Smuggling And Trafficking Of Migrants In Southern Europe

This book focuses on migrant smuggling and trafficking in Italy, Spain and Greece, tackling key issues such as the role of criminals and the economic factors that expose migrants to exploitation upon arrival.

This books explores the phenomenon of irregular migration, notably the organization and role of migrant smuggling networks in aiding irregular migration from Asia and Africa to Europe. It also discusses how migration control policies in southern European countries shape the migrant smuggling phenomenon and the smuggling 'business'.

Includes statistics.

There are several hundreds of thousands of Nigerians throughout Europe, half of whom live in the United Kingdom. According to this report, emigration has represented a considerable drain of highly qualified labour from Nigeria, while at the same time, the Nigerians abroad represent a substantial resource to their country of origin and they send more than a billion US dollars back to their relatives every year.

When states, charities, and NGOs either ignore or are overwhelmed by movement of people on a vast scale, criminal networks step into the breach. This book explains what happens next.

As millions of people seek passage to Europe in order to escape conflict, repression, poverty and natural catastrophe, their movements are enabled and encouraged by ruthless professional criminal networks that earn billions of pounds from this insidious new trade. Migrant, Refugee, Smuggler, Saviour investigates one of the most under-examined aspects of the great migration crisis of our time to discover who profits from it. The human suffering that results extends well beyond the Mediterranean: the smugglers’ routes cross the Sahara, penetrate deep into the Balkans and reach hidden corners of Europe’s capitals. But smugglers are also revered as saviours by many of those they move, delivering them to a safer place and a better life. Disconcertingly, it is often criminals who help the most desperate, when the international system turns them away. This book is a measured attempt, born of years of research and reporting in the field, to better understand how people-smuggling networks function, the ways in which they have evolved, and their long term impact on both migration and global organised crime.

Through unprecedented access to over 100 court files and sentences, and interviews with police and security personnel in both origin and destination countries, this book provides the most comprehensive exploration to date of human trafficking and migrant smuggling in Eastern Europe and Russia.