Human Trafficking and Smuggling: the Process, the

• Crossing the borders with forged documents 33 ;• Crossing the borders on foot or riding donkeys and horses.Human smuggling in the region is executed by the organized crimenetworks operating in Turkey and in the Balkan countries, and secondlyby the terrorist groups who need money to finance their activities.The human smuggling networks are not hierarchically organised andcentralized. They are loose and flexible networks in the form of spiderweb.They can accommodate individuals and groups who would getinvolve in human smuggling only once in their life time or those who areplanning to stay in the "business" for a long period of time. They canrecruit individuals without any criminal record as well as those linked toterrorist organizationsOrganized crime and drug trafficking co-exit and exert a crimemultiplier for militias, guerrillas and terrorists. There is a relationshipbetween the organized crime and the illegal migration of labor since theorganized crime organizes human trafficking and illegal employment inTurkey and the Balkans.Human Smuggling Statistics in Turkish SourcesWho are the smuggled people and smugglers? What is the number of thesmuggled people and smugglers?The Ankara Chief of Security provides hard data on human smuggling atpress conferences on regular intervals. The Human Rights Associationand Foundation, which obtains information from the police andgendermeria, also publishes reports offering hard data on the number of33Fraudulent documents are obtained from various sources. One of them is from Turkishpeople living abroad who might sell to human smugglers their passports containing aresidence permit in a European Union country. They change the photos in the passportsand give them to Iraqis, Iranians and Turkish people who plan to enter the EuropeanUnion countries. Preparation of such documents at central bus stations in Turkey hasalso been observed.24