Former and present Eastern European
‘intelligence’ and organised crime
The Eastern European criminal organisations, some of which
have good connections with former and present members of
the security services, are today actively involved in drugs
and weapons trafficking and in prostitution (Finckenauer
1998). Some Eurasian criminal organisations are attempting
to build a ‘network of networks’ and, with this
in mind, according to Waller (1995), among others, enter
into strategic alliances with traffickers in Africa,
America, the Middle East, and elsewhere. It is because of
this cooperation with members of the former security
services that the Russian mafia, for example, was able to
deliver weapons from Eastern European depots to the Italian
mafia (Fondazione Roselli 1999).
According to the anthropologists Kurtsikidze and Chikovani
(2002), who carried out research in Georgia, the local
Communist nomenklatura, the police, and the KGB were
working closely with criminal organisations. Some sources
claim that even at the highest level, several years before
the collapse of the Soviet empire, the KGB was making deals
with the Russian mafia. Several people in the KGB sensed
that the implosion of the Soviet regime was imminent. In
the mid 1980s, some claim as early as during Yuri
Andropov’s leadership, the Soviet security services
already knew that the system, with no drastic reform, was
doomed to collapse. People in various KGB departments
ceased their efforts against the black market or against
the criminals. They lost their faith in socialist law and
order. Some started to strike deals with the Russian
underworld (CSIS 1997).
Moreover, during the transition from communism to the
free-market economy, many staff members from the security
services were dismissed. They lost their privileges and
their protected position (CSD 2003).
After the fall of communism, security agents were in great
demand with the organised-crime organisations because of
their specific skills and contacts (Institute for National
Strategic Studies 1999; Pelley 2001; Rollins 1998).
Being a KGB officer was always a lucrative and
liberating proposition. Access to Western goods, travel to
exotic destinations, making new (and influential) friends,
mastering foreign languages, and doing some business on the
side (often with one's official "enemies" and unsupervised
slush funds) – were all standard perks even in the
1970’s and 1980’s. Thus, when communism was
replaced by criminal anarchy, KGB personnel (as well as
mobsters) were the best suited to act as entrepreneurs in
the new environment. They were well travelled, well
connected, well capitalized, polyglot, possessed of
management skills, disciplined, armed to the teeth, and
ruthless. Far from being sidetracked, the security services
rode the gravy train. But never more so than now (Vaknin
2004).
From the analysis of our case studies and our conversations
with the informants, we find that several parts of the old
spy networks from the world of ‘intelligence’
are still being used today and can provide the components
for transnational networks for human smuggling and
trafficking. Companies that in the past were typically used
as a cover for communist intelligence operations now
surface, for example, in files of human trafficking and
smuggling through visa fraud or through their recycling of
previous lobbying contacts in order to infiltrate the
government machinery.
Former spies can use their former foreign financial funds
in the future for money laundering purposes (Institute for
National Strategic Studies 1999) or their knowledge and
expertise to offer protection to (Varese 2001; Chambliss
1999) and to forge documents for organised crime
organisations (Chambliss 1999). Other services include
implementing counter-strategies (Xhudo 1996) or
sophisticated elimination techniques (Volkov 2002; Williams
and Picarelli 2002; Yun 2003; Zalisko 2003). Some
transnational Russian criminal organisations have even
built a parallel intelligence network (Friedman 2000).
In December 1996, former DCI R. and head of American
intelligence James Woolsey warned that current and former
members of the Russian SVR, successor to the foreign KGB
directorate, as well as officials in the departments of
foreign affairs and defence, are cooperating with Russian
criminal organisations (CSIS, 1997):
(1) through the use of intelligence tradecraft for
criminal purposes; (2) by their ability to protect Russian
organized crime activity from inside the government itself;
and (3) through their contacts in overseas networks and
business ventures that date back to KGB operations as the
Soviet Union was breaking up in the late 1980s (CSIS,
1997).
There are sufficient indications in the literature to
indicate that, without generalising, a collaboration has
effectively been established between former and sometimes
still present staff of some security services and people
from organised crime and that ‘intelligence’
has made know-how available.
Former and present Eastern European security services
and smuggling networks
Some Eastern European intelligence services, not least the
overseas business activities of the KGB, have created a
network of companies and banks abroad. They have activated
contacts and have established cooperation with sectors of
organised crime that have an enormous source of revenue at
their disposal (McCauley 2001; CSIS 1997). A Russian
parliamentary committee reported in 1995 that the politburo
passed several secret decrees on the ‘direct
concealment of state revenue and property in commercial
structures’ (Novitskaia & Prest 2004). Knight
(1994) points out that the SVR passes on significant
amounts of economic data collected by the
‘intelligence’ to Russian crime-controlled
private business. Meanwhile it has been demonstrated on the
basis of concrete evidence that these firms were already
acting on KGB orders in drug dealing, nuclear smuggling,
and a wide variety of money laundering operations (Jensen
1999). In Bulgaria, during the Cold War, there was even an
entire spy and smuggling network built up around the firm
Kintex (CSD 2004).
Some smuggling networks were at first set up by security
services and were later taken over by organised-crime
organisations (CSD 2004). The war in the Balkans strongly
stimulated. Initially, mainly drugs and weapons were
smuggled but eventually the criminal organisations also
targeted human smuggling and trafficking, for which the
same routes and partners were used (CSD 2004; Hajdinjak
2002). Border and visa checks in some Eastern European
countries fell within the corrupting field of activity of
criminal organisations, which, for this purpose, sometimes
collaborated closely with former security agents (CSD
2003).
This collaboration between certain security services and
certain criminal organisations emerged in the organisation
of some significant cases of human smuggling and
trafficking. The means provided by present and former
security agents were: connections with contacts in Western
embassies (which was important for obtaining visas) and
access to hotels or other temporary accommodation for
travellers (Hajdinjak 2002). Often, this went hand in hand
with cooperating with or establishing new travel agencies
in some Eastern European capital cities. In this way, a
business with an enormous turnover could be established.
Estimates, based on the recorded cases (40.000
immigrants) only in Austria and only for the year 1999,
amount to $100 million. The overall estimates for the EU
are $3 billion in 1999. In 2002 the world-wide illegal
immigrants "business" is worth between $12 billion (IOM
estimate) and $30 billion (US sources). On average, the
EU-bound immigrants pay between $2.000 and $2.500 for their
transfer from Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union,
between $9.000 and $14.000 for the transfer from Central
and South Asia, and up to $24.000 for the trip from China.
(Hajdinjak, 2002)
According to estimates 500.000 women are brought into the
EU annually in the context of prostitution. Of them,
200.000 are from Central and Eastern Europe and Russia
(Limanowska 2002).
Bulgaria, irregular migrations and
‘intelligence’ in the literature
Together with Romania, Bulgaria, because of its location,
is one of the principal entry points for irregular migrants
to Europe (CSD 2002). Between 1992 and 2002, an estimated
80.000 migrants tried to cross the Bulgarian border
irregularly into Western Europe. In 1999 alone, more than
22.733 irregular migrants were stopped by the border
police, 4.500 more than the year before. Some estimates
indicate that 50.000 to 89.000 Bulgarians are living
outside Bulgaria illegally (Hajdinjak 2002). An estimated
10.000 Bulgarian girls have ended up in prostitution abroad
(Limanowska 2002).
Bulgarian experts estimate that approximately USD 30 to 50
million in forged and/or authentic visas and transport
tickets are circulating illegally on the market. The
illegal transit from the Middle East via Turkey and
Bulgaria to Western Europe costs USD 7.500, the migrants
paying for each phase of the journey separately (Hajdinjak
2002).
Originally, the smuggling networks were established by the
Bulgarian security service. This took place in the 1970s as
part of an entire network of companies in Western countries
around the state firm Kintex, the Bulgarian weapons company
that was responsible for smuggling weapons to other
countries (CSD 2004). But, in addition to weapons
smuggling, those channels were also used for the illegal
transport of people (e.g. terrorists) and trafficking goods
with an historical value (Hajdinjak 2002). According to a
Belgian confidential police report from the 1980s (Bihay
1985), Kintex was officially registered as an import/export
firm but was also involved in weapon and drug smuggling and
was protecting terrorists while it also maintained contacts
with the Italian Cosa Nostra. Kintex was divided into seven
directorates, each of which had a KGB advisor (Bihay 1985).
In 1989, a large number of the Bulgarian
‘intelligence’ officers were involved in dozens
of firms known for their ‘transborder criminal
activities’ (such as smuggling goods). In 1991,
Bulgaria owned more than 250 firms spread over Germany,
Italy, France, Austria, the United Kingdom, India, and
elsewhere (Hajdinjak 2002). Officially, they were mainly
import and export firms (Nikolov 1997).
During the transition phase to the free-market economy and
while firms were being privatised, the distinction between
the ‘intelligence’ and the criminal
organisations faded further (CSD 2004). Via former and
present members of the security services, several state
firms ended up in private ownership and in the hands of
criminal organisations irregularly (CSD 2004).
In this transition period, a ‘dirty business’
developed in the grey zone of smuggling, prostitution,
gambling, and drugs (CSD 2004; Nikolov 1997). Protection
firms were established that were actually criminal firms
offering their services to hotel chains on the coast, for
example, that lived from prostitution and gambling (Nikolov
1997). Hotel chains are also an important link in the
intermediary structures of the trafficking networks
involved in human trafficking (Hajdinjak 2002). In the
process of privatisation, members of the security services
had the opportunity to participate in companies and to make
use of their expertise, information, contacts, and agent
networks for quasi-criminal corporations (CSD 2004). Many
security agents were employed in protection firms that were
later transformed into insurance companies such as the VIS
but were in fact covers for criminal organisations (Nikolov
1997).
According to a UN study on transnational organised-crime
organisations, the VIS has many contacts with other
criminal organisations and its core business consists
mostly of protection services, illegal gambling, and
cigarette smuggling. Also, although officially an insurance
company, the VIS’s activities include smuggling
irregular migrants and women and children in the context of
sexual exploitation. The VIS makes use of corruption, has
much influence in the local political world, and has deeply
infiltrated the economic system (UN 2002). The VIS
maintains strong contact with other criminal organisations
because it must ensure the security on the routes used for
trafficking weapons, drugs, and people (UN 2002).
The smuggling networks from the world of
‘intelligence’ were soon used to transport
migrants to Greece and Italy immediately following the
downfall of the communist regime (Hajdinjak 2002). The
collaboration between members of the
‘intelligence’ and of criminal organisations
was thereby strengthened (CSD 2004). Until 1997, the border
control tasks, such as passport control, were under the
authority of the ‘intelligence’. Reports
revealed the ties between several security officers and
criminal organisations. The reports showed the involvement
of these services in smuggling people and stolen cars (CSD
2004). For example, two members of
‘intelligence’ were consequently fired because
of their connections with a criminal organisation involved
in prostitution and human trafficking (Caparini &
Marenin 2005).
Albania, irregular migrations and
‘intelligence’ in the literature
Albania takes up an important position in the human
smuggling and trafficking routes. Trafficking irregular
migrants and women destined for prostitution from Albania
via Italy by the Albanian criminal organisations and in
cooperation with Italian mafia organisations plays an
important role on the international criminal market
(Hajdinjak 2002). Originally, most of the people
transported illegally to Italy were Albanians. Very soon
after they were joined by Kurds, Chinese, Iranians,
Pakistanis, Bosnian Muslims, Macedonians, and other
nationalities.
Official EU estimates have it that Italian and Albanian
traffickers had earned between three and four billion US
dollars in this illegal business by 1998 (Hajdinjak 2002;
Cillufo & Salmoiraghi 1999). According to the Italian
authorities, between 500.000 and 1.000.000 illegal migrants
were smuggled from Albania to Italy in the 1990s. Among
them were about 100.000 Albanian women (Limanowska 2002) of
which 30.000 would have ended up in prostitution (US
Department of State 1999).
Most smuggling networks were set up by Sigurimi, the
communist security service. In 1991, upon the collapse of
communism, Sigurimi was discontinued and replaced by the
security service SHIK (CSD 2002). About a third of the
Sigurimi, among which were most of the officers, were
recycled to form the new security service SHIK (CSD 2004).
After the fall of communism, the Sigurimi agents who had
been dismissed offered their services to the highest
bidding criminal organisations (Xhudo 1996). Some of their
specialties were circumventing state control and organising
a comfortable life in the West (Xhudo 1996).
The former Sigurimi agents started cooperating with the
Italian (Pugliese) mafia Sacra Corona Unita, which had a
strong presence in Albania, at first mainly in the
smuggling sector for weapons, drugs, and cigarettes (CSD
2002; Cillufo 1999). The Sigurimi agents knew how to get to
the weapon depots in Albania and delivered these weapons to
the Italian mafia organisations (CSD 2004). The cooperation
quickly expanded and focus turned to the lucrative market
of human smuggling and trafficking (CSD 2002; CSD 2004;
Cilluffo 1999). At the same time, some of the former
Sigurimi agents left for the West as irregular immigrants.
A large number of these irregular immigrants ended up in
organised-crime organisations there (CSD 2004). The
military style in which Albanian criminal organisations
work in the West gives reason to believe that former
Sigurimi agents are giving training sessions (CSD 2004).
An immigration report from the Belgian Immigration Liaison
Officer, giving a strategic analysis of irregular migration
and human trafficking from Albania, described the situation
as follows:
The Hoxha regime with its powerful secret service has
thoroughly formed the spirits of the Albanians: not only
has the regime produced many skilful agents who after the
implosion of the regime have turned themselves into
powerful mafia bosses, but it also has taught the people to
communicate secretly and to be distrustful (Belgian ILO
2001).
It subsequently appeared that organised-crime organisations
were recruiting not only dismissed Sigurimi agents but also
agents from the new security services. When the corrupt
Berisha regime collapsed in 1997, it appeared that the
government apparatus was maintaining close ties with the
Albanian criminal organisations (CSD 2002; CSD 2004).
According to a recent country report from the British Home
Office, the security services in Albania are still very
prone to corruption (Vickers 2004).
At the end of the ‘90s (the end of the Balkan War),
the Albanian KLA (Kosovo Liberation Army) also served as an
important partner in the smuggling networks as it began to
operate in the same sector, for example, by smuggling women
to be exploited in prostitution (Hajdinjakj 2002).
The question now is: what can be learned from the 50 cases
(Belgium, 1995 to 2003) that we have examined and of which
13 contain references to the (former)
‘intelligence’?
Analysis of 13 case studies from Belgium: general
analysis
The 50 case studies can be divided among the following
nationalities. Seventeen files deal mainly with Albanian
traffickers. Some of these Albanian files are connected to
two Chinese files and one Indian file. There are also 21
Bulgarian, three Russian, two Hungarian and two Romanian
cases. Finally, there is one case from Lithuania and one
from Ukraine. Of the 50 cases, 20 concern trafficking in
human beings exclusively, 10 are exclusively smuggling
files, and 20 involve with both smuggling and trafficking
in human beings.
The 13 cases in which there are indications of the
involvement of members or former members of security
services can, in turn, be divided ‘ethnically’
into three clusters. The first cluster consists of five
Albanian cases that are interconnected with one Indian and
two Chinese cases. Then there is a cluster of four
Bulgarian cases of which one is connected to a Turkish
file. Finally, there is one Russian case. The former
members of the ‘intelligence’, appearing in the
Albanian core cases that involve large-scale organised
human smuggling, already turned up earlier in a
prostitution file. In fact, the five ‘Albanian’
cases appear to form one large Albanian network. A few
persons and contacts surface in several cases, although not
always the same, and together they comprise five cases.
When two Albanian suspects managed to escape, the police
spontaneously went to the family members of convicts that
appear in another Albanian smuggling file to look for the
escapees.
The related Chinese cases and the Indian case function as a
supply channel of smuggled migrants for this Albanian
network. It must be pointed out that, in practice, these
smuggling channels transported women intended for
prostitution as well as people who wanted to be sent
through to England. For example, from a telephone tap in
the Indian case, it appeared that a Bulgarian accomplice
went to Sofia to collect women who were then dumped into
prostitution in Brussels. Because no prostitution victims
could be found, and several illegal transit migrants were
found, the case, from a legal perspective, was treated as a
case of human smuggling (and not of human trafficking). The
legal arrangement around a case sometimes depends purely on
a few coincidences while the reality is much more complex.
According to legal sources, this global Albanian network
owns the transport market from Brussels to England and has
single-handedly smuggled many thousands of people (in fact,
so far at least 14.000) into England in two years’
time.
A second cluster consists of four Bulgarian cases of human
trafficking and smuggling from the 1990s with the
involvement of the former Bulgarian national security.
These cases, in which travel agencies and a transport firm
functioned as the intermediary structure, are connected to
a file of visa fraud involving the Belgian embassy in Sofia
and others in the 1990s. These cases involved companies
that were associated with the former Bulgarian national
security as is described in the literature on Bulgarian
practices in the late 1980s and early 1990s (Hajdinjak
2002; Nikolov 1997; see also: McCauley 2002; CSIS 1997).
Finally, amongst the 13 cases there is a Russian case of
visa fraud and corruption from the 1990s. A Belgian civil
servant employed in the protocol service of the Belgian
ministry of Foreign Affairs arranged the distribution of
diplomatic passports. This civil servant admitted to have
sold at least 300 residence permits to people associated
with the Russian mafia and people known for espionage
activities. The essence of the case probably lies with
financial laundering operations but there are also traces
of human smuggling and trafficking.
Three case studies
The following principles were used in the selection of the
case studies. The cases were selected from the two
countries in which our samples showed the clearest
indication of the involvement of ‘intelligence’
in organised human smuggling. There is no reason these
practices should be considered to be restricted to Belgium.
The Case A. (see further) is partially also a Dutch case.
Three remarks are appropriate here: presumably we could
have chosen other countries and, of course, we do not at
all intend to stigmatise the people from these countries as
such. The subjects or characteristics discussed are not
related to communities but to phenomena that can
essentially be reduced to broad political, economic, and
social shifts. Finally, it is in no way our intention to
criminalize the migrants themselves. The cases show how,
over the years, former members of
‘intelligence’ were gradually entering the
picture of human smuggling and trafficking from some
Eastern European countries. They possessed the skills,
know-how, and contacts to occupy, very professionally and
efficiently, a niche driven by the desire of thousands of
people to migrate to the West at a time when the West
wished to impede access.
The choice of cases is intended to help the understanding
of the way such a set-up is organised and how the
organisations structure themselves.
Case Study 1 – Albania: the Case of G.
In several criminal acts of human smuggling and trafficking
and of prostitution recorded, from 2002 to 2003, in several
Belgian cities and judicial districts, a single Albanian
network emerged. At a certain moment, a Chinese network
also came into play. Generally, human smuggling was
involved, but some members of the Albanian network appear
to have been convicted of prostitution in the past. The
Albanian network has a multi-ethnic composition: there were
also Indian and Turkish participants and even one Serb. The
non-Albanian members, however, played only minor roles.
They were the chauffeurs or procured customers, for
example, from Asia. The network’s leadership was
Albanian.
When the case appeared in court in Brussels, one of the
leaders proved to be a former security agent who had
already been convicted in another judicial district
(Dendermonde) for human smuggling. He had simply continued
his activities from prison where he was visited by, among
others, an Albanian heavyweight who controlled a large part
of the prostitution in Brussels and Liège and who himself
now had become the object of a major prostitution case.
To illustrate the size and the importance of the Albanian
network: in the Dendermonde Albanian file alone, there is
mention of 13.000 victims having been smuggled into England
over a two-year period. In the Brussels-Albanian file of
the federal public prosecutor’s office, approximately
1.000 victims were traced in a matter of months. In the
Albanian file that is linked with the Chinese network, one
can see how, at a certain moment, some 150 Chinese victims
were ‘accomodated’ in safe houses waiting for
their transport.
In the meantime, related cases came to court in other
cities (namely Leuven, Bruges, and Antwerp) dealing with
supply activities managed by Indians and Chinese for the
same Albanian network. Incidentally, one of the male
clients of the Albanian network in the Dendermonde
smuggling file was a KLA fighter from Kosovo.
In this network, we see an example of multiple
entrepreneurships. The objective of the human smuggling was
irregular mass migration to the United Kingdom. The Belgian
link was specialised in the transport between Brussels and
the United Kingdom. The police departments discovered that
there was a kind of agreement by which the several ethnic
networks placed their clients under the control of the
Albanian network in Brussels, which then handled the final
stage of the smuggling route from Brussels to England.
There were price agreements between the different networks.
According to their statements, two leaders of the Albanian
network had been working for the ‘intelligence’
in Berisha’s time until 1997. Bank transfers in their
names were found to his political organisation in Albania.
The visas were obtained through a person who had excellent
contacts with the Greek embassy in Albania. The boss who
had been able to continue giving his instructions from the
Dendermonde prison had held a diplomatic passport in the
past.
From the police reports, it further appears that the
Albanian network had achieved an advanced level of
professionalism. Some members turned out to be trained to
carry out contra-observations. Normally, these techniques
are taught by people who work for
‘intelligence’. At the same time, a travel
agency and several transport firms showed up in this case.
This is a clear example of how an intermediary terrain
(using the terminology of Van Amersfoort 1998) is brought
under the control of the main entrepreneur through multiple
entrepreneurships and can develop into an effective
business.
Case Study 2 – Bulgaria in the 1990s: the Case
of T.
In several cases from Bulgaria and Belgium from 1995 to
2000, we observe a cluster of activities arising from
former members of the Bulgarian national security,
originally espionage and smuggling networks and various
other criminal activities that, at a certain moment,
started focusing on the market of human smuggling and
trafficking.
In one case, we see a mala fide Belgian-Bulgarian travel
agency owned by the family of a former senior official of
the Bulgarian ‘intelligence’. In the
mid-‘90s, there were excellent contacts between this
travel agency and the Belgian embassy in Sofia. Until July
1996, official tourist visas were very easily delivered en
masse to the Belgian-Bulgarian travel agency. This only
changed in mid-1996 when the visas were refused.
One of the people who had received such a visa was then
refused one in mid-1996 and appeared to be convicted of
pimping in Ghent at the end of 1996. Another person is
cited in an international legal case on the Kurdish PKK
concerning child soldiers and weapons. Also in the latter
case, it is discovered how 70 people were illegally
transported to Western Europe. Yet another person, in the
meantime, was implied in a case of illegal international
trafficking of stolen cars at the end of the ‘90s.
What can be seen happening here corresponds perfectly with
the outline described by Nikolov (1997) and Hajdinjak
(2002) regarding the firms created by Bulgarian
‘intelligence’ at the end of the 1980s and
beginning of the 1990s. The Belgian-Bulgarian travel agency
involved did indeed belong to the family of a senior
official of Bulgarian ‘intelligence’ of that
period. In 1997, the firm suddenly changed its name, and in
2000 it was declared bankrupt by a Belgian court. In 1997,
the manager of the company was able to acquire Belgian
nationality.
In connection with this case is a case of a transport firm
that was investing in bringing ‘invited guests’
to Belgium in that same period. The manager of the firm is
described in a note from the Belgian national security as
‘active person in charge of a company connected to
the Bulgarian branch of the mafia that is known for its
violence and the delivery of forged documents, visas, and
work permits’. According to the same note, the
manager was also active in the Albanian and Turkish
prostitution rings. For a few years now, the manager has
established himself in Belgian business life where he is
head of a management agency with contacts in the world of
shipping and transport.
This is a good example of flexible management moving into
new market niches. Financial laundering operations
diversify and gradually change into a seemingly legal
exploitation of many people’s desire to emigrate to
the West and into a lucrative human trafficking business
for prostitution. At the same time, criminals from the
inner circle are also brought over. The extent to which
organised human smuggling took place via this channel and
the extent to which this can be attributed to the easy
acquisition of visas are shown from the listings from the
Belgian embassy in Sofia, according to which at least 250
people were able to leave for Western Europe through travel
agencies and bus companies.
Case Study 3 – Bulgaria 2000 to 2003,…:
the Case of A.
In the literature, one can learn about the insurance
company VIS, which maintained close ties with former
security agents (Nikolov 1997). A UN study confirms that
the VIS is an international Bulgarian criminal organisation
and has infiltrated social and economic life. Originally,
it was one of those typical protection firms that arose in
the transition period and that were recruiting security
agents (Nikolov 1997). The firms that were protected by the
VIS were even provided with a special VIS sticker (Nikolov
1997).
The Case of A. is a good example of the protection
mechanisms of the new mafia organisations that arose when
communism collapsed and after these criminal protection
firms recruited the many security agents. The meaning of
protection can be derived from a case such as A.. A witness
revealed in 2002 that she had been paying a protection fee
to VIS for her bus company since 1995. First, there was a
monthly fee of USD 1,500. This was later increased to USD
3,000 and in 1997 it was again increased to USD 5,000. When
she refused to pay the fee in 1997, the bus of her firm
came under machine-gun fire and a bomb was placed near her
office. In addition, a clothing shop she owned went up in
flames and her pub was smashed to pieces.
Also in this case, girls were brought to Belgium and the
Netherlands for prostitution through a travel agency. In
the Netherlands, this Albanian cluster is known by the
police as being at the head of the prostitution world. They
are those that control contacts with important pimps from
Russian, Albanian, Romanian, and Macedonian groups. The
head of the network in Bulgaria is a well-known mafia
figure who owns a chain of restaurants, pubs, a pawn
broker’s shop and a taxi company. He maintains good
contacts with at least 10 criminal organisations in
Bulgaria, amongst them the insurance companies VIS and SIC.
From a witness in this case, it appears that a meeting was
organised of 10 mafia organisations at which time a number
of criminal activities, such as prostitution in the
Netherlands and Belgium and activities in economic sectors
such as transport, hotel and catering, travel agencies, and
car dealerships were divided among them. In the analysis of
this case, one notes that people from government circles,
from both the Bulgarian government and Western embassy
personnel, have had contact with people ffrom these groups.
Since this file was considered by the court as a case of
human trafficking and not of human smuggling, the
quantitative aspect (typical of human smuggling) was left
out of consideration and extreme cases of exploitation
remained the main focus.
Final considerations
Albania
In the Albanian cluster, we observe that the involvement of
the ‘intelligence’ mainly involves recycled
ex-members of the security services who make their know-how
available to criminal networks. Furthermore, family
relationships in which the fares are central are important,
that is, the family clan within which the principles of
brotherhood, honour, loyalty and secrecy are key (CSD
2004), somewhat comparable to that which can be found in
the Sicilian mafia, albeit here it concerns a symbolic
family (Paoli 2003).
What is also remarkable is the willingness to cooperate
with other ethnic groups. For example, a Serbian who also
belonged to the network complained to the police about the
racism in the organisation. Without making generalisations
about the entire organised human smuggling ring, it is
noticeable how in this specific cluster there is excellent
coordination. Accordingly, there was telephone
communication with a contact in China who was passing
information about the departure of Chinese migrants to be
brought into contact with the Albanian cluster to bridge a
part of the Brussels – England route. One may also
note that the point of coordination in China had contacts
with other groups in the Netherlands and that it is still
operational (at the moment this article is written, August
2005). Some thousands of smuggled migrants could pass
through Belgium in that way.
Bulgaria
In the Bulgarian cluster from the 1990s, we see how a
criminal organisation simply assumed significant parts of
the structures and the contacts of the security services as
well as typical government duties like providing
protection. According to authors such as Gambetta (1993)
and Varese (2001), the offering of protection by criminal
organisations in cooperation with members of security
services in Russia was a typical characteristic in the rise
of the Russian mafia organisations. What is interesting to
see is that these structures are being recycled as
smuggling networks for human smuggling and trafficking and
for prostitution.
Based on T.’s listings alone, it is known that an
estimated 250 people acquired a visa for Belgium in 1996.
Before 1996, the Belgian embassy issued 229 visa listings
of which more than 10 were for T.. However, one visa
listing can contain several sometimes dozens of names. The
importance of the Bulgarian cases rests mainly on the
qualitative level of the analysis of the profound
infiltration of the government structures and the
involvement of former Eastern European security personnel.
Human smuggling, a large-scale business or not?
It is undoubtedly entirely incorrect to conclude from this
study that human smuggling is only a matter of coordinated
business. The study does show, however, that it is equally
incorrect to dismiss this aspect of well-structured
business as a marginal phenomenon. Where coordinated
business occurs (verifiable in a large number of Eastern
European cases), one has the impression that a
diversification of the business is taking place in which
human trafficking is gaining importance (in the sense of a
more long-term exploitation of migrants).
Of course, this does not mean that the individual migrants
themselves therefore intend to set up an organised business
to arrange their own migration let alone arrange for their
continuous exploitation. From our data, it appears that it
is very likely that people, initially and for the first
part of the route, appeal to a multitude of individual
middlemen. However, at a certain moment, and even against
their will, they will find themselves within a strictly
organised setting for a specific part of their route. One
has the impression that, the further people are away from
home and the more unfamiliar they are with their new
environment, the more likely it is that very well organised
networks will at some point assume control.
The intermediary structures (e.g. the
‘intelligence’) in the migration study
In the last few decades, studies on migratory movements
have verified the ties that existed between the countries
of origin and the countries of destination, as well as the
ties between migration and family structures and strategies
(Bretell 2000: 98). The social networks that linked both
countries were studied (Boyd 1989; Gurak & Cases 1992;
Kritz, Lim & Zlotnik 1992; Boyle, Halfacree &
Robinson 1998; Bauer, Epstein & Gang 2002). Attention
was given to transit countries like Mexico and Turkey and
countries in Eastern Europe, such as Ukraine (Uehling
2004), the former Yugoslavia (Wieschhoff 2001), and other
Central and Eastern European countries (Okolski 2000;
Iwinski 2000; Wallace, Chmouliar & Sidorenko 1996). The
anthropological research, in turn, focused more on the
modernisation theory and on the bipolar framework of region
of origin versus region of destination (Bretell 2000: 102).
This approach was later followed by an approach from the
context of globalisation in which the attention shifted
‘from the individual to the macro-level
processes’ (Bretell 2000: 103). Human smuggling is,
justifiably, approached from the same paradigms and the
wish to migrate is still considered key.
Nonetheless, what should not be overlooked is that the
intermediary level itself between the region of origin and
the country of destination can be considered from very
different perspectives. The study of this
‘in-between’ area, in its diversity, promises
to show a multitude of versions ranging from multiple,
diversifying large-scale business (sometimes criminal in
nature) to religious networking (Foner 2003; Levitt 2003;
see also the doctoral research of Akçapar 2004) to
fragmented, independent initiatives in which the agency
remains fully in the hands of the migrant. This article has
examined more closely a reality that points more to
large-scale business. Speaking of business also mean
speaking of specific, mutually complementary skills and
know-how. ‘Intelligence’ can obtain a
not-to-be-underestimated role in this.
The efficiency of an organisation that seeks to develop as
a business depends, among other things, on the best
possible control over the intermediary structures. As far
as Eastern Europe is concerned, members of the former
‘intelligence’ are offered a chance to cash in
on their know-how and contacts. This can take on the form
of entrepreneurship but also of a calculated provision of
know-how and contacts. The business mentality in which this
occurs does not exclude the possibility of a specific
ethno-cultural effectuation of a network, that, in the case
of a more diversified large-scale clustering (as is, for
example, the case in the Albanian network described in this
article with its contacts with a Chinese supplier) can lead
to an ethno-cultural mosaic where local tradition and
rational agreements go hand in hand. Anyone who has worked
for ‘intelligence’ can also prove to be of
great utility in such ethno-cultural matters.