What are human smugglers really like?

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“These people are not only my customers: they are my brothers. I help them because they are on the wrong side of the world.” -Abu Hamza, a human smuggler

Luigi Achilli is a anthropologist who studies migrants and refugees, and the smugglers who help them move across borders. For many people, the image that comes to mind when we think of human smuggling is a ruthless criminal who preys on vulnerable people. This was certainly my image of a human smuggler. But his fascinating research reveals a far more positive picture of human smugglers.

I did a quick run-through of some of his papers. Here were the main things I learned:

  • Migrants like the individual smugglers they work with, rather than thinking of them as exploitative. “Remarkably, accounts about the callousness of smugglers were often dismissed by those very people who risked their lives crossing the Mediterranean. The majority of migrants with whom I spoke did not perceive their smugglers as exploitative.” And the smugglers themselves emphasize the “importance of being morally respectable and kind.” Smuggling is a business, and as in any business your reputation is extremely important.

  • But when both migrants and smugglers think of “smugglers” in the abstract, they think of someone predatory. "[T]he degree of consensus was surprising: smugglers were fundamentally evil.” So in the abstract, they think about human smuggling basically the same way as we all do. They just don’t think of themselves as engaged in that sort of activity. (”Waiting for the Smuggler”)

  • There is not a strict dichotomy between smugglers and migrants. A lot of smugglers are migrants themselves, and migrants assist in smuggling activities (e.g., piloting boats, recruiting migrants, serving as lookouts) (”Waiting for the Smuggler”)

  • Smugglers often share ethnic ties with the people they transport, which helps them establish solidarity with them. At times they will even transport the elderly, infirm, or children for lower than their typical costs. The unfortunate converse to this ethnic solidarity is that when when smugglers and migrants do not share the same ethnic background, abuse is more likely to occur. (”Irregular Migration”)

  • Migrants underestimate the risks - at least those migrating from Africa to Italy. Many say that if they had known the risks, they never would have left (page 5).

He also has a few points that counter common narratives about how smuggling is organized For example:

  • There is this idea of extremely organized criminal organizations who organize the smuggling of people from, say, Nigeria all the way to Europe. This is not the case. Instead, the people who move from Africa to Europe typically make their way piecemeal. They don’t even have a final destination in mind when they set out - much less have their entire journey planned for them by a centralized crime organization.

    • “Indeed, it would hardly be possible for a single centralized organization to carry out all services alone along a route that comprises journeys of several thousand kilometres and in a market characterized by high levels of instability and unpredictability.” (from Irregular Migration)

  • Similarly, sometimes you might hear that terrorist organizations participate in migrant smuggling as a source of revenue. He finds that this is not really true.

One of my overarching takeaways from his work is that the “smugglers are predators, migrants are victims” narrative is far too simple. It is a way of thinking that lets you avoid blaming illegal immigrants, while still allowing you to view illegal migration as a moralistic issue. The reality is much more complicated than that.

I’m very glad there are people like Luigi Achilli in the world - helping the rest of us understand this area of human activity that is important, often misunderstood, and fascinating.

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Some interesting works from Achilli: