Organized crime and the business of migrant trafficking: An economic analysis

Abstract

The trafficking of migrants around the world has become a multi-billion-dollar business for criminal organisations. Over the last ten years, thousands of migrants have been moved illegally across international borders with the assistance of professional trafficking organisations. The increasing number of people forced or willing to move abroad as well as the restrictions placed on legitimate migration systems have translated into organized crime. Around the world, trafficking organisations have learned to take advantage of this structural inequality, creating sophisticated channels of illegal migration while exploiting those forced or willing to migrate. This article seeks to examine trafficking organisations in light of the most recent theories and interpretations of organized crime, that is the economic analysis of transnational criminal organisations. With respect to the elaboration of future countermeasures on national, regional and international levels, the aim of this article is to identify more precisely the major organisational and operational features of the migrant trafficking business. The article begins with an introductory discussion of the economic approach to organized crime in part 1. Part 2 analyses the illegal market in which criminal organisations, in particular traffickers, operate. This provides the working basis for the examination of the migrant trafficking organisation in part 3 of the article.