HUMAN TRAFFICKING IS THIRD LARGEST SOURCE OF ILL-GOTTEN PROFITS

KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 (Bernama) -- Human trafficking ranks as the third
largest source of ill-gotten financial gains for international organised crime,
after drug and arms trafficking, an Australian anti-money laundering expert
said.

Neil Jensen said that according to the International Labour Organisation
(ILO), estimates of profits to human traffickers ranged from US$10 billion to
US$31.6 billion annually, or US$13,000 per victim.

Jensen, the former chief executive officer of the Australian Transaction
Reports and Analysis Centre (Austrac), said:

"Nearly every country is involved as a country of origin, transit or
destination.

"However, despite the quantity of research, few studies were conducted to
quantify the number of trafficking victims or the profits, and to determine
where the money goes.

"This is due to differing laws between jurisdictions, some victims avoid
identification and lack of knowledge of trafficking," he said at the
Trafficking in Person - The Effects and the Red Flags for Identification'
session of the International Conference on Financial Crime and Terrorism
Financing 2010 here Tuesday.

Jensen said that among the traffickers' tools were coercion, deception,
fraud, abduction/smuggling, abuse of power and economic leverage.

He said the activities were often linked to fraud, extortion, racketeering,
money laundering, bribery, drugs, forgery and gambling.

According to Jensen, the traffickers comprised a wide range of people, from
small local networks to transnational organised crime syndicates.

In term of profits, he said that traffickers had a stable and regular source
of income with little risk.
-- BERNAMA