CHARM OFFENSIVE - Orient Aviation

m a i n s t o r yAssociation of Asia Pacific Airlines commercial director,Carlos Chua: criminal forces always one step aheadarrived by air.While airline officials have previously metamong themselves to discuss management ofthe issue, IATA’s October conference is the firstto be organised by the association to explorethe people smuggling problem.Airlines are not trying to pass the buckon the issue. “We believe the industryhas a certain level of responsibility, boththrough national legislation and broaderinternational conventions and agreements,”said Davidson.“But we find ourselves facing an organisedattack by illegal migrants. Governmentsknow individual airlines are spending millionsof dollars every year trying to do the best jobpossible, but at the end of the day there aregoing to be people coming through.“We are being held liable to the samelevel of documentation expertise by moststates as the states provide through their ownimmigration inspectors.“There is an expectation that we havecomplete expertise on the documents issuedby all countries and the entry requirementsimposed by all countries. The industry feels itis being held to an almost impossible level ofperformance.”IATA and other airline bodies such asthe AAPA are attacking the problem on anumber of fronts. They continue to workwith individual governments and bodies suchas the International Civil Aviation Organisation(ICAO) to seek enhanced co-operationbetween governments and airlines.“Airlines want to do what is right. Airlinesdo not want to carry this traffic because itis not in their interests to do so,” insistedDavidson.But IATA wants recognition from countriesthat airlines are the victims, not the problem.Sometimes the false passports are onlyintended to allow the illegal to gain access tothe airport. The document is then dumped inflight or passed to a gang courier who takes itback to be used again. The traveller arrives atthe destination with no documentation.“The airline is then left without a case. Wecannot show we have looked at this particulardocument nor prove it was of sufficient qualitywe could not have determined throughour level of expertise that this was a falsifieddocument,” said Davidson.“Without that document, states frequentlysay you failed in your check, thereforeyou are liable.”What is clear is that airlines have becomecentral pawns in the human trafficking industryand as the numbers of illegals rise, it isbecoming a costly business for the airlines andone the industry can ill afford.Report outlines threat to airlinesrecent top level U.S. Government report, details of whichA have been obtained by Orient Aviation, highlights whyairlines should be concerned about the booming business inhuman trafficking.A global assessment of international crime prepared by aworking group which included the Central Intelligence Agency,the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Secret Service forthe U.S. President’s International Crime Control Strategy, paints afrightening picture of what carriers in Asia and elsewhere face.International criminal networks have taken advantage ofdramatic changes in technology, world politics and the globaleconomy to become more sophisticated and flexible in their operations,the report concluded. “They have extensive worldwidenetworks and infrastructure to support their criminal operations.They are inherently flexible ... adapting quickly to challenges fromrivals and from law enforcement; they have tremendous financialresources to draw upon and are completely ruthless.Among its findings:• Major alien and drug smuggling cartels use transportationspecialists to research commercial flows and to learn abouttariff laws and administrative procedures in the world’smajor commercial ports. With this information, they canexploit international air, sea and land shipping to move illegalaliens, drugs, arms and other contraband past customsand law enforcers.• Globalisation has enabled organised crime groups to diversify.Nigerian and Asian crime groups engage in people smuggling.Russian and Asian crime groups traffic women for worldwidesex industries. Colombian drug traffickers are also involvedin counterfeiting.Illegal migration facilitated by organised alien smugglingnetworks is on the rise, said the report. “The easing of nationalborder controls worldwide, growth of commercial travel options,availability of technology that can be readily adapted to forgeidentification and travel documents and the rising sophisticationof global criminal networks are key factors contributing to thisdevelopment.”The U.S. report backs up what airlines have discovered.Criminal networks are highly efficient movers of people acrossnational frontiers. They have complex webs of operation coveringthe globe. They recruit people locally to handle their human“cargo”. These teams arrange their departure on flights, co-ordinatetravel processors who provide identification and necessarytravel documents and line up brokers along the way to facilitateintermediate passages and make arrangements for arrival at thefinal destination.22 | Orient Aviation | September 2001