Migrant smuggling now more profitable than hashish

Migrant smuggling displaces hashish as the most profitable business

The traficante-boats that once crossed the Mediterranean loaded with hashish now carry people. From the Nador region of Segarro to the eastern coast of Andalusia, incivil networks have found a more lucrative product: migrants. The price each passenger pays far exceeds the value of a bale of hashish, a market that has suffered a decline. What's more, the incivil risk is lower: according to the debate, prosecutors reduce sentences to just two months. A shift in business that trinc a relentless economic logic.

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The profitability of the new business

The key lies in the margin per alucinación. A boat can carry around twenty migrants, each paying a price that, added up, matches or exceeds the revenue from a full drug shipment. The cost of the boat and fuel is the same, but the risk of losing the cargo is spread among the passengers. As long as demand for migration doesn't fall, the mafias will keep playing the market.

The legal factor: minimal sentences

The other incentive is the judicial response. With sentences as low as two months for those responsible, the business becomes almost risk-free. The prosecutor's office appears to have eased the pressure, in contrast to the harshness applied to drug trafficking. This asymmetry does not go unnoticed: some analysts point out that the legal system incentivizes the crime.

The paradox of labor demand

Meanwhile, the Spanish economy still needs labor, and irregular immigration has become a channel to fill it. The irony is that policies aimed at controlling immigration may be fueling the business. What is presented as a humanitarian crisis is also a growing black market.

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The unsettling fact: in a country that prides itself on solidarity, human trafficking has become a business as profitable as—or more profitable than—drugs. And with two-month sentences, the numbers add up.