The Smuggling of Migrants

Abstract

The smuggling of migrants (SoM) is a transnational service industry facilitating, for consideration, irregular, generally illegal, entry into a country. This multibillion dollar industry provides handsome profits to its firms and, on the evidence, a product of reasonable quality to those of its consumers who succeed in reaching their destination. Yet, migrant smuggling is a crime against international public order and destination states; in addition to which, thousands of smuggled migrants have died or gone missing on their perilous journey. After discussing the legal definition of SoM, this chapter provides admittedly sketchy estimates of the scale of SoM. It is difficult to infer, from the data available, perceptible time trends, but there is no evidence that the many millions of dollars spent combatting the phenomenon have reduced its scale, its scope, or significantly disrupted the evolving business model of smugglers. In discussing economic and business aspects of SoM, this chapter concentrates on supply and demand. Formal economic models, rather few in number, have mostly concentrated on expected wage differentials and payment arrangements. It is suggested that such approaches have not appreciated the nuances, particularly on the incentives side, and rapid evolution of SoM in the cat-and-mouse game between law enforcement and smugglers, as well as the role of financial innovation and information technology. Business organization approaches, emphasizing the role of sales and marketing, firm reputation, and above all the flexible nature of the firms involved, complement formal economic analyses. Informed by qualitative, often ethnographic, research from criminology, sociology, and anthropology, the business organization literature describes an industry that is only rarely hierarchical, consisting mostly of small, locally based organizations with deep roots in the client community served. Cost of entry is low. As skills and knowledge gained are location-, not firm-specific, when one firm is disrupted, its members simply migrate to others. This chapter concludes by drawing attention to the remarkably thin formal academic, as opposed to “grey” literature on SoM and the research opportunities that result.