2016-05-17 Europol: Ihmissalakuljetuksen liikevaihto (yhdistetty)

[takalaiton]

It estimates that the annual turnover of migrant smuggling was worth an estimated USD 5 to 6 billion in 2015, representing one of the main profit-generating activities for organized criminals in Europe.

Other key findings reveal that:

* Travel by 90% of the migrants to the European Union (EU) is predominantly facilitated by members of a criminal network.
* Key migratory routes identified as main corridors for migrant smuggling are fluid and influenced by external factors like border controls.
* Facilitators behind migrant smuggling are organized in loosely connected networks.
* Migrant smuggling is a multinational business, with suspects originating from more than 100 countries.
* The structure of migrant smuggling networks includes leaders who loosely coordinate activities along a given route, organizers who manage activities locally through personal contacts, and opportunistic low level facilitators.
* Migrant smuggling suspects tend to have previous connections with other types of crime.
* Migrants who travel to the EU are vulnerable to labour or sexual exploitation as they need to repay their debt to smugglers.
* While a systematic link between migrant smuggling and terrorism is not proven, there is an increased risk that foreign terrorist fighters may use migratory flows to (re)enter the EU.

http://www.interpol.int/News-and-media/News/2016/N2016-062

Europolin ja Interpolin yhteisselvityksen mukaan ihmissalakuljetuksella EU:hun tehtiin viime vuonna liikevaihtoa arviolta 5-6 miljardia dollaria eli pyöreästi 5 miljardia euroa. Homma on rikollisten käsissä, ainakin 90% tulijoista käyttää näitä palveluita ja saattaapa mukana livahtaa muutama terroristikin. Yksi turvapaikanhakija maksaa salakuljettajille matkasta keskimäärin 3000 - 6000 euroa.

Drugs are big business, estimated to contribute about one- fifth of global crime proceeds. In Europe, they have been estimated to account for 0.1–0.6 % of the gross domestic product (GDP) of the eight Member States for which published data are available. It is estimated that the EU retail drug market was worth at least EUR 24 billion (range EUR 21 to 31 billion) in 2013, with the cannabis market being the largest, making up about 38 % of the total, followed by the heroin (28 %) and cocaine (24 %) markets.

http://www.emcdda.europa.eu/system/files/publications/2374/TD0416161ENN_1.PDF

Vertailun vuoksi koko EU:n huumemarkkina on noin 30 miljardia euroa vuodessa.

Yhden turvapaikanhakijan majoittaminen ja muut kulut Pohjois-Euroopassa ovat ainakin 50€/vrk, joten miljoona turvapaikanhakijaa tekee jo lähes 20 miljardia vuodessa pelkästään majoituskuluina. Kun tähän lisätään salakuljetus, turvapaikkaturismi on jo hyvin lähellä huumekaupan lukuja.

Onnittelut kaikille asiaa edistäneille päättäjille. Ei mikään turha suoritus, harva pystyy luomaan tällaisia kymmenien miljardien bisneksiä lähes tyhjästä. Jos varjopuolia hakemalla haetaan, niin homman moraali on jopa huumekaupan alapuolella.

[mossad]

 
Löytyykö suomen mediasta uutista liittyen ylläolevaan?

[Kemolitor]

Löytyykö suomen mediasta uutista liittyen ylläolevaan?

HS: Siirtolaisten salakuljetuksessa liikkuu valtavia summia: viime vuoden tuotto miljardeja euroja
Yle: Ihmissalakuljetus tuottaa miljardeja ja keskittyy harvojen käsiin

[ISO]

Koskakohan suvakki-idiootit keksii, että tuossa salakuljetuksessa noille maahantunkeutujille olis oivaa työsarkaa tehtäväksi, ja rahakin liikkuu kuin ilotaloissa.

Ikiliikkuja.

Jonka maksaa länsimainen veronmaksaja.

[qwerty]

Otsikossa lukee liikevaihto. Raportissa puhutaan liikevoitosta.

https://www.europol.europa.eu/publications-documents

2017-02-28 SERIOUS AND ORGANISED CRIME THREAT ASSESSMENT (pdf, 60s.) (sivu 49, kartta reiteistä. Kiva määrä nuolia osoittaa Suomeen )

In 2015, migrant smuggling networks offering facilitation services to reach or move within the EU generated an estimated EUR 4.7 billion to EUR 5.7 billion in profit. These profits have seen a sharp decline in 2016, dropping by nearly EUR 2 billion between 2015 and 2016.

2017-02-27 EMSC ( European Migrant Smuggling Centre) - First Year Activity Report (pdf, 20s.) Press Release

17 459 new suspected migrant smugglers identified (+24% v 2015)

Rob Wainwright, Europol Director: "Over 90% of all migrants that reach the EU have used the facilitation services of a migrant smuggling network. These organised crime networks are taking mass profits from mass migration, and making migrant smuggling the fastest growing criminal sector. To tackle this, we have brought together some of the best investigators in Europe in the EMSC."

[Mr.Reese]

EU:ssa yli 5000 jengiä, jotka tekee miljardeja ihmissalakuljetuksella. Ok, tuo ei uutinen nuivalle, mutta uutisen mukana ollut karttakuva on hyvinkin mielenkiintoinen. Ainoa salakuljetusreitti pois EU:sta on merkitty Suomesta lentäen Yhdysvaltoihin.
Tarkoittaako tuo sitä, että se kansalaisuuksien ja passien läiskiminen liukuhihnalta läpsyille alkaa tuottaa tulosta niin, että päästy jo kyseenalaisiin tilastoihin. Nimimerkki: somppujen takia ei pottunokallakaan kohta jenkkeihin asiaa ilman tarkkaa terroristisyynäystä, ellet ole valkoihoinen urheilutähti.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/778420/european-union-criminal-gangs-migrant-crisis-drugs-europol

[Lady Deadpool]

Sputnik News uutisoi aika massiivisesta salakuljettajien/dokumenttiväärentäjien bustauksesta Europolin toimesta. Avustamassa ovat olleet Kreikka, Espanja sekä Belgia.

https://sputniknews.com/politics/201705171053696539-europol-migrant-smuggling-network/ (17.5.2017)

Busted! European Migrant Smuggling, Document Forging Gang Smashed by Europol

Europol says it has helped national law enforcement agencies dismantle a criminal network that had been smuggling migrants into Europe and providing them with false identification documents for over a decade.

The criminal gang is accused of facilitating the illegal entry of migrants from countries ravaged by Western imperialism, including Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria, to Europe and the Schengen area, via the production and supply of both false and stolen documentation. It's estimated victims between US$2,220 — $3,330 (€2,000 — €3,000) for each document.

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Police from Belgium, Greece and Spain were assisted by Europol and Eurojust, the EU's Judicial Cooperation Unit, in the effort. Eight members of the enterprise were arrested — seven in Spain (including the gang's leader), one in Greece — in a simultaneous action. In total, eight houses were searched — five in Madrid, two in Athens and one in Brussels — resulting in the seizure of US$110,000 (€100,000) in cash, numerous documents, money transfer receipts, data storage devices and mobile phones.

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Dubbed Operation "Yoghi," the investigation began in 2015, when Spanish investigators arrested an individual in Spain accused of couriering false documents between Madrid and Athens. Investigations revealed the arrestee was a member of an organized crime group involved in migrant smuggling with connections to a number of EU countries. The network's leader, a Syrian, supervised the transportation of migrants within different EU countries, mainly in Northern Europe. He alternated his residence between Spain and Belgium in order to avoid arrest by the police. His brother, who operated from Greece, was responsible for producing and distributing forged and stolen travel documents via a veritable falsification factory in Greece.

The investigation was supported by Europol's European Migrant Smuggling Center, with two Europol experts deployed to Spain and Greece and equipped with mobile offices to support operations on the ground, allowing for real-time information exchange and cross-checks of data gathered against Europol databases, and forensic support.

Europol's Serious & Organized Crime Threat Assessment for 2017 identified document fraud as a key criminal activity linked to the migration crisis. Increasingly, migrant smuggling networks are offering bespoke travel services, including high-quality forgeries of travel and identity documents, and even residence permits. A 2016 EU Drug Markets Report found the illicit income from the drug trade is often the source of funding for migrant smuggling networks — Europeans spend at least €24 billion (US$27 billion) annually on illegal highs, making it a significant profit-generator for the criminal fraternity. Some migrants are even forced to work in drug factories to work off their "debts" to smugglers, effectively perpetuating the trade.

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​However, it may be that refugees are being pushed into the murky tentacles of criminal gangs by the EU's failure to deal effectively with the crisis that has raged on its nearly every periphery since 2010.

Numerous reports produced by humanitarian organizations, such as Amnesty International, have noted the EU's efforts to stem the flow of migrants across its borders — including the criminalization of humanitarian assistance for refugees — has put their lives at risk. Despite these measures, at least 53,000 migrants crossed the Mediterranean into Europe between January and May in 2017.

[Lady Deadpool]

Reuters uutisoi jälleen siitä kuinka kannattavaa bisnestä matujen salakuljettaminen on.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-portugal-migration-idUKKBN18R26J?rpc=401&; (31.5.2107)

People smugglers make about $35 billion (27 billion pounds) a year worldwide and they are driving the tragedy of migrants who die trying to cross the Mediterranean to reach Europe, the head of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) told Reuters on Wednesday.

Increasing numbers of desperate migrants fleeing from Africa and elsewhere due to conflicts and humanitarian crises are dying as they attempt to reach Europe via Libya, coaxed to do so by smugglers as they wait in detention centres.

The death toll of people crossing the Mediterranean has reached 1,700 so far this year before the summer when many more often make the journey, compared to 3,700 for all of 2015 and 5,000 last year, said IOM head William Lacy Swing.

"Now, let's be careful because those are the people we know who died, how many other bodies are submerged in the Mediterranean or buried in the sands of the Sahara?" he said in an interview on the sidelines of a conference on migration.

"That's the tragedy and this is why we are so concerned to try to caution migrants about smugglers. The smugglers are really the big problem. It's about $35 billion a year (that people smugglers make) and we know they're making lots of money across the Mediterranean."

People smuggling now represents the third-largest business for international criminals, after gun and drug trafficking, he said.

Libya has become a major point of departure for migrants from Africa, where lawlessness is spreading six years after the fall of strongman Muammar Gaddafi and migrants say conditions at government-run migrant centres are terrible.

After visiting Libya in March, Lacy Swing said his organisation is "all ready to go" and return international staff to Libya to work at migrant centres but has so far not been allowed to do so by the United Nations.

On Tuesday the IOM and UN refugee agency UNCHR presented plans in Geneva on boosting operations in Libya. Lacy Swing said the IOM was ready to help the government with Libya's own internally displaced people and work in migration centres.

He said Europe's migrant crisis has been aggravated by what he called "unprecedented anti-migrant sentiment, fuelled now by suspicions that some of those fleeing terrorism might be terrorists themselves."

But he urged governments to try to address the root causes of migration; conflicts, water shortages and big disparities between rich and poor countries.

"In my lifetime I have never known a situation quite like today, because you have nine armed conflicts and humanitarian emergencies from West Africa to the Himalayas," he said.

He said Europe needs to come up with a comprehensive plan on migration "but I don't see it happening any time in the near future, but we'll do everything we can to support them on it."

Lacy Swing stressed that "migration is not an issue to be solved, it's a human reality that has to be managed or governed."

"We know that historically migration has always been overwhelmingly positive."

[Lady Deadpool]

News Deeply julkaisi mielenkiintoisen kirjoitelman salakuljettajien rahasamboilusta.

https://www.newsdeeply.com/refugees/community/2017/06/09/what-pricing-tells-us-about-the-nature-of-the-smuggling-business (9.6.2017)

What Pricing Tells Us About the Nature of the Smuggling Business

We are trying to combat an industry that we refuse to properly analyze, says transnational crime expert Tuesday Reitano. She argues that more and better data could inform policies that actually reduce smugglers' profits.

IF THE HEAD of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), William Lacy Swing, is to be believed, people smuggling is the third largest global criminal industry, after arms and drug trafficking.

Swing recently claimed that people smugglers are making $35 billion (31 billion euros) a year from the Mediterranean migration crisis alone. While there are good reasons to be skeptical about the headline number, a better understanding of the mechanics of the smuggling industry is urgently needed.

Human smuggling is a business, one in which the marketplace is human aspirations: the demand for mobility, where no legitimate avenues exist or they are difficult to access, is met by smugglers.

In some cases, the service a smuggler offers is a lifeline. In others it is an opportunity to access economic opportunities that will provide generational returns. Moreover, this is a business only enriched by greater controls: the more dangerous and difficult the journey, the higher the fee smugglers can charge their clients.

As with any other marketplace, price matters. Our research at the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime and with our partner organization the Institute for Security Studies, Pretoria, into the political economy of migrant smuggling, shows very clearly how price-sensitive smugglers are to their environment and migrants are to the price being offered. We have spoken to migrants and smugglers in eight countries across sub-Saharan Africa, the Sahel, North Africa (including Libya and Egypt).

In one telling example, a migrant interviewed for an E.U. study reported that during a football game, more than 1,000 migrants were smuggled from Turkey to Greece for a significantly reduced price – €900 instead of the usual €2,000 or more – because "the policemen were watching the game."

Our most recent report, "An Integrated Response to Human Smuggling from the Horn of Africa to Europe," a systematic analysis of price in three smuggling systems, highlighted how pricing can be used to predict how people are moving.

On Libya's coast, for example, the price for a place on a smuggler's boat has fallen consistently between 2013 and the present. Up to early 2014, it hovered between $1,000 and $1,500 but then began to slide sharply as rescue operations meant smugglers could shift their business model from genuine attempts at crossing the Mediterranean to Italy to merely trying to get to the rescue zone. A seat on a boat from Libya now costs $200 or less, with migrants offered free passage if they bring four or more paying friends.

Prices along the smuggling routes out of the Sudanese capital, Khartoum – the clearing house for all migrants from the Horn of Africa, including the troubled nations of Somalia and Eritrea – have been diversifying dramatically. For the popular route northward to Egypt, prices have reached almost prohibitive levels, from an average of $3,000 to nearly $5,000 per head.

Two factors explain this shift: first, growing diplomatic tensions between Sudan and Egypt have led to tighter controls on the Egyptian side; second, European Union political pressure and investment in Sudanese border control have resulted in punitive enforcement by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a controversial militia group made up of former Janjaweed fighters that was absorbed into Sudan's national army exclusively to address migrant smuggling.

By contrast, prices for westward routes to Libya have fallen to a historic low: the nomadic groups controlling those routes are offering financial incentives to capture the declining Egyptian market. Travel from Khartoum to Libya's coast is now a mere $1,000.

Also emerging from Somalia is a dangerous trend of "travel now, pay later" schemes offered by smugglers, where migrants put themselves in a position of indebtedness to their smugglers – increasing their vulnerability to abuse and exploitation, including long periods of bonded labor in their destination countries.

Despite the importance of price as an indicator of the market, there is no migration, refugee or law enforcement agency systematically collecting or analyzing data about pricing. In fact, few seem interested in understanding how the smuggling market works at all, save to tar smugglers as universally criminal and exploitative.

It is like analyzing transport networks by only profiling the passengers, and not the bus companies that move them.

This is an oversight – it is like analyzing transport networks by only profiling the passengers, and not the bus companies that move them. In fact, monitoring pricing – not only how much is paid, but also where those payments are made along the route – could potentially offer huge insights into the dynamics of migration, including the possibility of anticipating large-scale surges in arrivals.

We need a new set of strategies to combat human smuggling and reduce the profits in the industry. This means moving beyond just border control and returns. Where mobility is restricted, then smugglers benefit.

Smugglers are the vector in contemporary irregular migration. They shape how and where people move, and how safe they are along their journey. It is time for all first-line respondents in irregular migration who are serious about protecting people on the move, not just to vilify smugglers but to understand how the smuggling industry works, to collect data about it and to identify the red flags that indicate consolidation of smuggling networks and the entry of more professional and virulent criminal groups.

Myös Express on julkaissut materiaalia aiheesta. Loput linkeistä.

Traffickers double their fees to take illegal migrants to UK (7.6.2017)

The "tariffs" were revealed after a major smuggling ring operating in Greece was smashed by law enforcers.

Migrants were forced to pay the gang between £3,475 and £5,210 for destinations on Europe's mainland.

But to reach the promised land of Britain, people had to pay a premium of between £6,948 and £8,685.

The figures were obtained by the EU's law enforcement agency Europol, which busted the ring with help from the UK's National Crime Agency.

Migrant smugglers earning £400,000 EACH BOAT for horrifying crossings to Italy (7.6.2017)

MIGRANT smugglers in the Mediterranean are making as much as £400,000 per boat as thousands attempt to reach European Union nations from Africa.