Repression

The third measure to counter human smuggling, is repression. Since 1994 those who profit from illegal labor and smuggling can be prosecuted. Over the years, several governmental organizations to combat human smuggling have been set up.36 But in spite of the tightening up of legislation on human smuggling and the setting up of various anti-smuggling organizations, it would be a serious over- statement to say that the criminal law approach to tackling human smuggling is a well-oiled machine.

The countless consultative bodies, reorganizations and departments that are concerned with human smuggling are an indication that the approach to human smuggling does sometimes run less smoothly than first impressions suggest. Although the appointment of a National Public Prosecutor for Human Smug- gling shows the seriousness that the government attaches to tackling human smuggling, the creation of this function was also born out of necessity. Partly due to the initial low threat of punishment, local public prosecutors were reluctant to take on human smuggling cases. A National Public Prosecutor is intended to help to change that situation.

However, there are still regions that are less willing to deal with human smuggling cases in spite of an increased level of punishment (IAM, 2005: 45). They prefer to prioritize crimes that have a much greater impact locally than human smuggling. It should be noted that human smuggling causes very little nuisance for the average citizen, whereas young people hanging around and van- dalism cause quite a lot more. Therefore not enough detectives are available for investigating smuggling cases. For example, in 2000 a lot of police man-hours were taken up by the introduction of the euro and by the European Football Championships (B6). Sometimes priority must be given to more urgent cases. For example, there is a case on file where an investigation of a Chinese smug- gling organization was cut short following a major disaster in Enschede: a fire- works factory had exploded, taking several blocks of houses with it. All available detectives were allocated to assist for months in the aftermath of the disaster. The human smuggling investigation was therefore stopped (case 16). In 2002, the Mare- chaussee was obliged because of political pressure to suddenly pay a lot of attention

36. For a detailed overview of different government bodies involved with the tackling of human smuggling, see appendix two.

to so-called “pellet swallowers”, passengers who had swallowed pellets of cocaine in an attempt to smuggle them across the border that way (OM, 2002). Manpower was transferred to this task from existing human smuggling investigations.

We must also not forget that setting up a human smuggling investigation requires quite a lot of manpower. Furthermore, every human smuggling investi- gation will by definition need interpreters. After all, these are foreigners trying to enter the Netherlands, which means that a large part of the investigation soon involves working with other ethnic population groups. Because telephone tap- ping is frequently used in criminal investigations in the Netherlands, many hours of interpreters’ services are required. Take the “GATE” investigation, for example. This was an investigation into human smuggling involving Iranian and Iraqi sus- pects, which took place from February to November 1996. The suspects made no less than 30,015 telephone calls (IJzerman, 1999: 84). Because some ethnic groups are relatively new in the Netherlands and speak obscure dialects, there is often a lack of (reliable) interpreters. The police therefore spend a lot of money in each investigation on (exclusive) interpreters alone. In addition, such investigations usually last several months. Given the nature of the crime, there is very quickly an international component to the investigation. However, cooperation with foreign authorities is a difficult process due to all kinds of legal complications.

Policy decisions are also taken that affect how human smuggling is tackled. In 2003, a lack of court capacity meant that passengers who had tried to leave the Netherlands on a false passport at Schiphol Airport only had to pay a fine and were then able to continue their journey. Policy was temporarily changed because of the thousands of cases at Schiphol Airport (ANP, 2003). At the beginning of 2004, Haarlem Public Prosecutor Hartjes admitted “that the passengers with forged travel documents are mostly asylum seekers or illegal aliens who have been put on the plane by human smugglers [italics MS]” (Schenk, 2004). Neverthe- less, there was no prosecution, let alone a police investigation. If the passengers refused to pay the fine, they were not even summonsed to appear in court. The reasons given were: lack of cell capacity, summons problems, and “they’re going to leave the country anyway and the criminal organizations can’t be traced via smuggled humans in any case,” according to Hartjes (Schenk, 2004).

In short, the government may well have created the possibilities in 1994 to combat not only illegal residence, but for the first time also human smuggling. However, in practice, this has not amounted to a full-scale war on smugglers. Reasons cited are different priorities and lack of time, money or manpower. The next section therefore considers whether government policy has had any kind of effect on smugglers’ organizations.

8.3

Changes?

One indicator of the hierarchical human smuggling vision is that where govern- ment policy is stricter, the organization of human smuggling is also more hierar- chical. However, a network approach assumes precisely that more small groups will work together. Formally speaking, since the beginning of the research period

(1996), a relatively tougher approach has been taken over the years to combating human smuggling (and illegal residence). Nevertheless, the previous sections have also shown that in practice there are a number of major qualifying com- ments to be made. Either one of the two effects (stricter policy or holes in the implementation) is stronger, or they cancel each other out.

The latter possibility is probably true. In the era following the introduction of Article 197a there have been various investigations into the smuggling of Chinese nationals. The results as regards cooperation noted and criminal involvement in other areas have already been presented in the previous chapters. However, it is striking that no significant differences can be found between the beginning and the end of the research period (1996-2003). The method of transport, the type of people involved and ultimately also the type of organizations that can be identi- fied remained the same throughout the research period.

Firstly, for example, an examination of the contents of the files failed to show any differences in the working methods of the smugglers over the years. In 1996 migrants were hidden in precisely the same way in the load on a lorry heading for England as they were in 2003. The use of look-a-like documents did not change either.

Secondly, the same types of people were involved in these forms of smug- gling in 1996 as in 2003. The number of people involved who already had a crim- inal record was not greater than in 1996. In both years the vast majority of the Asian suspects had no criminal record. The ethnic composition did not change either. Over the years Westerners and non-ethnic Chinese have always been involved in these smuggling activities. The proportion of women involved can be considered fairly constant. An average of three in 20 defendants every year are women (see table 10).

Thirdly, over all the years of the research period, there were also no differ- ences discovered in cooperation methods used in the Netherlands. Table two showed that there was no structural increase in the size of the business in 2003 (which would imply a larger organization) compared with 1996. The case files do not show any changes in the type of organization either. In all the years of the research period more or less the same people always worked together. The way in which the smuggling journey from China to the West was organized did not change either. During the research period, smugglers received their clients by a network of suppliers. The method of pre-financing did not change either.

The only notable change is a slight increase in the smuggling price. For example, a smuggler told he had raised his smuggling price after four years for a trip to America by 2,000 USD (case 28). However, for lack of information we do not know if other organizers along the route also raised their prices. Moreover, the price of more or less everything increased during this period, and we also know too little about the demand to be able to derive a relationship here between government policy and the sums paid for smuggling. A greater need for smug- glers may simply have driven prices up. That greater need is not simply the con- sequence of a stricter Dutch government policy as regards entry possibilities. The Netherlands has in fact increased rather than decreased the number of visas issued for legal entry over the years, for example as a tourist or on business.

More importantly, developments in China itself make it only recently possi- ble for many people to travel abroad. Although critics might say that the current migrants from Mainland China can point to economic and political motives, it must not be forgotten that these reasons existed already before (probably even more so), but for a long time there was only very limited migration from Main- land China. When Deng Xiaoping took power definitively in 1978, important changes in policy began to be made. This period is also described as the period of the Open Door Policy. This meant that the Chinese government was facing a major catch-up operation in order to catch up economically after years of mis- management. The aim of throwing open the borders (the Open Door Policy) was to enable foreign investors to establish branches in China (Terrill, 1980: 923). The restrictions that had applied until then on the movement of goods, services and people were slowly lifted. It also became increasingly easy to leave China to reunite families, for study purposes, for work or as a tourist. The Chinese govern- ment began to realize that migration could ease the overpopulation problem and at the same time bring in welcome foreign capital (Custers, 1983: 7). In 1985 a new emigration law came into effect in China. Anyone who could show a letter from an overseas Chinese sponsor was offered the opportunity of being given a Chinese passport (Pieke, 2002: 11). In the years after that it became even simpler and easier to get a Chinese passport (BuiZa, 2004: 40; China Daily, 2003; People’s Daily, 2002; XNA, 2003).

The only noticeable effect of tightening up of Dutch government policy was that smugglers became more careful and learned from their mistakes. For exam- ple, one smuggler told another that he had read in the newspaper in 1997 that the police could listen in on landline telephone calls and that it would therefore be better to use mobiles (case 28). When it later emerged that the Dutch police also listened in on mobile calls, the smugglers thought that calling from a telephone box at the corner of the street would be safe (which was not the case). Some (but take note, not all) smugglers also started talking more often in code: there were no references to smuggled humans, only to balls or boxes (case 29). References to false passports were replaced by references to booklets or notebooks (case 22). The transcripts of tapped conversations show that smugglers also allow for the possibility of border controls. For example, one transporter was told that he would be best advised to take the ferry to England between three and six o’clock in the afternoon because it was very busy then and the checks were less rigorous (B22). But all these types of measures have nothing to do with a change in the setup of the smuggling organization. There were no further changes in the smuggling group itself as regards composition and structure. The smugglers only became more careful in practice.

Finally, this reflection on government policy makes also clear that it is pre- cisely because of the various cracks in the system in practice that it definitely remains possible for individual or small-scale smugglers to become or remain a success in human smuggling.