Surf and Sound. The Role of the Internet in People Smuggling and Human Trafficking

The smuggling of migrants (hereinafter also referred to as ‘people smuggling’) and trafficking in human beings (hereinafter also referred to as ‘human trafficking’ or ‘THB’) have become agenda-topping issues over the past twenty years, since global geopolitical changes have exacerbated conditions conducive to clandestine population flows and the development of transnational illegal enterprises associated with those flows. Accord- ing to Europol (2016), over 90% of the more than one million undocumented migrants who entered the EU in 2015 used some form of ‘facilitation service’, generally provided by smuggling networks. The increased awareness of the issue, and the rec- ognition that it presents a major area of focus for the effort to address and suppress transnational organised crime, has resulted in the formation of a new global prohibition regime (Andreas and Nadelmann, 2006; Pa- panicolaou, 2011), by means of the introduction of two major international instruments (supplementing the 2000 United Nations Convention against Transnation- al Organised Crime), namely the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, and the Protocol Against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air. Often combined or confused with each other, traf- ficking in human beings and smuggling of migrants are substantially diverse. According to Article 3 of the Trafficking Protocol, trafficking in human beings is ‘the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation’ (United Nations, 2000a:2). In a nutshell, victims of trafficking are displaced and forced into sexual exploitation, labour, slavery, servi- tude or other forms of exploitation. On the other hand, Article 3 of the Protocol against people smuggling states that ‘smuggling of migrants shall mean the procurement, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person into a State Party of which the person is not a national or a permanent resident’ (Unit- ed Nations, 2000b:2). Unlike THB, smuggling always traverses national boundaries and only occasionally the migrants, in the destination country, are sent to work in the drug market, the sex market, as beggars or as black labour. Although smuggling migrants and trafficking in human beings are not new phenomena (see Morrison, 2002), over the past decades or so, they have experienced an unprecedented boom due to the development, ad- vancement and proliferation of digital technologies (Di Nicola and Musumeci, 2015; Hughes, 2014; Latonero 2012; Latonero et al., 2011; Sarkar, 2015). According to a recent Europol report regarding the trafficking in human beings in the European Union, online interac- tions and encounters have been observed as facilitat- ing ‘several aspects of human trafficking and exploita- tion: targeting of potential victims; access to personal data; arrangement of logistics and transportation; recruitment through social media, chat forums and other websites; advertisement of victims; their exploita- tion and surveillance’ (Europol, 2016b:12). A group of specialists engaged by the Council of Europe found that ‘the Internet industry and the sex industry are closely interlinked and the scope, volume, and content of the material on the Internet promoting or enacting traf- ficking in human beings for the sole purpose of sexual exploitation [...] are unprecedented’ (Council of Europe, 2003:107). The burgeoning dissemination of digital technologies, in particular the Internet, has afforded new, creative oppor- tunities for individual criminals and collectivities of crim- inals. As such, these groups have been empowered to operate with greater efficiency and anonymity, given that they are able to instantly communicate with potentially large audiences over extensive distances and across geographic boundaries (see Hughes, 2014; Latonero et al., 2011; Mendel and Sharapov, 2014; Sykiotou, 2007). The expeditious dissemination and usage of the Internet and other digital technologies such as smart- phones have added a new dimension to the trafficking and smuggling of human beings, creating new ways and means of facilitation, as well as affecting various aspects of trafficking, including the recruitment, control and exploitation of victims (Sarkar, 2015). For instance, it has been underlined how the Internet facilitates the role of traffickers because it ‘can rapidly connect buyers of commercial sex with trafficking victims while simul- taneously distancing the perpetrator from the criminal transaction’ (Finklea et al., 2015:2). Despite this, at present, there is relatively limited scholarly work investigating the role that digital tech- nologies play in the processes of people smuggling and human trafficking or the particular ways in which the Internet has been used to shape the criminal strategies of traffickers and smugglers (see, for exam- ple, Di Nicola, Cauduro and Falletta, 2015; Latonero 2011; Latonero et al., 2012).