Refugees Deeply | 04.08.2017
The Cosa Nostra has not only found ways to benefit monetarily from migrants, but has also integrated migrants into mafia-related criminal enterprises in Sicily, writes Hayden Ford of the New School’s Graduate Program in International Affairs.
When it comes to crime and migration, governments and international institutions pay a lot of attention to the involvement of organized criminal organizations in transporting and smuggling migrants across the Mediterranean.
Even so, the evidence suggests that there are no centralized crime syndicates operating across the major smuggling routes in the Mediterranean. Rather, smuggling takes place through “flexible and adaptive networks” comprised of small criminal groups who enter into arrangements for short periods of time before dissolving and reconfiguring themselves.