Hardline migration policies adopted by governments across the globe have been a boon for people smugglers, fuelling demand and allowing them to raise their prices, according to a report.
The findings, released on Thursday by the Mixed Migration Centre of the Danish Refugee Council, and based on interviews with thousands of migrants and hundreds of smugglers, come as officials prepare to gather next week in Brussels to discuss how best to combat smuggling.
The centre said it had timed the release in order to provide policymakers – who have embraced slogans such as the British government’s “smash the gangs” – with evidence that could guide the discussions.
“Governments say they want to ‘break the business model’ of smugglers, yet our data shows the opposite is happening,” Roberto Forin, the acting director of the Geneva-based centre, said in a statement.
The findings draw on more than 80,000 interviews with people who were on the move across the globe between 2019 and the first half of 2025. More than 50,000 of them said they had used smugglers, with many of them linking their decision to the absence of accessible opportunities for legal migration.
The researchers also spoke with 458 smugglers in west and north Africa between 2021 and 2025. “Many smugglers told us that stricter enforcement is actually fuelling demand,” said Chloe Sydney, the centre’s lead researcher.
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Case in point were the 102 smugglers interviewed on the central Mediterranean route. Even as irregular arrivals to Italy dropped in 2024, nearly half – 44% – of the smugglers said demand for their services had increased, partly because of the tighter border measures, said Sydney. “Instead of breaking their business model, it is being boosted.”
Among the smugglers interviewed, 57% said they had increased their fees, with 78% of them linking the higher prices to the increased risk they were taking due to hardline migration policies.
Nearly half of the smugglers (49%) admitted being in touch with officials such as border guards, police or detention staff, suggesting state officials were frequently complicit in smuggling operations.
Despite widespread assertions that smugglers are luring people into irregular migration, just 6% of the migrants surveyed said smugglers had influenced their decision. Instead, most of them said the decision had been their own or had been influenced by friends or relatives who were already abroad.
The report also looked at who was most likely to use smugglers, finding that those fleeing insecurity, conflict and limitations on their rights and freedoms commonly did, as did those embarking on longer, more perilous journeys.
The data made it clear that smugglers were not the cause of irregular migration, said Forin. Instead, he pointed to the lack of safe and legal alternatives to explain why people were resorting to irregular routes.
In Europe, campaigners have long warned that policymakers are pushing people towards smugglers by restricting legal migration pathways such as family reunification. “When regular pathways shrink, the role of smugglers rises,” said Forin. “If policymakers don’t address why people turn to smugglers, they end up strengthening the very networks they’re trying to stop.”
