Organised Immigration Crime: How Organised Crime Businesses [OCBs] operate entrepreneurially across Borders and how to disrupt them
Introducing the topic of Organised Crime Businesses
This article introduces the novel concept of ‘Organised Crime Businesses’ [OCBs] as a new paradigm through which law enforcement Agencies can analyse and investigate the entrepreneurial and business elements of criminal enterprises which are currently labelled as ‘Organised Crime Groups’ [OCGs]. The entrepreneurial nature of Organised Crime is now an accepted paradigm in academia. The new OCB paradigm is an addition to the existing lexicon and tool kit for interdicting and disrupting ‘Serious and Organised Criminals’ [SOC].
Here, we are concerned exclusively with the topic of ‘Organised Immigration Crime’ [OIC] and in particular ‘People Trafficking’. Nevertheless, the OCB concept is also applicable to the related concepts of ‘Human Trafficking’ and ‘Modern Slavery’ as well as other forms of predatory ‘Organised Crime’. People Trafficking is broadly concerned with the trafficking of migrants and asylum seekers as an illegal commercial commodity to be exploited by unscrupulous criminals and businessmen. Crucially for this editorial, people smuggling is defined as an illegal business making the OCB concept a good fit for analysis. Although, Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery share many similar elements, in both the exploitation is normally enforced and those trafficked are not paying customers.
In the UK, which is currently experiencing high levels of OIC which impacts the resultant Asylum process the annual cost of combatting it as of April 2024 is estimated to have reached £3.6 billion.
From a UK political and law enforcement perspective creative attempts to find a solution to the complex problem have so far failed from a public relations and media perspective. For example, the doomed ‘Rwanda scheme’ posited by the then Conservative Government is estimated to have cost somewhere in the region of £318 Million. Similarly, the Portland Barges, the expensive hotel accommodation schemes and the so-called Albanian Model or Scheme are all equally pilloried by the press and opposition parties for being too expensive and violating human rights legislation. In the next section we outline the novel OCB concept and explain why it offers a cost-effective alternative to extant thinking in relation to this pernicious issue.
The incumbent Labour Government, especially espoused by narrative by Prime Minister Keir Starmer (who draws reference to his previous role as Director of Public Prosecutions), concerns ‘going after the gangs’ in relation to OIC. Although there have been reported international meetings that attempt to navigate post Brexit Schengen arrangements, populist media rebuttal makes a valid point that arresting individuals has very limited impact, as they are simply replaced. We largely agree with such criticism as we advocate that the only way of ‘smashing the gangs’ is tackling the organised business crime ecosystem within which they operate: because the gangs themselves are a symptom of that (illegal) profit-driven environment.
Why think OCB not OCG?
We argue that policing and other partner agencies need to adopt more of a business mind because of the entrepreneurial nature of organised crime. Because although interdicting, arresting and jailing organised criminals is an essential element, in the criminal justice equation, there is also a place for disrupting and deterring such activity, removing criminal profits, which is more likely to undermine organised crime than arrests and prison sentences for nominals. Thinking OCBs therefore requires a fresh dynamic mind-set shift for traditional policing as well as requiring fresh skills, transferable from outside industries and informed by research skills, to know where to throw a spanner in which bit of the works.
However, before one can disrupt or deter organised criminal activities and behaviour, one must first profile offenders, their businesses, their business model and understand their modus operandi and playbooks. The business models and playbooks will differ depending upon which criminal activities the OCGs/OCBs are engaged in. Once one understands this, then one can begin to develop action plans to target the business as well as the individual criminals themselves. A knowledge of business strategy, business growth, logistics, supply chain issues and other business-related topics is essential, yet few OC practitioners have such knowledge, and to exacerbate matters there is no training manual for SIOs investigating OCBs. Figure 1 below provides a graphic illustration of how OCB theory can help develop a better more nuanced understanding of people smuggling as a business.
Case studies illustrating the entrepreneurial nature of people smuggling
Here are three micro-case studies which serve to illustrate the entrepreneurial nature of people smuggling from a UK and global perspective.
Case Study 1: In 2024 the UK’s National Crime Agency (NCA) where involved in a joint operation with police in France, Belgium, The Netherlands and Germany. Acting on information received, the joint operations team raided a series of houses and business premises mainly in Germany and arrested 13 suspects and seized up to 60 small boats sourced to smuggle migrant clients across the English Channel from Iraq. The OCG acted from a legitimate business front to source boats, outboard motors, water pumps and life vests from across Europe and further afield including Turkey. Ostensibly they appeared to be legitimate businessmen providing a service to nautical customers. As they purchased the items legitimately, they did not initially come under suspicion. A similar NCA operation in Bulgaria also related to recovering hundreds of small boat engines.
Case Study 2: This case relates to another recent NCA and Metropolitan Police operation into a people smuggling ring which smuggled clients into and out of the UK. The latter included wanted and dangerous criminals. The OCG treated the migrants as commodities or freight to be shipped to a destination via car, lorry or boat. The OCG headed up by Mohammed Hussein and Noor Ullah operated on a business model similar to legitimate haulage companies, in that they sought to maximise profit and shipping an illegal commodity (a paying client) whilst ensuring the lorries did not return with migrant clients seeking to leave the UK. The lorries were serviced and driven by a fleet of six corrupted min-cab drivers. Hussein and Ullah would deal with the clients and WhatsApp them where to meet and also similarly convey messages to the min-cab drivers. The criminal enterprise was brought down by an extensive investigation in which surveillance teams tracked and stopped the lorries with the clients in them and arrested the lorry drivers and the clients. In total 6 lorry drivers and 126 clients were arrested and their mobile phones seized along with other devices. An experienced NCA analyst tracked down the ringleaders Hussein and Ullah from their mobile data and subsequent dawn raids secured them, along with the mini-cab drivers.
Case Study 3: This case relates to another recent NCA / Gwent Police operation into a people smuggling organisation operating from Caerphilly in Wales, which operated across Europe as part of a larger OCG servicing migrant clients from Syria, Turkey, Iraq and Iran. The UK cell of the OCG was operated by businessmen Dilshad Sharma and Ali Khader who operated a franchised Car Wash business. Locally they had the reputation of being hard working and successful entrepreneurs. Whilst their legal front offered them legitimacy as businessmen their shadow criminal enterprise offered clients seeking to enter the UK illegally four tariffs dependent on the service provided, location and the logistics and supply chain requirements involved. The first tariff related to those seeking entry to Europe by foot; the second tariff to those who required transportation across borders by HGV/Van; the third to those who required to access via a boat crossing; and finally; those who could pay for the luxury of air travel. The costs varied from £500 for a channel crossing, to upwards of £20,000 for air travel and long- distance land routes. The enterprising businessmen communicated with clients via secure WhatsApp Groups and advertised for customers on various social media platforms with prior clients offering testimonials to new customers.
What unites all three cases is that they all fit the OCB paradigm, because until suspected as a result of information received or intelligence, the businesses collectively had legal business fronts and a business model which withstood scrutiny from the authorities, and these ran in parallel with shadow businesses.
Utilising the OCB Approach as a viable model in disrupting people smuggling businesses
In the introduction, we suggested that the OCB approach could offer a viable and cost-effective alternative to more expensive high-level interventions. What is needed urgently is a law enforcement partner to work with us to develop the concept into a working model. We also suggest that an investment of as little as £250,000 in grant monies would fund the necessary research program to allow the following steps to be undertaken:
1) Map the known operational structure of the Criminal Enterprise from all usable databases from all agencies involved.
2) Identify what type of enterprise it is – e.g. Organised Crime Gang – Organised Crime Business – Hybrid.
3) Form a team of experts and practitioners using the One Teaming Methodology to operate in tandem and in real time. It is an investigation not an academic exercise.
4) Experts could include Academics; Experienced entrepreneurs who can advise on how to disrupt the business cycles; HMRC Agents or Forensic Accountants; Experts in business legislation; as well as Officers of any rank who have a working knowledge of the targets.
5) Implement the One Team to analyse all known data to identify data gaps and chase down new leads. Concentrate on identifying Business structures and assets for future Asset Confiscation exercises. The aim is to confirm that they are running an illegal business with the potential to tax earned revenues.
6) Formulate an Action Plan and Strategy for Disrupting/Deterring the business activities of the enterprise.
7) Implement the plan either holistically or partially. This can be overtly or covertly and in tandem with other diversionary tactics to blind the targets to the real purpose of the operations. Hide the OCB approach from the targets.
8) Analyse the results and refine for future iterations of the approach or for future operations.
This would allow the drafting of training manuals for SIOs – but before we can do this we need to speak to practitioners at the sharp end to understand their needs and identify skills and knowledge gaps.
Note: A fully Academic referenced version of this piece is available on request
By Dr Robert Smith, Professor of Criminal Enterprise, Staffordshire University.
Dr John Coxhead, Professor of Policing Practice, Loughborough University and Visiting Professor at Staffordshire University.
Dr Chris Allen, Senior Lecturer and Consultant at the London Policing College, Associate Professor of Policing at Paris Graduate School and Honorary Research Fellow at the Buckingham University Centre for Security and Intelligence.
Dr Michael Harrison, Senior Lecturer, University of East London.
