"We had been going to take a taxi for €500," he says, referring to the service provided by smugglers, who drop refugees off at the Austrian-German border in overcrowded, ramshackle vehicles.
With over 1,700 km of mostly open, unguarded shores, instability in Libya provides human smugglers with free rein to operate.
Facebook has come to the aid of a man accused by Italian prosecutors and British police of being one of the world's most wanted people smugglers, providing electronic data that suggests the detainee is a victim of mistaken identity.
In Helmand, the Taliban have forged an alliance with drug smugglers, providing protection for drug convoys and mounting attacks to keep the government away and the poppy flourishing, the new governor of Helmand, Muhammad Daud, said.
Federal agents on the Southwestern border missed several chances to arrest a suspected arms smuggler providing weapons to Mexican drug cartels, a Department of Justice investigation has concluded.
"Introducing measures to tackle smugglers, without providing safe alternative routes out for the people desperate to flee conflict in Libya, will not resolve the plight of migrants and refugees," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's director for the Middle East and North Africa.
Law-enforcement officials say the neighborhood has become the regional headquarters for the Cali and Medellin cocaine cartels, providing safe houses for smugglers and contract killers, warehouses for narcotics and businesses for laundering money.
In response to a question from Coburn about whether the soldiers might have been providing security to drug smugglers, Kerlikowske said his agency "does not have intelligence that directly connects (Mexican military) personnel to criminal activity".
The presence of legal ivory provided cover for smugglers trying to peddle illegal ivory sourced from poachers.
Several nations are already examining bank accounts held by Arab residents, while Nicaraguan officials are investigating claims that immigrant smugglers provided false documents to scores of Arab immigrants.
