Mexican law enforcement officials said in interviews that there were an estimated 130 small smuggling cells and 15 major smuggling organizations operating from this country's southern border with Guatemala to its 2,000-mile 2,000-mileh the United States.
Like his rivals, Carrillo started small, smuggling drugs from his Ciudad Juarez base for Colombian bosses for a fee.
Vlatko Vucelic was allegedly part of what experts call the "ant trade" – small-scale smuggling of firearms into and across Europe.
Besides, this type of small-scale smuggling would not be targeted by the local authorities.
The line between legality and illegality is sometimes blurred, and many illegal activities, such as small-scale smuggling,3 informal border crossings, and unregistered cross-border marriage,4 are publicly observable.
That will not only enforce Kaliningrad's isolation; it will also be a blow to the small-time smuggling of cheap vodka, cigarettes and petrol that provides a livelihood for thousands.
Though in possession of a handful of looted anti-aircraft missiles as well as a small number smuggled from Turkey, fighter jets remain the most dominant weapon in the Syrian civil war.
The country's current approach to border security has made coyotes more indispensable to migrants than ever, Brané told me, and has led to the replacement of small-time smuggling operations — lone guides, in many cases, bringing migrants across the border — with sophisticated, and increasingly brutal, transnational networks.
Militants waging war on the Egyptian state have warned that they aim to sow economic devastation as well as fear with their attacks, most recently in the bombing of a Russian charter plane last October, with a small device smuggled on to the Metrojet flight inside a soda can.
There have been several episodes of jihadists caught smuggling small arms from Libya to Mali or Algeria across Tunisia, for example, including two small trucks packed with Kalashnikovs and some manner of shoulder-fired missiles or grenades in June, said Ali Laarayedh, the interior minister.
He began in the cocaine business smuggling small quantities of coca paste from Peru to Colombia.
