What do we know about traffickers?

It is apparent that traffickers cannot work on their own. They need to have contacts to gain access to the sex industry or other labour exploitation markets, and to move trafficked victims around. Europol report an ‘ever growing involvement of organised crime’ in trafficking in people. ‘All member states which have reported the presence of foreign organised crime groups have mentioned the heavy involvement of Balkan and East European organised crime, with Albanians playing a major role. Nigerians are also active in member states, while Turkish groups have been reported in Germany, Colombians in Spain, Chinese groups in the UK and Middle East nationals in Sweden.’[1] 

It is probably useful to make a distinction between traffickers who recruit and transport women; and exploiters who buy women in destination countries or who control and profit from prostituting them. This fits with the analysis of Europol who argue that trafficking in people is run by a combination of foreign and local groups, operating in loose networks. The foreign groups, which typically have their origin in the source country of the victims they traffic, are the main organisers of the recruitment and transportation. The domestic groups are well established within the local criminal environment and often engage in the sex industry and the cheap labour markets. They are the users of trafficked people, and thus engaged in a supplier-consumer relationship with their foreign counterparts. Having said this, there are also cases where the trafficker has arranged transportation and exploitation in the country of destination – particularly where the trafficker has formed an emotional relationship with the victim.

 Intelligence on traffickers and exploiters, and their ways of working, is being collected and analysed at a national and European level.  

Different groups are likely to work in different ways, some being more organised than others. Frequently they will have the involvement of local state officials (such as border guards, immigration, police) and employees of companies (such as travel agencies, airport staff, airlines). They may be involved in both human smuggling and trafficking for sexual exploitation. Experience suggests that some of the groups may be involved in the movement of variable combinations of drugs, arms and people. Some groups do not conform to the typical image of organised crime, being smaller, more ad hoc, and sometimes operating in a close family network. 

Traffickers will frequently have networks of contacts and influence in source, transit and destination countries. Some of them have reputations for ruthlessness and violence. It follows that they can present very real threats to the families of those trafficked, and indeed to agencies and their staff who are working to combat trafficking. In some cases trafficked people can themselves become coercers of other victims. This provides traffickers with extended control over their victims when direct access to them may not be possible (e.g. if children are in the care of social services).