminal competitors.

In order to ‘piece together’ – so as to then indeed dismantle/unravel - criminal networks, it is therefore necessary to reconstruct the entire criminal chain. If just one link is missing, there is a risk that the whole of the chain remains invisible, to the advantage of the perpetrators.

The aim of this NATO seminar, under the co-direction of Myrianne Coen, Phd, Expert with the Centro di Studi Strategici e Internazionali, Florence University, and Aleksander Khukianidze (Georgia), Director of the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (Tbilisi), is to improve the diagnosis so that remedial therapies can be better adapted. It is only by sharing and pooling participants' knowledge, and then building on the information exchanged, that efforts to combat organised crime can gain momentum and take often ‘disjointed’ individual efforts forward.

The interest of this publication rely on the diversity of background and of geographical point of view of the authors, putting various lights on this under-studied subject as the transnational management of criminal networks.

The following contributions are published under the responsibility of their respective authors. The publisher asks indulgence from the readers, as none of the authors have English as mother language and there is a permanent lack of funds for proper translation or language revision in the field of research.

Myrianne Coen

The aim of this NATO Advanced Research Workshop is to try to outline the organization and alliances of the criminal powers, through confrontation of the points of view of experts from different professional background and geographical areas.

Considering the danger these growing criminal powers represent for our western democraties, very little resources have been devoted until now on the subject.

As a matter of fact, if more and more seems to be known about the specific networks, there remain a general lack of information about their links and modes of relations and cooperation.

As the practices do outline the field of visibility, the aim of this seminar is to confront them in order to try to outline the organization and alliances of the criminal powers.

The attention will be put on the interconnections and international connections of the Italian and Russian mafia, not neglecting the Albanian and Turkish ones. Trafficking and smuggling of human beings must serve as mirror of the phenomenon, as people are easier to trace than goods.

In order to fight against the criminal organizations we have to know them, to make them known and thus not to hesitate to publish what we know about them. To admit the existence of such infiltrations in this respect is the first step of this fight.

Away from the traditional “Give, if you want to get” in the information's circles, a system that benefits the criminals, we asked every participant to give any useful information he considers so for the other participants in this seminar.

Organised crime is not in recess. It is spreading far and wide and, contrary to the image some may have of it, much more harmful than terrorism. Yes, individuals do get arrested, or ‘eliminated’, but criminal organisations remain. They do not disappear. They shift and mutate, but they never lose their criminal character.

Understanding criminal systems requires geographical, historical and political analysis - in much the same way as a military manoeuvre. What would one say of an army launching a campaign against the enemy without first considering its resources, organisation and tactics, or determining its own short-, middle- and long-term strategies? It doesn't take an expert to realize that a campaign lacking such forethought would be doomed to failure. All too often arresting one or more branches of criminal organisations not only does not weaken this criminal sector but, on the contrary, reinforces it, given that police forces often (knowingly or unknowingly) become instrumental in the doings of criminal competitors.

In order to ‘piece together’ – so as to then indeed dismantle/unravel – criminal networks, it is therefore necessary to reconstruct the entire criminal chain. If just one link is missing, there is a risk that the whole of the chain remains invisible, to the advantage of the perpetrators.

The aim of this NATO seminar is to improve the diagnosis so that remedial therapies can be better adapted. It is only by sharing and pooling participants' knowledge, and then building on the information exchanged, that efforts to combat organised crime can gain momentum and take often ‘disjointed’ individual efforts forward, being conscious that the result of confrontation of knowledge's is closer to multiplication than to addition.

The legislation in most of the European State is now fully in conformity with the European directives and Palermo Convention (1994). However, trade in human being is an increasing phenomenon. International cooperation remains to improve.

Before the special incrimination in Georgian Legislation (6 June 2003), the punishment contemplated for trade in human being was far less and thus, the state's legal mechanism was less mobilized for fighting against it. On 24 November 2006, the Parliament of Georgia ratified the European Convention regarding the fight against illegal trade in human beings, as fifth participant State of this Convention.

The Georgian Legislation targeted against trafficking is now in full conformity with the standards set by the European Convention, with a very comprehensive and coherent system of intervention, indispensable for getting some results.

Not only direct prosecution of sectorial criminal activities such as trade in human beings, but also indirect ones such as prosecution of money laundering, gives a decisive contribution to the fight against criminal networks, as the profit is the driving force of such activities.

In Bulgaria (2007), the criminal sector of human trafficking represents 9% of frozen properties by the CEPACA.

International cooperation is decisive in fighting against transnational organised crime. According to the experience of EUROJUST, much remains to be done in order to match the effectiveness of organized crime.

As human beings, provided with national registers, passports and visas, are easier to trace than merchandises, smuggling and trafficking in human beings will here be used are discloser of the interconnections between criminal networks. Where do these operate, how do they organise their criminal business, how, and under which conditions, do they cooperate were the questions put to the participants during the meeting. Beside effective application of the legislations, a careful study of context and pattern of the criminal organisations operating in the sector would help investigators to a more efficient approach, and better results, in the fight against this threat against human individual liberties and the security of our countries.

Most people thought about slavery assuming that it was eliminated during the nineteenth century, however this is far from the truth. The current system offers too many incentives to criminals and outlaw states to market humans, and promises too little in the way of sanctions: what matters most is the rate of profit and the risk involved in each set of transactions.

Risk depends on the police and socio-political pressure against the business. Since profits are high, slavers have plenty of money to pay off government officials and local police. However, human trafficking can be countered more easily than other criminal businesses, because it is very visible: the problem thus is not one of capability, but of political will.

By allowing slavery to go unpunished, states erode the foundations of the international system, which requires that governments be capable of enforcing bilateral and multilateral agreements and the rule of law. For abolition of slavery, they should elaborate national plans with timetables, resource mobilization figures and precise targets.

The problem of organized crime and contraband trade through Abkhazia and South Ossetia is closely connected to the problem of separatism, unresolved armed conflicts, violence in these regions, and uncontrolled borders. Smuggling through these regions takes place in an atmosphere of violence, assassinations, kidnappings, hostage takings, and other serious crimes.

These problems are difficult to resolve due to the inability of the Georgian and secessionist governments to agree on the political status of these territories and Russia's intention to use unresolved conflicts as a lever of political pressure on Georgia to prevent it joining NATO, with the design to return it under Russian sphere of influence.

Crime groups operate in the Gali district of Abkhazia and in South Ossetia. Goods flowing in either direction from Russia, Turkey or any other country through the territory of Abkhazia or South Ossetia into Georgia are protected through a system of bribes and mutual sharing of influential government officials within the secessionist territories.

Uncontrolled maritime communication with Abkhazia and use of uncontrolled land border check points on Psoy River in Abkhazia and Roki Tunnel in South Ossetia create favorable conditions for human trafficking, illegal migration, and servitude.

All main actors (separatist governments, law enforcement bodies, crime groups, and Russian peacekeepers), along with their links to other groups or individuals, compose a successful smuggling network that operates with near impunity involving poor people in the contraband trade.

According to the US Department of State, Georgian women and girls are “trafficked primarily to Turkey and the U.A.E. for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Women and girls from Ukraine, Moldova, Russia, and other former Soviet states are trafficked through Georgia to Turkey, Greece, the U.A.E., and Western Europe. Men are trafficked for the purpose of forced labor. Victims are also trafficked for the purpose of forced labor in the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

At the crossroad of the Mediterranea, Italy has always been a center for criminal activities in Europe. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the expansion of technologies and communications, powerfull heterogeneous mafias have been able not only to develop trade with the Italian ones but also, as they did in most other European countries, to settle permanently on the Italian territory. Meanwhile, Italian mafias are extending their imperium from Western Europe until the heart of the Soviet Republics.

Due to lack of ressources for scientific research, and to lack in exchanging informations and in international cooperation in the field of police and justice, very little is known until now about the nature and modalities of cooperation of these criminal networks. However, police and judiciary investigations about criminal interests project the shape of such criminal settlements and agreements.

Trafficking in human beings is run by transnational criminal networks formed by heterogeneous and interethnic criminal aggregates with a different level of specialisation, functional to the implementation of different phases of the migrants trafficking.

The persons do not always “belong” to a single organisation, but constitute a stable criminal network, decentralised, expanding and acquiring power. The overall organizational structure has a transnational structure, functioning as a criminal integrated system, mainly bild on relations of interdependence and complementarity.

In the Mediterranean zone, the sea transit is managed by powerful criminal organisations operating from Lybia and Albania. In Italy, Nigerian, Chinese, Romanian and Moldavian divide the internal market of prostitution and forced labor. Those rely mainly on the phenomenon of overstayers, foreigners who use the so called “touristic”, “work” or “residence” visa to enter, apparently regularly, and remain in Italy.

The main actions of contrast of the Italian authorities are: integrated management of Schengen borders, development aid to the origin and transit countries, regulations of the flows through legal agreements with involved foreign countries. Only a wide and integrated contrast involving the police forces, the judiciary systems, the governments and ONG's could get positive results against those criminal activities.

In Italy, the introduction of the offence of mafia associations was accompanied by measures concerning patrimonial restrictions (seizure and confiscation of assets accumulated by those recognized as belonging to the mafia). It was a formidable instrument, which aimed to remove the symbol of their power of “mafiosi”, i.e. the wealth acquired by the offence and shown as sign of arrogance, an additional factor of intimidation to the society.

The attention of the National Antimafia Directorate has been focused on the phenomena of human trade, because we distinguish in it the formation of new criminal entities capable of supporting those traditional Italian mafia organizations. One can distinguish two categories: sedentary mafias, i.e. the gangs of foreign origin who settled and operate on Italian territory (Albanian, Chinese and Nigerian mafia). The “non-resident” mafias are those who maintain their headquarters in their countries of origin, from where they operate through activities which are also on our territory (Russian, Turkish and Colombian mafia). However, these definitions are under constant review as developments of phenomena.

In Italy, those criminal organizations settled on territories which were not occupied by the Italian mafias, or in sectors that these did not practice, among which trade in human being has become the most important. Traditional mafia prefer to entrust activities such as “mercenary” to “faithful” groups, specializing in various sectors of interest, not a sign of disinterest on their part, but ordinary caution on the part of the entrepreneur. With as result a growing difficulty to identify and punish criminal situations that take place on distant scenes, and to identify illegal assets after these endless forms that the financial recycling operations on the international scene can take.

Examples presented here concern mainly the ndrangheta. Its particular propensity to mobility and its ability to reproduce the same organizational model throughout the world as the one that prevails in their land of origin, have now transform it into the most powerful Italian criminal network.

There is a danger that synergies established by the various mafias allow them to seized the opportunity to coordinate operative lines, amend their organizational characters and operational methods, unify lines and recycling methods, combine their respective economic and military powers.

The NATO seminar in Sofia is particularly useful because it helps understand that we still know very little about the modality of relations between the traditional and foreign mafias, and to get conscious about how necessary it is that countries taking part of the European Union and the NATO immediately put in place research projects on these trends and collusion in progress.

Any strategy aimed at the visible threat of terrorism which does not consider the elusive threat of criminal organizations is bound to fail. The presence of members of the Italian mafia in Belgium has a long history. Belgium plays a pivotal role for criminal organizations. As crossroad in the middle of Western Europe, it provides easy access to many other countries. Antwerp and its harbor is another asset for overseas connections. Italian mafia organizations have their representatives in Belgium, and in some other European countries Even though the collaboration between Italian mafias and Russian criminal organizations in Belgium seem less visible than with the Albanians and Kosovars one's, there are many signs that they truly do exist.

The collapse of the Soviet Union has provided free ground for the export to the West of disorders under control of the Russian mafia. The parallel growth of corruption in Western European States, allowing trade in documents in gross, has contributed to the saldation (saldature) of these criminal networks from East European origin with criminal environments in our democracies.

Human trafficking is a contemporary slavery, a shameful phenomenon for modern civilization that involves many countries as well as organized criminal groups. From European point of view, Russia is important as a country of origin and as a transit country. Asian migrants, women from China, Vietnam, former Soviet republics like Ukraine, Moldova and Central Asian republics are trafficked to Europe through Russia. Russian women and children are trafficked to very wide geographical areas in the world, mostly to Belgium, Spain, Germany, Netherlands, Scandinavia, United States, Turkey, Greece, Arab Emirates, Israel, Egypt, China, Korea and Japan. The reasons of trafficking in Russia are relatively transparent state borders between Russia and CIS countries, increase in migration outside and inside Russia, low standards of life in comparison with western countries, existence of the stable channels of “deliveries” in Western countries, internal human trafficking within Russia, criminal business from CIS countries, including use of forced labor, globalization of the organized crime. Traffickers operate in small groups. Russian criminal syndicates like “Solnsevskoye”, “Izmailovskoye”, “Domodedovskoye”, “Podolskoye” are involved in human trafficking as buyers of victims. It is recommended to widen the education of potential victims, tighten control over travel, dating, model and job agencies, improve social conditions of potential victims, strengthen family institution, and increase international cooperation with anti-trafficking bodies of other countries. Two significant tasks should also be done: reduce the demand in destination countries and improve social conditions in Russia.

The experience derived from investigations on criminal networks with “Russian pattern” invite to consider the trafficking of persons as a unitary phenomenon operated by transnational criminal networks. If each target offence (exploitation of prostitution, enslavement, forgery of identity papers and visas, smuggling of migrants) is considered by itself, we miss the transnational and structurally associative nature of the trafficking. Therefore, it is necessary to avoid the subdivision of crimes and roles played by the single participants which lead to poor results in the action against the criminal networks managing the trafficking and maintain there cores always operational.

Through a sprawling of activities in the nineties, former Bulgarian intelligence officials, using their expertise and contacts, developed from a business of smuggling of State capitals into a variegated business of (human) smuggling and trafficking. The “P” connection gives us a transparent example of such a process, connected with “P”, a small town near Sofia, and Belgium.

Georgia is famous for its large contribution to the community of professional criminals, i.e. criminal leaders with “high status” in criminal world. Although relatively new in Europe, Georgian organized crime has already matured into a serious problem for the law enforcers of some Western European countries, where they run important trafficking channels in drugs, stolen cars and humans among others. The criminal connections with the Russian mafia had already been established in Soviet prisons, and accompagnied the movement of the Russian mafia westwards with the collapse of the Berlin Wall. More recently (2202 & 2004), two major crackdowns on professional criminals in Georgia resulted into their migration, the majority to Russia while a smaller percentage went to Europe and United States. Empirical evidences suggest that operational and strategic links are highly likely between Georgian groups and criminal groups from Russia, Ukraine, Baltic States and other countries of former Soviet Union. However, Georgian crime groups are different from Russian crime groups, since they are mainly build on family and close friendship relationships, what makes them difficult to penetrate, also hiding under false passports and identifications. Thieves in law have distributed the territory, such as in European capitals, of their activities among themselves in influence areas or areas of operation, being responsible for all criminal activities in his area. Those main areas of operation of Georgian crime groups in Europe are France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Belgium, Spain and Anstria about which some cases of detected significant organized crime groups are presented.

The Italian and Russian mafias have reached a stage of settlement and development which gives them the opportunity to be involved in less risky and less visible criminal activities, getting parts of the income from smuggling and trafficking activities where other criminal groups, mainly Albanians for the Italian one and Eastern European for the Russian ones, are doing the dirty jobs.

Because of economic problems, political conflicts, and regional instabilities in the last thirty years, there has been a tendency for immigration especially from Africa, South America, Middle Asia, and Middle East. This process made countries define these movements as illegal migration, a fast growing problem that also affected Turkey mainly as transit country toward Western Europe, but also as target. Some immigration policies of the European countries encourage people to migrate into their countries because they are offering monetary aids to immigrants and accept asylum seekers without proper investigation. Yearly immigrant quotas of European countries make them a center of attraction and encourage people to immigrate. Not punishing illegal immigrants because of their entrance into the country illegally make precautions to prevent illegal immigrants useless, some countries solving this problem by providing later legal status to those whose status is illegal. Turkey is mostly a transit country because of its geographical location; because borders are difficult to control and because Turkey is the most democratic country in the region, while regimes changes and regional wars occurred in the countries located at the East and Southeast of the country. Corruption and gap in the authority of the governments, as well as economic problems make also people ready to fly away. It happens that illegal immigration organizations present Turkish people who are trying to migrate to European countries illegally as considered as terrorists in Turkey, in order to faster their acceptance. PKK/KONGRA-GEL terrorist groups provide security and false documents for the groups trafficking human beings from Asia and Middle East, and get a certain amount of share for each person transported. They also control such activities in Northern Iraq. Turkey is effectively arresting the traffickers, and intercepting the illegal immigrants, but international cooperation remains vital.

In Belgium, most of the Russian prostitution networks are collaborating with local bar exploiters from different ethnic origin, also functioning for the most visible criminal tasks, while the Russians remain on the back scene. Russian criminal networks appear as geographical partners for Asiatic criminal networks on the Moscow-route, which is one of the two main roads for smuggling and trafficking human being from Asia. All the cases demonstrate, through connections in space, time and operations, the serenity of Russian criminal networks in a country infiltrated by those. Most of them demonstrate that without links in the ‘upper world” (public administration, police, justice, lawyers,...), these crimes could by no way take place, a fortiori write, during decennia's, their own story in our countries. Therefore, it is important to put the focus on the dismantling of the criminal system and not on the fight against the executing criminal personnel who are people that easily can be replaced by others.

Located on the Balkan peninsula in Southeastern Europe, with perfect situation bridging East and West, with more than 3/4 of the country mountainous, with about 40% of the land forested, with access to Adriatic and Ionian Seas, and proximity to Italy and Greece, Albania after the fall of Communist regime and opening of borders became a haven for different types of trafficking. Some of the reasons of the sudden outburst of Albanian criminality are the disruption of the Italian Mafia's activities providing opportunities for other ethnic based crime groups, the development of the sense of collective identity of Albanians, particularly Kosovars, required for these groups to mobilize their activities, fueled further by a perception of rejection abroad and isolation, and the process of democratization that began later in Albania, with its unfortunate by-product, an increasing level of crime. Trafficking of women and children became a major issue from the 1990s. In the period between 1997, after the breakdown of the pyramid schemes, and 2001, Albanian organized crime groups operating in Western Europe reached their peak. Nowadays, Albanian OC groups continue to be involved in trafficking and smuggling of human beings. Albania is not anymore an important transit or destination country, however, it remains an origin country of trafficking of young women for sexual exploitation.

The Albanian clans became a major actor on people smuggling at the end of the years nineties, letting immigrants on the beach of the Pouilles region, smuggled in connection with the local Italian Mafia (Sacra Corona Unita). Sinds then, they have become active in the trade of immigrants from many nationalities, providing services or cooperating with other criminal organisations, among which the Italian Mafias and the Russian mafia for the transit of Asian victims through Moscow as well as with other criminals groups from ex satellite of the Soviet Union. For the trade through Italy, the Albanians need the support of the local Italian mafias. In the Pouilles region, the Sacra Corona Unita asks for payment for her support to “welcome” the immigrants on the beaches between Bari and Brindisi. Elsewhere, Albanian clans pay a tithe to the Camorra and the N'drangheta, in particular on the outskirts of Milano, a crossroad to Northern Europe. Co-operation with Russian criminal organisations is not very well known but it exists in particular in Moscow and Saint-Petersburg concerning the smuggling of Asian immigrants arriving by plane in this country. Earlier, Albanian criminals were managing Albanian girls, and later girls that they brought from Eastern European countries (Lithuania, Belarus, Moldavia, Bulgaria, ...). They have now to face on this market in European cities a growing competition from other criminal organisations namely Bulgarians and Nigerians, but also with Turks, Iraqi's and Pakistani. However, they maintain control on the activities through renting out locations and bars. The Italian mafias have reached a stage of development which gives them the opportunity to get involved in less risky and less visible criminal activities. We can reasonably suppose that the Italian mafias are getting part of the incomes from the prostitution, where the Albanian groups or others are doing the dirty job.