How Are Organized Crime Groups Involved in Human Smuggling?

• In Event: Human Smuggling and the Criminalization of Rescue

Abstract

The global forces of supply and demand have created new markets for illicit goods and services provided by criminal organizations. Benefiting from emerging opportunities, organized crime groups operate in the markets of trafficking and smuggling drugs, cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, antiquities, and arms. Human smuggling is a growing service sector for these groups. Ongoing conflicts, increasing security issues, repressions in authoritarian states, and worsening economic situations in third-world countries have pushed individuals to illegally immigrate to the destination countries in the Western World. Using Turkiye as a case study —a country of source, distribution, and destination situated on the global trafficking and smuggling routes— this article examines the involvement of organized criminal groups in human smuggling. Delving into the criteria of the United Nation's organized criminal group definition, this study employs the qualitative research technique and uses interviews with 14 subjects. This study underscores how organized crime groups operate in human smuggling like small-scale businesses and are part of regional and global criminal networks.

Author

• Mahmut Cengiz, George Mason University