EU’s law enforcement agency, Europol has launched its new European Centre Against Migrant Smuggling (ECAMS), stepping up the European Union fight against migrant smuggling networks that are threatening the lives of hundreds of thousands of migrants each year. Active across continents, these criminal networks are increasingly present online – recruiting associates, advertising their criminal services and luring migrants into life-threatening trips that cost thousands of euros for those who take the risk.

With ECAMS, Europol is strengthening its role at the centre of Europe’s response, bringing together intelligence, operational coordination and advanced analytics to help Member States dismantle criminal networks at scale. A renewed focus will be placed on intelligence-led and data-driven investigations, stepping up innovation and digital expertise, tackling the business model, following the money trail and increasing global partnerships.

Catherine De Bolle Europol’s Executive Director

“Migrant smuggling networks are operating with increasing complexity, both online and offline. They have a significant global dimension and rely on multi-layered financial infrastructures, including underground banking systems, to move and conceal their criminal profits. For more than a decade, Europol has been supporting Member States in tackling these threats. However, as the criminal landscape evolves, so too must our response. It is essential that our action remains agile, underpinned by strong operational intelligence and close cooperation at a global level. With the establishment of the European Centre Against Migrant Smuggling, Europol is now stepping up its efforts — enhancing its capacity to support Member States and reinforcing the collective response to this complex and evolving threat.

Support contributing to thousands of arrests in ten years

Over the past decade, since the launch of the European Migrant Smuggling Centre in 2016, Europol has steadily expanded its operational support to EU Member States in tackling migrant smuggling. Operations supported by Europol have led to thousands of arrests of suspected migrant smugglers and hundreds of networks dismantled.

Last year, Europol’s experts in tackling migrant smuggling supported almost 200 operations and coordinated 56 action days targeting criminal networks involved in migrant smuggling across Europe. Furthermore, Europol experts contributed to nine Operational Task Forces, focusing on the most dangerous and complex cases.

At the same time, in 2025 alone, Europol processed over 12 000 intelligence contributions and delivered more than 1 000 operational analytical reports, helping investigators identify High Value Targets and connect cases across borders.

Intelligence driving operations

With ECAMS, this already massive law enforcement support is further being scaled up. Europol’s efforts are moving closer to systematically disrupting entire criminal networks and their business models.

As the EU’s criminal information hub, Europol plays a central role in connecting intelligence across countries and cases. By combining data from Member States and partners, with advanced analytical tools, ECAMS enables investigators to map criminal networks, identify facilitators and prioritise high-risk targets. The intelligence-led approach allows law enforcement to act faster, coordinate more effectively and deliver greater operational impact.

Taking the fight online

Migrant smuggling is no longer confined to physical routes. Criminal networks increasingly operate in the digital space. They advertise services and lure migrants online, recruit associates in digital spaces and coordinate logistics through encrypted communications.

DigiNeX, a network of digital investigators from national law enforcement authorities, coordinated by Europol, focuses on open-sources monitoring, detection, analysis and disruption of online smuggling activities. By combining open-source intelligence, advanced analytics and cooperation with online platforms, ECAMS brings law enforcement into the digital environments where these networks operate.

Magnus Brunner

EU Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration

In December, we adopted the Global Alliance Declaration to Counter Migrant Smuggling. More than 60 international partners joined us in stepping up our engagement. Today, with the new European Centre Against Migrant Smuggling at Europol, we are taking a further key step: bringing together intelligence and strengthening cross-border cooperation, across the EU and beyond. This gives us a critical edge in the fight to dismantle smuggling operations and tackle the organised criminal groups profiting from the desperation of illegal migration.

By leveraging Europol’s OSINT capacity, law enforcement agencies can significantly enhance their investigative capabilities in the migrant smuggling landscape. On 18 and 19 March, over 30 experts took part in digital action days implemented within the work of a dedicated Joint Investigation Team targeting migrant smuggling networks active in the Mediterranean Sea. The investigators were also supported by law enforcement officers from DigiNeX. The common efforts focused on 10 High Value Targets and resulted in over 1 000 new investigative leads.

Hitting a billion euros worth of criminal business

Migrant smuggling is driven by profit, and ECAMS is designed to target the full criminal business model. Information contributed to Europol suggests that criminal networks ask as much as 20 000 EUR per person to smuggle migrants across continents, from their home countries to their final destinations. As an example, migrants would have paid up to EUR 15 000 to be smuggled from Iran to Germany, the Netherlands or the United Kingdom. Migrant smugglers took EUR 13 000 to bring migrants to Germany via the Western Balkan route.

By supporting financial investigations, Europol helps trace, freeze and confiscate criminal assets, disrupting the economic foundations of smuggling networks. This approach shifts the focus to the business model behind the crime, making it harder for networks to operate, expand and reinvest.

A global response to a global crime

Migrant smuggling networks operate also beyond EU borders, along routes that span multiple jurisdictions. Europol is aligned with EU efforts to expand dialogues with these countries, to fuel cross-border investigations that follow the whole-of-route approach. Through platforms such as the Joint Migrant Smuggling Action Team (J-MSAT) and the network of Guest Officers, ECAMS strengthens coordination with EU MS and international partners to target networks along entire routes.

Criminal networks often mislead migrants about the risks of their journeys, exposing them to dangerous conditions and exploitation. Alongside enforcement by tackling the increasingly violent migrant smuggling networks active on all routes, it is crucial to raise awareness of these risks and reduce the demand for smuggling services, while promoting safer and legal alternatives.

Building on ten years of the European Migrant Smuggling Centre, the launch of ECAMS marks a new phase in Europol’s work, adapting to a rapidly evolving threat.

By strengthening intelligence, expanding digital investigations and deepening international partnerships, Europol is reinforcing its support to Member States to dismantle migrant smuggling networks across borders, across routes and across online platforms.