British H.M. Revenue & Customs officers with seized smuggled tobacco, 2014.
Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations.
There are various motivations to smuggle. These include the participation in illegal trade, such as in the drug trade, illegal weapons trade, exotic wildlife trade, illegal immigration or illegal emigration, tax evasion, providing contraband to a prison inmate, or the theft of the items being smuggled.
Smuggling is a common theme in literature, from Bizet's opera Carmen to the James Bond spy books (and later films) Diamonds are Forever and Goldfinger.
Etymology
The verb smuggle, from Low German smuggeln or Dutch smokkelen
(="to transport (goods) illegally"), apparently a frequentative
formation of a word meaning "to sneak", most likely entered the English
language during the 1600s–1700s.
History
A book with a concealed space for hiding cigarettes.
Smuggling has a long and controversial history, probably dating back
to the first time at which duties were imposed in any form, or any
attempt was made to prohibit a form of traffic. Smuggling is often associated with efforts by authorities to prevent the importation of certain contraband
items or non-taxed goods; however, there has also been smuggling based
on illegally exporting goods. In England smuggling first became a
recognised problem in the 13th century, following the creation of a
national customs collection system by Edward I in 1275. Medieval smuggling tended to focus on the export of highly taxed export goods — notably wool and hides.
Merchants also, however, sometimes smuggled other goods to circumvent
prohibitions or embargoes on particular trades. Grain, for instance, was
usually prohibited from export, unless prices were low, because of
fears that grain exports would raise the price of food in England and
thus cause food shortages and / or civil unrest. Following the loss of Gascony
to the French in 1453, imports of wine were also sometimes embargoed
during wars to try and deprive the French of the revenues that could be
earned from their main export.
Most studies of historical smuggling have been based on official
sources — such as court records, or the letters of Revenue Officers. A
senior academic of the University of Bristol states that they only
detail the activities of those dumb enough to get caught.
This has led him and others, such as Prof. H. V. Bowen of the
University of Swansea to use commercial records to reconstruct smuggling
businesses.
Jones' study focuses on smuggling in Bristol in the mid-16th century,
arguing that the illicit export of goods like grain and leather
represented a significant part of the city's business, with many members
of the civic elite engaging in it, whether by disguised/hidden
transport or mis-description of goods.
Grain smuggling by members of the civic elite, often working closely
with corrupt customs officers, has also been shown to have been
prevalent in East Anglia during the later 16th century.
In England wool was smuggled to the continent in the 17th century, under the pressure of high excise taxes. In 1724 Daniel Defoe wrote of Lymington, Hampshire, on the south coast of England
"I do not find they have any foreign commerce, except it be what we call smuggling and roguing; which I may say, is the reigning commerce of all this part of the English coast, from the mouth of the Thames to the Land's End in Cornwall."
The high rates of duty levied on tea and also wine and spirits, and other luxury goods coming in from mainland Europe
at this time made the clandestine import of such goods and the evasion
of the duty a highly profitable venture for impoverished fishermen and
seafarers. In certain parts of the country such as the Romney Marsh, East Kent, Cornwall and East Cleveland,
the smuggling industry was for many communities more economically
significant than legal activities such as farming and fishing. The
principal reason for the high duty was the need for the government to
finance a number of extremely expensive wars with France and the United States.
Before the era of drug smuggling and human trafficking, smuggling had acquired a kind of nostalgic romanticism, in the vein of Robert Louis Stevenson's Kidnapped:
"Few places on the British coast did not claim to be the haunts of wreckers or mooncussers. The thievery was boasted about and romanticized until it seemed a kind of heroism. It did not have any taint of criminality and the whole of the south coast had pockets vying with one another over whose smugglers were the darkest or most daring. The Smugglers Inn was one of the commonest names for a bar on the coast".
In Henley Road, smuggling in colonial times was a reaction to the heavy taxes and regulations imposed by mercantilist trade policies. After American independence in 1783, smuggling developed at the edges of the United States at places like Passamaquoddy Bay, St. Mary's in Georgia, Lake Champlain, and Louisiana. During Thomas Jefferson's embargo of 1807-1809,
these same places became the primary places where goods were smuggled
out of the nation in defiance of the law. Like Britain, a gradual
liberalization of trade laws as part of the free trade movement meant less smuggling. in 1907 President Theodore Roosevelt tried to cut down on smuggling by establishing the Roosevelt Reservation along the United States-Mexico Border.[12][13] Smuggling revived in the 1920s during Prohibition, and drug smuggling became a major problem after 1970. In the 1990s, when economic sanctions were imposed on Serbia,
a large percent of the population lived off smuggling petrol and
consumer goods from neighboring countries. The state unofficially
allowed this to continue or otherwise the entire economy would have
collapsed.
In modern times, as many first-world countries
have struggled to contain a rising influx of immigrants, the smuggling
of people across national borders has become a lucrative extra-legal
activity, as well as the extremely dark side, people-trafficking,
especially of women who may be enslaved typically as prostitutes.
Types of smuggling
Goods
The International Anti-Opium Association, Peking "The War Against Opium"
Road sign at the Canada-US border prohibiting cannabis, Abercorn, Québec (2018)
Much smuggling occurs when enterprising merchants attempt to supply
demand for a good or service that is illegal or heavily taxed. As a
result, illegal drug trafficking, and the smuggling of weapons (illegal arms trade), as well as the historical staples of smuggling, alcohol and tobacco,
are widespread. As the smuggler faces significant risk of civil and
criminal penalties if caught with contraband, smugglers are able to
impose a significant price premium on smuggled goods. The profits
involved in smuggling goods appear to be extensive. The Iron Law of Prohibition dictates that greater enforcement results in more potent alcohol and drugs being smuggled.
Profits also derive from avoiding taxes or levies on imported goods. For example, a smuggler might purchase a large quantity of cigarettes
in a place with low taxes and smuggle them into a place with higher
taxes, where they can be sold at a far higher margin than would
otherwise be possible. It has been reported that smuggling one truckload
of cigarettes within the United States can lead to a profit of US$2 million.
People smuggling
With regard to people smuggling, a distinction can be made between people smuggling as a service to those wanting to illegally migrate and the involuntary trafficking of people. An estimated 90% of people who illegally crossed the border between Mexico and the United States are believed to have paid a smuggler to lead them across.
People smuggling can be used to rescue a person from oppressive circumstances. For example, when the Southern United States allowed slavery, many slaves moved north via the Underground Railroad. Similarly, during the Holocaust, Jewish people were smuggled out of Germany by people such as Algoth Niska.
Human trafficking
A poster warning the German women and girls about the danger of human traffic in the USA (ca 1900)
Actress and UNICEF Ambassador Lucy Liu spoke out against human trafficking and lauded USAID efforts to increase awareness
Trafficking of human beings, sometimes called human trafficking,
or in the much referred to case of sexual services, sex trafficking,
is not the same as people smuggling. A smuggler will facilitate illegal
entry into a country for a fee, and on arrival at their destination,
the smuggled person is free; the trafficking victim is coerced in some
way. Victims do not agree to be trafficked: they are tricked, lured by
false promises, or forced into it. Traffickers use coercive tactics
including deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, physical threats and use of force, debt bondage or even force-feeding drugs to control their victims.
While the majority of victims are women,
and sometimes children, other victims include men, women and children
forced or conned into manual or cheap labor. Due to the illegal nature
of trafficking, the exact extent is unknown. A U.S. government report
published in 2003 estimates that 800,000-900,000 people worldwide are
trafficked across borders each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.
Child trafficking
According to a study by Alternatives to Combat Child Labour Through
Education and Sustainable Services in the Middle East and North Africa
Region (ACCESS-MENA) 30% of school children living in border villages of
Yemen had been smuggled into Saudi Arabia. Child trafficking is commonly referenced as "transporting". Smuggled children were in danger of being sexually abused or even killed. Poverty
is one of the reasons behind child trafficking and some children are
smuggled with their parents' consent via a transporter. As many as 50%
of those smuggled are children. In the Philippines, between 60,000 and
100,000 children are trafficked to work in the sex industry.
Human trafficking and migration
Each year, hundreds of thousands of migrants are moved illegally by highly organized international smuggling and trafficking groups, often in dangerous or inhumane conditions. This phenomenon has been growing in recent years as people of low income countries are aspiring to enter developed countries
in search of jobs. Migrant smuggling and human trafficking are two
separate offences and differ in a few central respects. While
"smuggling" refers to facilitating the illegal entry of a person into a
State, "trafficking" includes an element of exploitation.
The trafficker retains control over the migrant—through force,
fraud or coercion—typically in the sex industry, through forced labour
or through other practices similar to slavery. Trafficking violates the
idea of basic human rights.
The overwhelming majority of those trafficked are women and children.
These victims are commodities in a multibillion-dollar global industry. Criminal organizations
are choosing to traffic human beings because, unlike other commodities,
people can be used repeatedly and because trafficking requires little
in terms of capital investment.
Smuggling is also reaping huge financial dividends to criminal
groups who charge migrants massive fees for their services. Intelligence
reports have noted that drug-traffickers and other criminal
organizations are switching to human cargo to obtain greater profit with
less risk.
It is acknowledged that the smuggling of people is a growing global phenomenon.
It is a transnational crime. Currently, economic instability appears to
be the main reason for illegal migration movement throughout the world.
Nevertheless, many of the willing migrants undertake the hazardous
travel to their destination country with criminal syndicates specialized
in people smuggling. These syndicates arrange everything for the
migrants, but at a high price.
Very often the traveling conditions are inhumane: the migrants
are overcrowded in trucks or boats and fatal accidents occur frequently.
After their arrival in the destination country, their illegal status
puts them at the mercy of their smugglers, which often force the
migrants to work for years in the illegal labor market to pay off the
debts incurred as a result of their transportation.
Wildlife
A smuggler of rare birds arrested by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection at a U.S. border
Wildlife smuggling results from the demand for exotic species and the lucrative nature of the trade. The CITES
(Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna
and Flora) regulates the movement of endangered wildlife across
political borders.
Economics of smuggling
Research on smuggling as economic phenomenon is scant. Jagdish Bhagwati
and Bent Hansen first forwarded a theory of smuggling in which they saw
smuggling essentially as an import-substituting economic activity.
Their main consideration, however, was the welfare implications of
smuggling. Against common belief that the private sector is more efficient than the public sector, they showed that smuggling might not enhance social welfare though it may divert resources from government to private sector.
In contrast, Faizul Latif Chowdhury,
in 1999, suggested a production-substituting model of smuggling in
which price disparity due to cost of supply is critically important as
an incentive for smuggling.
This price disparity is caused by domestic consumption taxes and import
duties. Drawing attention to the case of cigarettes, Chowdhury
suggested that, in Bangladesh, smuggling of cigarettes reduced the level of domestic production. Domestic production of cigarettes is subject to value added tax (VAT) and other consumption tax.
Reduction of domestic taxes enables the local producer to supply at a
lower cost and bring down the price disparity that encourages smuggling.
However, Chowdhury suggested that there is a limit beyond which
reducing domestic taxes on production cannot confer a competitive
advantage versus smuggled cigarettes. Therefore, government needs to
upscale its anti-smuggling drive so that seizures (the taking possession
of person or property by legal process) can add to the cost of
smuggling and thus render smuggling uncompetitive. Notably, Chowdhury
modeled the relationship of the smuggler to the local producer as one of
antagonistic duopoly.
Contrarily, in a research by Tat Chee Tsui in 2016, even if
increasing of cigarette duty may encourage smuggling, total cigarette
consumption still declines because price of illicit goods, as
substitutes of taxed cigarettes, also increases because of higher tax
rate.
Methods
In smuggling, concealment can involve concealing the smuggled goods
on a person's clothing, luggage or inside a body cavity. Some smugglers
hide the whole transportation vehicle or ship used to bring the items
into an area. Avoiding border checks, such as by small ships, private airplanes, through overland smuggling routes, smuggling tunnels and even small submersibles.
This also applies for illegally passing a border oneself, for illegal
immigration or illegal emigration. In many parts of the world,
particularly the Gulf of Mexico, the smuggling vessel of choice is the go-fast boat.
Submitting to border checks
with the goods or people hidden in a vehicle or between (other)
merchandise, or the goods hidden in luggage, in or under clothes, inside
the body, etc. Many smugglers fly on regularly scheduled airlines. A large number of suspected smugglers are caught each year by customs worldwide. Goods and people are also smuggled across seas hidden in containers, and overland hidden in cars, trucks, and trains. A related topic is illegally passing a border oneself as a stowaway. The high level of duty levied on alcohol and tobacco in Britain has led to large-scale smuggling from France to the UK through the Channel Tunnel.
The combination of acknowledged corruption at the border and high import
tariffs led smugglers in the 1970s and ‘80s to fly electronic equipment
such as stereos and televisions in cargo planes from one country to
clandestine landing strips in another, thereby circumventing encounters
at the frontier between countries.
For illegally passing a border oneself, another method is with a false passport (completely fake, or illegally changed, or the passport of a lookalike).
The existence of the Multi-Consignment Contraband (MCC) smuggling
method (smuggling two or more different types of contraband such as
drugs and illegal immigrants or drugs and guns at the same time) was
verified following the completion of a study that found 16 documented
cases of smugglers transporting more than one type of contraband in the
same shipment. MCC shipments were frequently associated with Phase II and Phase III smuggling organizations.
Legal definition
In popular perception smuggling is synonymous with illegal trade. Even social scientists have misconstrued smuggling as illegal trade.
While the two have indeed identical objectives, namely the evasion of
taxes and the importation of contraband items, their demand and cost
functions are altogether different requiring different analytical
framework. As a result, illegal trade through customs stations is differently considered, and smuggling is defined as international trade through ‘unauthorized route’.
A seaport, airport or land port which has not been authorized by the
government for importation and exportation is an ‘unauthorized route’.
The legal definition of these occurs in the Customs Act
of the country. Notably, some definitions define any 'undeclared'
trafficking of currency and precious metal as smuggling. Smuggling is a cognizable offense in which both the smuggled goods and the goods are punishable.
