Migrant Smuggling Data and Research

of Unauthorized Entry and Residence laid down the first ground for European
Union Member States to join forces against migrant smugglers (van Liempt,
2016; O’Neill, 2011). The same year, the adoption of the United Nations Protocol
against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Air and Sea (hereafter Smuggling
Protocol) acknowledged the gravity of the phenomenon and officially included
migrant smuggling in the fight against organized crime (van Liempt, 2016).
Since then, European States have increasingly invested considerable
amounts of resources to counter migrant smuggling and punish the offenders.
Among the most notable developments was the 2015 adoption of a common
Action Plan against Migrant Smuggling, which laid down a comprehensive strategy
to this purpose (COM (2015) 285). In the course of 2016, Europe’s commitment
reached new levels with the deployment of North Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) vessels in the Aegean Sea to help crack down criminal networks, in a way
literally militarizing the war on smugglers (Emmott and Stewart, 2016).
Even though migrant smuggling is not a recent phenomenon in Europe,
understanding its different forms and dynamics remains a complex task. Despite
a growing number of studies, knowledge about migrant smuggling is limited to
those cases that have actually been detected (Salt, 2000). Gaining an in-depth
understanding of migrant smuggling in Europe entails additional challenges given
the particularities of the geopolitical context. Notwithstanding the small size of
the continent and the established commitment to a common policy, European
countries are in their overwhelming majority still quite divergent in the way they
define, understand and counter the crime of migrant smuggling (Carrera, 2016).
The aim of the present chapter is essentially twofold: first, on the basis of
existing knowledge, the authors seek to unfold the scale of migrant smuggling in
Europe, provide an overview of its main characteristics and ultimately contribute
towards bringing together information that to this day lies in large fragmented.
Second, and most important, the authors seek to shed light, as well as probe
some of the main assumptions underpinning the current understanding about
migrant smuggling by inquiring into the methodological considerations that
underpin existing knowledge and scholarly analysis. The ultimate purpose is
to help advance discussions about migrant smuggling not only by identifying
potential gaps but also by delineating and raising better awareness about the
scale and limitations of the knowledge itself.
The chapter will have the following structure: the first part provides an
overview of the key features and characteristics of migrant smuggling in the
European region. The part presents the main routes and figures, describes
the modus operandi and profile of the smuggling networks and traces recent
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5. Europe