"The contraband is different, but the methodologies used to smuggle and distribute and launder the proceeds are the same," Barry says.
This incursion appeared more limited in scope, targeting a network of tunnels along the enclave's northern, eastern and southern frontiers that militants use to smuggle weapons and fighters into Israel.
The area where the bodies were found is one of many along the border that gangs use to smuggle marijuana and cocaine into the United States.
Her hope is that mobile and other technologies will expose the routes that crooks use to smuggle children across countries and borders.
"The big issue is that the bad guys, the terrorists, would use channels that cartels and other organizations use to smuggle people, to also smuggle themselves and things that would be bad for security in the United States," said Carl Meacham, Americas specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The tunnels were dug in 2013, when the Syrian government began its blockade of Eastern Ghouta, and were used to smuggle food and people between the area and Qaboun and Barzeh.
People used to smuggle goats and cows and sheep in, but how are you supposed to bring cows over the border with all the security forces present?" Rostom and his family fled their home in the northern Syrian town of Jisr al-Shoughour in June, escaping an advancing government crackdown on the increasingly violent uprising against four decades of rule by the family of President Bashar al-Assad.
For now, however, the United States has decided that military strikes in Iran would be untenable and has concentrated on trying to disrupt the routes used to smuggle weapons and fighters across the border, and on diplomatic and financial pressure, those and other officials said.
They're tunnels that ultimately connect to underground water or sewer systems and are also used to smuggle people and drugs.
Israel says the Gaza coast and ships could be used to smuggle weapons and rockets into the strip.
