Laura Camacho |
Madrid, May 27 (EFE) his “happy” life migrating to Europe.
These are just examples of how social networks are already the biggest hook for the mafias that traffic in immigrants.
Scrutinizing these networks, the National Police is working on a mission to analyze open sources of information such as Internet content that not only allows investigations to be opened but, above all, “measuring the temperature” of the global phenomenon of illicit human trafficking and trying to predict future threats.
Knowing what is published on the networks is essential in this fight against the mafias and it will be even more so because the implementation of the Internet in underdeveloped countries is increasing, as explained to EFE by David Agorreta, the main commissioner at the head of the National Immigration Center. and Borders (CENIF) of the National Police.
“We think that in Africa there is no Internet access but it is not so. Migrants consult the Internet, find out how they can travel, to which countries, how and when, like any other citizen. The criminals know this and have entered Facebook, YouTube, TikTok or Telegram to capture them, ”she says.
Social networks as the unreal showcase of migration
In these profiles -some even have thousands of followers- plane tickets are offered or guidelines are given to obtain documents, all “sweetened” with the “happy” image of immigration.
“The mafias sell a very distorted reality, there is a lot of misinformation and manipulation of images on the networks,” warns Agorreta, who warns of videos of dozens of Algerians who, with the same word, encourage their compatriots to travel to Europe and transfer to thousands of young people in their country a false happy future, in which they do not show precarious boats or tell about the dangers of throwing themselves into the sea.
This “contaminating” effect that networks can have on immigration is a new “playing field” for criminals from which to make huge profits to the point that there are already drug trafficking networks that also traffic people and even use the same boat that brings immigrants to Europe to make the trip back to Africa loaded with designer drugs.
A police photo that reveals solutions
To get to this information, police forces from all over the world scour social networks and share information, a cooperation that is key to dealing with a phenomenon that, according to the commissioner, is not continental, but global, and that can become a serious danger to the security of a country.
Precisely, this week the National Police has been the host of the II International Forum on the smuggling of migrants and trafficking in human beings in the network in which 160 police officers, border guards and intelligence agents from 21 countries have participated in an exercise of search in open sources on illegal trafficking of immigrants.
Under the title “Charlie Lima Bravo 2023”, 41 teams of four analysts had to solve eight challenges in three hours using the Internet and open information networks to determine, for example, which photographs were or were not real from a series published on the Internet or answer questions about a certain profile in a social network.
In Commissioner Agorreta’s opinion, what is relevant about the exercise and the subsequent analysis is that agents from countries such as the US, the United Kingdom, France, Colombia, Guatemala or Mexico exchange experiences and can obtain for the first time a “single photo, even if it is blurry” of the phenomenon of illegal immigration in networks.