RT Article T1 Entrepreneurial elements of human smuggling rings: findings from a multiple case study JF Trends in organized crime VO 24 IS 3 SP 309 OP 323 A1 Costantino, Fabrizio A2 Di Nicola, Andrea LA English YR 2021 UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1767697724 AB Human smuggling towards Europe has reached an unprecedented level in the last years. The past decade has seen an intensification of the demand for irregular migration services, which increased the role of smuggling rings as service providers to assist irregular migrants in evading national border controls, migration regulations and visa requirements. These criminal organizations feature an entrepreneurial, rent-seeking behaviour using methods such as corruption, deceit, violence, and threats. Literature observes a number of elements which are essential for the establishment and development of any criminal organisation (capital collection, profit maximisation, differentiation of tasks, systems to conceal criminal money flows), but their actual presence within the human smuggling rings has never been verified. Using secondary sources, this contribution aims at verifying the presence of these entrepreneurial elements in the case of human smuggling rings by using a multiple case-study analysis. K1 Multiple case analysis K1 Irregular migration K1 Organized Crime K1 Human smuggling rings DO 10.1007/s12117-020-09390-y