FBI Most Wanted – Human Trafficking, https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/human-trafficking
Most definitions of human trafficking (also known by other umbrella terms such as modern slavery, trafficking in persons, trafficking in human beings) cite some form of the act (what is done), means (how it is done), and purpose (why it is done) derived from from the Palermo Protocol, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA), or United States Code (see National Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking, Appendix B: Primary Authorities, 2021). Attempts to define or profile human traffickers – criminals who enable or partake in the trade and exploitation of human beings – are not as prevalent so our understanding of who they are or how they operate is limited as is our ability to identify and prosecute them. This article provides a sampling of human trafficker definitions, profiles, and resources.
Definitions
Just as there is no one type of trafficking victim, perpetrators of this crime also vary. Traffickers can be foreign nationals or U.S. citizens, family members, partners, acquaintances, and strangers. They can act alone or as part of an organized criminal enterprise. People often incorrectly assume that all traffickers are males; however, the United States has prosecuted cases against women traffickers. Traffickers can be pimps, gang members, diplomats, business owners, labor brokers, and farm, factory, and company owners. (DOJ, 2023)
Many victims and traffickers share ethnic or cultural backgrounds. In these cases, traffickers are better able to understand, gain trust, and ultimately exploit victims. Traffickers choose targets based on vulnerability, and they use recruitment or enticement tactics and methods of control that will work most effectively. (OVC/TTAC, 2023)
Perpetrators of human trafficking span all racial, ethnic, and gender demographics and are as diverse as survivors. Some use their privilege, wealth, and power as a means of control while others experience the same socio-economic oppression as their victims. They include individuals, business owners, members of a gang or network, parents or family members of victims, intimate partners, owners of farms or restaurants, and powerful corporate executives and government representatives. (NHTH, 2023)
Traffickers are often charming and display a grandiose sense of self-worth to convince their victims of their importance. There is also evidence to suggest that they are pathological liars, cunning and manipulative as they knowingly make false promises of jobs and a better life to vulnerable victims, but more importantly, they have no remorse for their action, as the victim is seen merely as a commodity to use and re-use for profit. (Reeves, 2020)
Enablers are the entities and individuals who knowingly or unknowingly provide goods and services – some of them through criminal activities – so that trafficking can take place. Both legal and illegal activities can enable human trafficking. It is not only bribe taking officials who enable the business of human trafficking, but also actors in the transportation, hospitality, advertising, and financial sectors whose services are often used by perpetrators. Some of these businesses know their services are being used in criminal activities and others do not. Legal businesses being exploited by traffickers are in a particularly good position to identify trafficking and aid in its disruption. Finally, consumers can also be enablers — by underwriting the system of human slavery through purchases of goods and services produced by supply chains that included the labor of victims of human trafficking. (HRF, 2014)
In order to better understand who is behind human trafficking, one should examine the organizational structure of those participating in the trafficking business. This would entail understanding the division of labor…While the degree to which traffickers are organized differs from one case to the next, trafficking operations can fall on a continuum ranging from 1) soloists, or individual traffickers; 2) to loose networks of organized criminals; to 3) highly structured international trafficking networks…While the complexity and number of specific tasks differ from one trafficking organization to the next, trafficking enterprises have been characterized by a number of specific roles that individuals take on within the organization to provide specific services. These roles include, but are not limited to:
Investors: Those who put forward funding for the operation, and oversee the entire operation. These people are unlikely to be known by the everyday employees of the operation, as they are sheltered by an organizational pyramid structure that protects their anonymity; they may be separate from the organization);
Recruiters: Seek out potential migrants and secure their financial commitment. These people may be members of the culture and the community from which migrants are drawn;
Transporters: Assist the migrants/potential victims in leaving their country/place of origin, either by land, sea or air;
Corrupt public officials or protectors: May occur throughout the trafficking process; officials may assist in obtaining travel documents, or accept bribes to enable migrants to enter/exit illegally, or to cover up any investigation and obstruct any prosecution;
Informers: Gather information on matters such as border surveillance, immigration and transit procedures, asylum systems, law enforcement activities;
Guides and crew members: Are responsible for moving trafficked persons from one transit point to the other or helping them to enter the destination country;
Enforcers: Are primarily responsible for policing staff and trafficked persons, and for maintaining order;
Debt collectors: Are in the destination country to collect fees;
Money launderers: Launder the proceeds of crime, disguising their origin through a series of transactions or investing them in legitimate businesses;
Supporting personnel and specialists: May include local people at transit points who might provide accommodation and other assistance.
Individuals may take on one or more roles within the network. Recruiters, for example, may also work as transporters or exploiters. Other supporting roles may involve computer experts who run cyber recruitment centers (offering jobs or recruiting escorts or mail-order brides), those “breaking in the women” to prepare them to work as prostitutes or individuals running safe houses. (OSCE, 2010)
The term “traffickers”, where it appears in the present Principles and Guidelines, is used to refer to: recruiters; transporters; those who exercise control over trafficked persons; those who transfer and/or maintain trafficked persons in exploitative situations; those involved in related crimes; and those who profit either directly or indirectly from trafficking, its component acts and related offences. (OHCHR, 2010)
Profiles
A universal human trafficker profile does not exist. Under both international and United States law, traffickers can be corporations or other legal entities, or they can be private persons…private individuals who traffic can be of various ages, genders, nationalities, and races; members of criminal networks or lone actors…most cases involve individual traffickers acting as ‘pimps’, operating without direction from or connection to a larger criminal network, some even exploiting victims within their own families…Before a person becomes a trafficker, they often have a pre-existing relationship with the victim, including as an employer, partner, friend, or someone else the victim trusts…In some circumstances, individuals engaged in trafficking conduct may also be victims themselves, or might have been trafficked in the past. (Wheeler, 2022)
The behavior of human traffickers can be predicted in the related stages of human trafficking…recruitment, migration, and exploitation. Since there is no universal profile of human traffickers, they can be:
– Men and women, of any nationality and age;
– Older than their recruiting victims, attributed to the increased ease of manipulating an older person towards a younger one has;
– Family people (have a spouse and children), or persons who have not formed a marriage union;
– People who are psychopaths or antisocial personalities with mental instability, irritability, and aggressiveness;
– Psychopaths who are charming and gentle in communication, but capable of the most serious criminal acts;
– Impulsive people who have a problem with controlling their anger;
– Prone to frustration and nervousness;
– People who have experienced a lack of parental tenderness and involvement;
– People who grew up in dysfunctional families;
– People who had chaotic and conflicting situations in their family milieu;
– People with a history of abuse;
– Persons who resort to physical aggression;
– People who are prone to use alcohol and substances;
– Persons who carry and/or use weapons;
– People who showed cruelty towards animals in childhood;
– Persons from the same and similar milieu as the victims, with the same socioeconomic, educational, and other predispositions;
– Persons who, in principle, have a higher level of education than their victims;
– Persons for whom human trafficking can be a primary or secondary occupation;
– In rare cases, also persons who themselves were victims of human trafficking;
– People with a strong lack of empathy (absence of sympathy for theneeds or wishes of others);
– People with manipulation skills who use emotional manipulation (many traffickers are superficially charming, trying to show enough understanding of human emotions to get close to potential victims). (Bjelajac, 2022)
Trafficker Profiles for 25 Types of Human Trafficking in the United States
Agriculture & Animal Husbandry: Workers can find it difficult to determine exactly who is responsible for the origin of the exploitation, due to this complex supply chain. In some cases, there may be a single or main trafficker who has one of these roles, while in other cases exploitation may involve multiple actors.
Arts & Entertainment: Traffickers include recruiters and executives in model management companies ranging from small independent agencies to large corporate entities, as well as individual “coaches” in athletics. Strip club and exotic dancing club owners are often culpable actors in trafficking, though a significant number of cases reported to the hotlines involve a victim being trafficked in a strip club by an intimate partner not affiliated with the club.
Bars, Strip Clubs, & Cantinas: In some of the cantinas, organized human trafficking networks run the operations. Male and female traffickers based in Mexico or Central America operate or cooperate with criminal networks to sustain complicated, multiyear supply lines of new victims and to ensure that victims comply. U.S. citizens may also be traffickers in this network. In some cases, traffickers directly cooperate with, or are members of, cartels or U.S.-based street gangs. Traffickers may also be intimate partners or family members of their victims. Owners of the cantinas or bars may be directly involved in the trafficking and exploitation, or they may not be aware of this activity. Traffickers who use strip clubs are typically less networked than the cantina-like businesses and can often be intimate partners of the victims. Some links with Eastern European organized crime have emerged and merit more research.
Carnivals: Formal labor recruiters and carnival owners and supervisors tend to be responsible for abuse and exploitation. Data indicates that these are typically U.S. citizen men.
Commercial Cleaning Services: Trafficker networks are largely unknown, but some data has shown traffickers can be either business owners or family members of survivors.
Construction: Because of the complicated nature of the labor supply chain and the roles of direct employers, recruiters, contractors, and smugglers, in many cases victims are unable to identify who is responsible for their exploitation. Some traffickers deliberately obfuscate the labor supply chain to avoid detection.
Domestic Work: Traffickers in this type have diverse profiles. Many are wealthy individuals, sometimes from the victim’s home country. Domestic workers with A-3 and G-5 visas are especially vulnerable to the imbalanced power dynamic inherent in temporary work visas due to the trafficker’s elevated status as a diplomat, royal, or high-ranking member of an influential international organization. This status makes the fear of speaking out even greater and can allow traffickers to continue exploiting victims under the protection of diplomatic immunity. Family members and intimate partners may also be traffickers, though less commonly.
Escort Services: Trafficker profiles range from a single trafficker exploiting their victim (often their intimate partner) to coordinated networks of traffickers affiliated with organized crime. All traffickers employ force, fraud, and coercion
Factories & Manufacturing: More information on trafficker demographics is needed, but as with most labor trafficking types, direct supervisors and middle managers tend to facilitate abuse. The National Hotline has also documented family connections between traffickers and survivors.
Forestry & Logging: Traffickers are typically management or crew leaders within the forestry business, although as in other complicated labor supply chains, victims sometimes have a difficult time understanding who is responsible for their exploitation.
Health & Beauty Services: Due to limited data, little is known, but traffickers predominantly have an employer relationship with victims, and many are from Vietnam or China. In a smaller subset of cases, the trafficker was a victim’s intimate partner or spouse.
Health Care: With this type it can be difficult for even survivors to decipher who their primary trafficker is due to the complicated relationships among recruiters, staffing agencies, and employers. In some cases, the trafficker may obfuscate these relationships to avoid detection. The trafficker may even be part of the victim’s family.
Hotels & Hospitality: Traffickers may be in hotel management or with a labor recruiter/labor broker that subcontracts with the hotel to provide labor. If the trafficker is a contractor, the hotel may not be aware of the abuse.
Illicit Activities: According to hotline data, traffickers in this type include victims’ intimate partners, fellow members of domestic street gangs, independent drug dealers and producers, and highly coordinated Latino cartels.
Illicit Massage, Health & Beauty: On-site managers tend to be women of the same ethnicity and may have been trafficked themselves in these businesses before becoming part of the larger trafficking network. The similarity in age and ethnicity of managers and women who are managers-in-training can make it difficult to distinguish potential victims from potential controllers at a glance. This can add to the level of control and coercion that traffickers have over their victims. Preliminary research suggests that business owners may have a variety of racial and ethnic profiles; as noted, business owners often own several illicit massage businesses as part of a larger network.
Landscaping: Supervisors and owners of landscaping companies and subcontractors are often the exploiters, though due to limited hotline data, little is known about trafficker demographics.
Outdoor Solicitation: These individuals tend to operate more independently rather than in networks with other traffickers, although some domestic gang influences have been documented.
Peddling & Begging: Due to limited data, little is known. Some case data has shown familial links with traffickers forcing their more vulnerable family members into begging.
Personal Sexual Servitude: Trafficker profiles vary widely and may include members of organized crime syndicates, smugglers, intimate partners, family members, and landlords.
Pornography: Due to limited data, little is known about typical trafficker profiles, except that in many cases traffickers may be intimate partners or family members of their victims. Traffickers within formal pornography production companies have also been recorded in Polaris-operated hotline cases, but data is thin.
Recreational Facilities: Limited data provides evidence that traffickers are typically part of the facility’s management. However, some cases have involved complicit visa sponsors and recruiters.
Remote Interactive Sexual Acts: Little is known about trafficker profiles and network structure for this type of sex trafficking, although limited hotline data suggests that a trafficker’s relationship to the victim can range from a significant other to someone a victim considers nothing more than an exploiter.
Residential: In the first model, traffickers may be part of larger, organized networks, and in some cases may have formal or informal ties to organized crime groups such as gangs or cartels. In the second model, residential brothels may be private homes where inter-familial or intimate partner trafficking is taking place.
Restaurants & Food Service: With this type it can be difficult for even survivors to decipher who their primary trafficker is since the links between the smugglers, recruiters, and restaurant management are sometimes unclear and may be deliberately obfuscated by the trafficker to help avoid detection. Information suggests that in some cases a single actor is primarily responsible, while in other cases multiple actors with different roles may be working in collaboration to exploit the workers.
Traveling Sales Crews: Traffickers may be crew managers or business owners. These crews and businesses are highly networked, with numerous connections among different business owners.
(Polaris, 2017)
A two-year European Union study of 334 human trafficker demographics, childhood and family, social life, health, and characteristics and personality, etc produced results that generally varied based on country and type of trafficking. The traffickers…are described as bossy, dictatorial, egocentric, authoritarian personalities who dominate and control their victims, and use them for their own purposes…Comments on the psychological makeup of the traffickers frequently included:
– Limited empathy
– Some pathology must be present
– Paranoia
– Pleasure in violence
– Sexually obsessed
– Narcissistic
– Over confident
– Severe aggression
– Lack of morality
– Lack of a conscience
(Rijken, 2015)
Resources
U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), What is Human Trafficking, 2023
Office for Victims of Crime (OVC), Training and Technical Assistance Center (TTAC), DOJ, Office of Justice Programs (OJP), Understanding Human Trafficking, 2023
National Human Trafficking Hotline (NHTH), Polaris, Human Trafficking, 2023
Reeves, J., Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, Chapter: Traffickers: Are They Business People, Psychopaths or Both?, 2020
Human Rights First (HRF), Background Brief: Who are Human Traffickers?, 2014
Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), Analyzing the Business Model of Trafficking in Human Beings to Better Prevent the Crime, 2010, pp. 21-23
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Human Trafficking: Commentary, 2010, p. 246
Wheeler, A.C., Trafficker Profile According to US Federal Prosecutions, Anti-Trafficking Review, issue 18, 2022, pp. 185-189
Bjelajac, Ž., Profiling Human Traffickers, Kultura polisa, Issue: 4, Volume: 19, 2022, pp. 72-73
Polaris, The Typology of Modern Slavery: Defining Sex and Labor Trafficking in the United States, 2017
Rijken, C., Muraszkiewicz, J., & Ven, P., Trafficking as a Criminal Enterprise (TRACE), Deliverable D3.1: Report on the Features and Incentives of Traffickers and on the Social Interactions Among Them, European Union, 2015
The Human Trafficker: Part 2 article will provide a best-of-breed human trafficker profile from a criminal profiling perspective.
