Suitable Target

The second concept RAT mentions of is the presence of a suitable target. In order for a target to be named as “suitable”, it has to attract the offender by having financial abilities and consequently some value. Moreover, it has to be accessible to him – in this case through ICT use. As long as the first indicator of value/financial abilities is concerned, many migrants seem to have planned the journey beforehand, therefore they have accommodated for the financial aspect of the trip.

In a VICE Greece documentary on migrants that cross three countries on foot in order to reach Europe, it is mentioned that migrants sell everything they have or try to find jobs in order to finance their journey. More specifically, one migrant claimed that “his

employer owed him €10,000, but he told me [the interviewer] that he gave him €4,000 to leave” (Mutafis, 2015). In addition, smugglers view Syrians as “more picky” since

34 they “have more money. They afford to choose.” (Videmšek, 2015). No matter where they get the money from, migrants seem to be able to pay smugglers to get them through the borders of Greece, hence the high numbers of smuggled migrants in Greek shores and borders. Consequently, they can be characterized as suitable target for the offenders.

Accessibility is another aspect that makes a target suitable. As mentioned in Part 5, interviewed migrants in Greece appeared to be frequent users of technology and especially of phones that have access to the Internet (Smartphones). In more detail, they made everyday use of social media and other related platforms, such as Facebook, WhatsApp, YouTube and others (Katrimpouza, 2017). The majority of the interviewees responded “Yes” when asked if they were in possession of a smartphone, if they use the internet and if they use social media (Katrimpouza, 2017).

This ability migrants have to use ICT relatively easily has exposed them to migrant smugglers that either advertise their services through social media (Facebook in the case of Greece) or want to keep in touch with them without exposing themselves too much by using apps that provide the users with encrypted texts and calls like WhatsApp. BBC reports multiple migrants are in contact with traffickers that are able to smuggle them in Greece via these platforms (Adamson & Akbiek, 2015). Many smugglers have reported that they keep in touch with their smugglers via smartphone in order to keep up with the latest news about their journey:

“We’re waiting for our smuggler to call and inform us when we set off.” (Videmšek, 2015).

6.2.1 A contradicting perspective

Young migrants seem to be at ease with using technology, therefore they indeed become more accessible (i.e. more suitable) targets to the smugglers that are also using ICT to facilitate their actions and recruit more people. By studying the selected interviews, though, a rising number of migrants seem to use this ability of theirs to their advantage by trying to travel alone, without the help of a smuggler or a guide.

35 Even though many migrants appear to have the financial ability to pay smugglers for the whole journey, there are less fortunate cases where they can not afford such an option:

“I do not have money. I do not have food. Nothing.” (Mutafis, 2015), or

“Smugglers take a lot of money. I don’t have money anymore.” (Cupolo, 2016), are two of such cases. There have been cases that migrants choose to use a smuggler for one part of the journey – usually the part where they have to cross the sea from Turkey to Greece – and from there they travel alone with the aid of their GPS-equipped smartphone (Brunwasser, 2015). Actually, a wide group of migrants seem to think that

“a smuggler takes a lot of money for nothing” (Van Liempt & Zijlstra, 2017) and they opt to travel alone, if they have the capability to access a digital map and to keep in touch with friends and family in case of an emergency.

Moreover, many of the interviewed migrants seem to not fully trust smugglers since they have heard multiple stories in recent years regarding people that have been shot dead, beaten or cheated:

“I don’t trust smugglers enough to give them all our money.” (Van Liempt & Zijlstra, 2017),

“I talked to so many people who had been tricked by the smugglers.” (Videmšek, 2015). Apart from the migrants that have this opinion about smugglers, even smugglers share the same opinion about some people that are in the same “business”:

“It’s hard to find someone who is honest in this work” (Kingsley, 2017).

Bearing all the above in mind, migrants – and especially young ones who have the physical ability and the technological knowledge to embark on this journey on their own – choose to cross borders without the guidance of a smuggler. By calculating the pros and the cons of the situation they try to limit as much as possible the losses and the costs in order to maximize their advantages in this harsh situation. In this manner, migrants stop being the victim and adopt in a way the mentality of the offenders that wish to gain the maximum profit at the minimum cost.

At this point, it would be interested to view this perspective through the lens Christie’s theory on the “Ideal Victim” (1986), in which he claims that there are certain criteria

36 that must be met in order to victimize a person. If these criteria are being met, i.e. migrants can be described as perfect victims, then it is reasonable for smugglers to view them as ideal targets for their crimes. According to Christie, the six main criteria are:

 The victim should be weak. In the case of smuggling, it is true that the migrants are considered to be in an extremely painful and stressful situation, as they are obliged to leave their homes due to the circumstances. This desperation of theirs can be viewed as a weakness by criminals that would try to profit out the migrants’ misery. On the other hand, and according to the pre-mentioned point of view, migrants appear to take the situation into their own hands and try to protect themselves from smugglers with questionable reputations by attempting to travel on their own with the help of technology – mostly the ones that are physically capable as stated by an interviewed migrants (“The only people who

really need a smuggler are, for example, old people, or people who need special care”) (Van Liempt & Zijlstra , 2017). In this manner, this criterion is not fully met.

 The victim should carry out a respectable project. The term “respectable” is a

bit vague in nature but one may say that the migrants have indeed embarked on a dangerous journey in their lives in order to escape the atrocities of war in their homes. If that is not considered respectable, then it can at least be considered as “neutral”, meaning that they were not offending anyone and certainly they were not provoking the offender (i.e. smugglers). In this sense, this criterion is being met by the migrants.

 The victim should definitely not be blamed. As explained in the previous criterion, migrants cannot be blamed for the actions of the smugglers. It should be acknowledged, though, that the majority of them are adults that are fully aware of the severity and the risk of the interaction with smugglers. This is actually the reason why some of them choose to avoid them. In this manner, this criterion is not being fully met.

 The offender should be big and bad. As this theory has been developed for explaining crimes such as burglaries or rapes, it tends to refer to the physical aspect of the offender. In the case of the smuggling business, their network can be considered big and the testimonies of the interviewed migrants depict them as dangerous, but this does not directly affect the migrants, if the journey is

37 successful. There has been no reported incident of a migrant being smuggled against his will, therefore the ferocity of these networks is irrelevant to the situation and as a consequence, this criterion is not being met.

 The offender should be unknown. As stated above, migrants tend to know their smugglers as they have to be in touch in order to arrange and organize the journey, therefore this criterion does not apply to this specific case.

 The victim should be powerful. Although it appears to be at contrast with the first criterion, this attribute focuses more on the fact that after the criminality has taken place, the victim should be powerful enough to acknowledge what happened and report the crime in order for justice to be administered. This does not seem to be the case in smuggling as there have been reported incidents that the journey was not successfully completed but the victims were not compensated or reimbursed and rarely reported. As a result, this criterion is also not met.

As a conclusion, it can be seen that even though migrants are suitable targets for a smuggler, given the nature of the situation, they are not the “ideal victims” according to Christie’s (1986) theory. The situation migrants are in, alongside their financial and technological abilities have made them a possible target for the criminals but the same

38 aspects have provided some of them with tools and motivation to act on their own and avoid taking any risks by associating with smugglers of questionable reputation.