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https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-026-01169-1
FORUM: ECOWAS: RETHINKING WEST AFRICAN INTEGRATION
European Migration Control and the Migrant Smuggling Enterprise
in West Africa: Using the Concept of Biometricycle to Explain
the “Corporate Smuggling” Dimensions
Victor Chidubem Iwuoha1
Accepted: 7 January 2026
© The Author(s) 2026
Abstract
This article discusses the European migration control system and its connection to the facilitation of migrant smuggling
in West Africa. Using Nigeria’s experience, the paper explores the key developments that contributed to the expansion of
the migrant smuggling business, namely, the European biometric ID systems, the digitalization of external borders, and
intensive border securitization. These key measures are linked to the emergence and deepening of the operations of the new
identity and document fraud cartel in Nigeria, a sub-component of the smuggling business model. I delineate a new con-
ceptual framework, “biometric border paradox,” to depict the contradiction of the European migration control system in its
external borders in Africa. The problem is linked to the new form of biometric ID and travel document fraud in corporate
(government) agencies: the “corporate smugglers.” I coin two key concepts to describe this modality: “biometricycle” and
“biometricyclists,” which refer to a tricycle-smuggling network that operates through the biometric ID system, involving
three groups: local identity-faking entrepreneurs, IT experts, and corporate officials within the government’s biometric ID
sector and immigration service. Vulnerable migrants who do not comply with the new biometric ID systems fall victim to
biometric ID and travel document fraud, which exposes them to certain types of identity conflicts, state criminalization, and
loss of social integration.
Keywords European migration control · Biometric ID system · Migrant smuggling · Biometricycle · Biometric border
paradox · Document fraud
Introduction
In recent years, African migratory patterns have been char-
acterized by migrant smuggling much more than legitimate
cross-border travel. As many as 292,985 African migrants
were believed to have been smuggled through the Mediter-
ranean routes and the Western African Atlantic routes into
various European countries, including Bulgaria, Cyprus,
Greece, Italy, Malta, and Spain in 2023 alone (IOM, 2024).
On average, each year, some 55,000 migrants are likely
smuggled from West, East, and North Africa into Europe,
generating an average of $150 million in revenue for crimi-
nals (UNODC, 2025). The reasons for the expansion of the
smuggling business in Africa remain understudied, yet they
are more external than internal. First, the European exter-
nalization policies in third countries, which bring European
migration control directly to the fringes of African border-
lands, are becoming stricter and tougher than ever expected
but have also unquestionably received overwhelming sub-
scription by African governments. These policies are strate-
gic and multi-centered, including stationing European bor-
der security officials, installing biometric border systems,
and providing cash compensation to repentant smugglers
through their national governments.
Second, African governments appear to feel more obli-
gated to deliver these mandates to their European coun-
terparts, which is a major conditionality to grab jumbo
chunks of the European migration control budget mapped
for third countries. For example, in West Africa, member
states of the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) are practically reneging on their commitment
to the ECOWAS free movement regimes, which accorded
migratory free entry and exit permits to all nationals in
* Victor Chidubem Iwuoha
victor.iwuoha@uni-bayreuth.de
1
University of Bayreuth, Bayreuth, Germany
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the subregion, by enforcing the new European biometric
ID system and invoking the exception for “inadmissible
immigrants” (Iwuoha, 2025a). This criminalizes what used
to be free movement of persons. But local facts show that
these practices are having an exceptionally negative impact
on African migrants and refugees who do not conform to
Western conceptions of identity. Moreover, these policies
have exacerbated identity fraud and illegal migration, as
they have been designed without local knowledge and with
a narrow conceptualization of security. Lastly, the worsening
economic conditions and insecurity in Africa are pushing
many African youths to foreign lands in search of greener
pastures. Therefore, smugglers take this advantage to recruit
a large number of migrant clients who are unable to access
legal channels of migration but are willing to take risks in
search of a better life abroad.
Migrant smuggling is a lucrative business estimated to be
worth as much as EUR 5 billion or more per year (European
Commission, 2025). Smugglers earned EUR 2.5 million in
one trip involving the cargo vessel Ezadeen, intercepted on
1 January 2015 by the EU Joint Operation Triton, which had
360 migrants on board (European Commission, 2015). The
major smuggling routes leading from West, East, and North
Africa to Europe and from South America to North America
generate approximately USD 6.75 billion a year (UNODC,
2025). According to the UNODC (2018) estimates, specific
smuggling routes generate sizeable revenues. For exam-
ple, smuggling into the European Union via the Western,
Central, and Eastern Mediterranean routes generates USD
320–550 million; smuggling via land routes from sub-Saha-
ran Africa to North Africa generates USD 1–1.5 billion; and
smuggling via land routes to North America generates USD
3.7–4.2 billion. Profit-seeking criminals control the smug-
gling business across different world regions, which makes
it a critical global concern. However, the complexity of the
smuggling business model, which is mostly covert and run
underground, also makes it very difficult to precisely deter-
mine the nature and size of this crime.
Article 3 of the UN Protocol against the Smuggling
of Migrants defines migrant smuggling as “the procure-
ment, in order to obtain, directly or indirectly, a financial
or other material benefit, of the illegal entry of a person
into a State Party of which the person is not a national
or permanent resident” (UNODC, 2000: Article 3). This
definition explains migrant smuggling in terms of (a)
irregular entry—crossing borders without complying
with the necessary requirements for legal entry into the
receiving state—and/or when (b) a financial or mate-
rial benefit is derived from such endeavor and/or when
(c) “Fraudulent travel or identity document” is involved.
Fraudulent identity documents are those (i) falsely made
or altered by anyone other than a person or government
agency lawfully authorized to make or issue them; or (ii)
improperly issued or obtained through misrepresentation,
corruption, or duress or in any other unlawful manner;
or (iii) used by a person other than the rightful holder
(UNODC, 2000: Article 3). The role of migrant “facilita-
tors” has also been identified and defined as involving the
act of rendering assistance to irregular migrants without
evidence of any financial or material benefit. Meanwhile,
forms of cross-border mobility vary and could be classified
in terms of travel documentation and assistance rendered,
such as “regular and independent; regular and facilitated;
irregular and independent; irregular and facilitated with
no financial or material benefit; or smuggled by agents”
(UNODC, 2022:4).
Reflecting on the Nigerian experience, this article links
the smuggling business model to the emerging biometric
ID and document fraud cartel in Nigeria. The key argu-
ment raised is that the nonconformity of most West Afri-
can migrants to biometric ID systems exposes them to
specific forms of identity conflicts, state criminalization,
and loss of social integration, making them vulnerable
to biometric ID and travel document fraud as alternative
means to migration into Europe. The study investigates the
new agency of biometric ID and travel document fraud as
channelled through corporate agencies via a deeply imbri-
cated corrupt and patronage system. Migrants are rapidly
collaborating with emerging smuggler cells—“corporate
smugglers” in government bureaucracies—to obtain the
host’s national e-ID cards for cross-border movements,
without being citizens. The Africa-Frontex Intelligence
Community’s (AFIC) reports list 3100–5000 migrants with
national e-ID document fraud cases in each African coun-
try annually (Frontex, 2023). Between 2019 and 2022, the
Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) confiscated over 5000
national e-ID cards from non-Nigerians, including Nige-
rien and Malian migrants. But European migration actors
and donors do not see this unfolding African dimension of
the issue hinged on local facts; hence, they reproduce coun-
terproductive policies that stimulate dangerous migration.
Extant literature on EU externalization and biometric
policies is sharply divided across border securitization
(Acharya, 2016; Torpey, 2018; Frowd, 2020; Lavenex and
Piper, 2022; Grünenberg et al., 2022; Iwuoha, 2025b) and
human rights abuses and de-protection (Brachet, 2018;
Fargues, 2020; FitzGerald, 2020; Ligouri, 2021; Bello,
2022; Dauchy, 2023). Other studies discuss EU anti-
migrant smuggling policies (Brachet, 2018; Ursu, 2018;
Ligouri, 2021; Sanchez et al. 2021; European Commis-
sion, 2021; Iwuoha and Doevenspeck, 2025a; 2025b).
However, what remains understudied is the causal rela-
tionship between European migration control systems and
the emerging corporate smuggler cells and their identity
and document fraud dimensions in Nigeria and West
Africa generally. This article precisely addresses this need.
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While there is an abundance of research on the European
external border policies and a great deal of research on some
of their problematic consequences and externalities, there is
very little research on these issues by African researchers.
This study leverages this gap to introduce a new concep-
tual framework, “biometric border paradox,” to depict the
contradiction of the European migration control system in
its external borders in Africa. The problem is linked to the
new form of biometric ID and travel document fraud in cor-
porate (government) agencies: the “corporate smugglers.”
This is further explained using the concept of “biometri-
cycle” to depict a tricycle-smuggling network that operates
through the biometric ID system, involving three groups:
local identity-faking entrepreneurs, IT experts, and corporate
officials within the government’s biometric ID sector and
immigration service.
This article seeks to stimulate conversation with African
scholarship and emphasize untold dimensions of the issue
that an African perspective is uniquely positioned to iden-
tify and analyze. The study emphasizes that the European
migration control systems in West Africa have intervened
at several levels, negatively, as policies have been designed
without sensitivity to local facts.
European Biometric ID Borders: The New Frontier
of Migration Control in West Africa
Since 2018, the Integrated Border Management (IBM) unit
of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has
continued to install biometric ID scanners at several West
African borders in cooperation with national governments.
These heavily funded European biometric ID projects have
significantly transformed African borders into biometric bor-
ders. The projects come in phases across Africa; the new
Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS)
technology can be seen in several border posts between Bur-
kina Faso and Niger (Kantchari–Makalondi), Benin (Malan-
ville), Nigeria (Dan Issa/Farou, Dan Barto, Sassoumbroune,
and three other borderlands), and Mali (Kundikaré) (Dauchy,
2023). MIDAS is also mounted in Gambia’s Upper Region’s
new border post in Sabi, an expansive border region cover-
ing the country’s 749-km-long borderland with Senegal. In
Sabi alone, more than 4000 traveler entries were recorded
on MIDAS in the last quarter of 2021 (IOM, 2022). The
MIDAS is an EU tool for migration control; it collects
migrants’ data in real time and utilizes it as the statistical
basis for developing EU migration control formats.
Migrants’ fingerprints and facial images are collected and
analyzed across West African borders via the EU’s mul-
tiple interoperable biometric ID technologies, such as the
MIDAS, West African Police Information System (WAPIS),
and Criminal Automated Fingerprint Identification System
(AFIS). AFIC shares intelligence on counter-smuggling data
and operates risk analysis cells in eight African countries:
Niger, Gambia, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya, Guinea, Mali, and
Nigeria (European Parliament, 2019).
Meanwhile, the Nigerian government has finalized the
project of digital border installation across the country’s exit
points. Nigeria spent 52 billion naira ($39 million) in 2019
to install an electronic border surveillance system, includ-
ing MIDAS and other biometric devices, to enable real-
time surveillance and human biometric ID checks across
Nigeria’s extensive 4447 km of land, air, and sea borders.
In 2024, more than 80 checkpoints were equipped with the
surveillance system to provide intelligence and monitor the
movement of persons across the borders in real time. With
the electronic gates mounted in Nigeria’s five international
airports, the NIS officials have been able to detect suspicious
travels and arrest suspected individuals who have criminal
records, such as migrant smugglers and human traffickers
(Tribuneonline, 2025). The e-border technologies are also
linked in a central database that shares information with
other relevant departments involved in combating migrant
smuggling and human trafficking in Nigeria.
However, there is clear little evidence to suggest that these
European migration control initiatives have scaled down
the activities of migrant smuggling networks in Nigeria and
West Africa generally, despite the EU’s rampant installa-
tion of biometric ID borders. What is always visible has
been multiple cases of migrant criminalization, dehumaniza-
tion, and abuse meted out to vulnerable migrants (Leonard
and Kaunert, 2022) who lack the means and wherewithal
to engage high-profile smugglers whose emerging criminal
networks can overcome document- and identity-related bar-
riers to irregular migration.
Nigeria’s Counter‑Smuggling Responses: Legal
and Institutional Frameworks
Nigeria is ranked 1 st among smuggling countries in West
Africa and 6th out of 10 in Africa, while in human traffick-
ing it ranks 7th out of 10 (GI-TOC, 2023). The National
Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAP-
TIP) is the mainstream agency that combats human traffick-
ing in Nigeria. The agency receives its legal power from
the Trafficking in Persons Act (2015). This law criminal-
izes acts of human trafficking carried out for the purpose
of forced labor, sexual exploitation, and organ harvesting.
The law provides protection for victims of human traffick-
ing and prescribes penalties for offenders. The Child Rights
Act (2003) protects children from exploitation and criminal-
izes all forms of child abuse, including sexual abuse, child
labor, and trafficking. The Money Laundering (Prevention
and Prohibition) Act (2022) provides comprehensive legal
and institutional capacity to combat money laundering and
related offenses, including money laundered from human
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smuggling and trafficking, sexual exploitation, and fraudu-
lent overseas transactions. The Penal and Criminal Codes
used are also important institutional frameworks adopted
in Nigerian courts to prosecute and punish offenses related
to criminal abduction, forced/child labor, smuggling, and
sexual exploitation.
Importantly, the Nigerian Immigration Service (NIS) is
primarily established to control human migration across all
Nigerian borders and oversee all related matters thereto.
The Nigerian Immigration Act No. 8 of 2015 prohibits and
enforces the criminalization of migrant smuggling in Nigeria
(see Part X). According to the Act, “No person shall, for
financial or any other material benefit, by means of a fraudu-
lent travel or identity document, procure[s] the illegal entry
of a person into, or the illegal stay of a person in, a country
of which that person is not a national or permanent resident”
(Art. 64). For clarity, the Act defines illegal entry as “cross-
ing borders without complying with the necessary require-
ments for legal entry into the receiving State and includes
any crossing of a border at an irregular border point” (Art.
65 no. 4). Here, an irregular border point refers to “any point
on any border of a country which is not an officially desig-
nated entry or exit point into or out of that country” (Act,
65 no. 5). Part XI mentions the major offenses relating to
migrant smuggling, enablement of illegal residence, and
the procurement of fraudulent identity or travel documents.
Migrant smuggling is defined as follows:
Any person who intentionally or knowingly, in order to
obtain directly or indirectly, a financial or other mate-
rial benefit, procures the illegal entry of a person into
a country of which the person is not a national or per-
manent resident, commits an offence and is liable on
conviction to imprisonment for a term of ten years or
a fine of not less than one million Naira or both, and is
in addition liable to refund to the migrant all monies
obtained from him in the course of the commission of
the offence (Nigerian Immigration Act, 2015, Art. 64).
For smuggler offenses relating to the endangerment of
the lives of migrants, subjection of smuggled individu-
als to torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, as
well as exploitation, the offender shall be liable to 14 years
of imprisonment or a fine of 2 million naira, or both. The
offender is also liable to refund the smuggling fee received
and pay compensation to the migrant, as may be directed by
the court. The Act provides for the establishment of a direc-
torate with responsibility for enforcing the criminalization
of migrant smuggling, promoting restitution (see Part XII),
and promoting civil liberties for smuggled victims (see Part
XIV).
Nigeria’s National Migration Policy, adopted in 2015,
provides the policy framework for combating migrant
smuggling in Nigeria. This policy guide conforms to extant
migration control formats globally, including the UN
Migrant Smuggling Protocol. It describes how NIS shall
enforce migration control across Nigerian borders. This
includes five international airports (Abuja, Enugu, Kano,
Lagos, and Port Harcourt), six seaports (in Lagos, Cross
River, Rivers, and Delta States), and 114 official land bor-
der crossings. The Nigerian land borders intertwine with
Niger and Chad in the north, Cameroon in the east, and
Benin in the west. Of the sixteen Nigerian states that have
international land borders, the borders in northern Nigerian
states connecting Niger experience the highest regular traffic
(UNODC, 2022).
Combating migrant smuggling at the national borders
has always involved a collaborative approach among law
enforcement agencies. NIS works in collaboration with
the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), the Armed Forces, the
State Security Service (DSS), the Nigeria Security and
Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), Nigeria Customs Service,
NAPTIP, and the Nigeria Drug Law Enforcement Agency
(NDLEA) in controlling Nigerian borders. The National
Commission for Refugees, Migrants, and Internally Dis-
placed Persons (NCFRMI) is in charge of developing tech-
nical formats at the multi-agency technical committee level
on operational activities related to migration.
NIS has made several arrests of Nigerian migrant smug-
glers across Nigerian borders. In recent years, most cases
involved the provision of fraudulent identity and travel
documents to migrants by smugglers (Nigeria Immigration
Service, 2018). In 2018, some 209 migrants with forged
documents were arrested in Niger, Adamawa, Kano, Edo,
and Kaduna, while 34 smugglers were arrested in Lagos,
Niger, Kano, and Edo states (NBS, 2019). This progress
was made through proactive intelligence gathering, under-
cover operations, and outreach activities in partnership with
local community groups (Optimity Advisors, ICMPD, and
ECRE, 2015). NIS conducts regular patrols across key exit
points such as motor parks in Kano, hotels, and local drink-
ing joints in other northern borderland regions where most
irregular migrations are planned by smugglers. Tip-offs from
informants in Kano motor parks and Mallam Aminu Kano
International Airport help NIS officials to closely monitor
suspicious travel patterns originating from northern Nigerian
borders to Niger’s Agadez.
NIS also adopts internal preventive approaches, such
as denying passport applications suspected to be used for
the facilitation of irregular migration. NIS processed and
issued approximately 9.31 million passports from 2015
to 2022, with 1,899,683 being the highest record in 2022
alone. NIS produced 2,141,300 in 2023 and 1,836,533 in
2024 (Nigeria Immigration Service, 2018; Sahara Reporters,
26 January 2023; Punch, 6 February 2024; The Nation, 28
January 2025). Notably, NIS rejected all suspicious applica-
tions within this period. There are also supportive actions
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from the local authorities in Nigeria, which help to intercept
migrant smugglers and human traffickers by mounting road-
blocks on checkpoints at night across major roads in the city.
Meanwhile, the European Union (EU) has been support-
ive of Nigeria’s anti-smuggling campaign. In 2021, the EU
launched the program Action Against Trafficking in Persons
and Smuggling of Migrants (A-TIPSOM) Project in Nigeria.
The EU invested 10 million euros in this project to aid in
policies that promote the protection of smuggled victims as
well as the prosecution of offenders within the ECOWAS
subregion (Vanguard News, 2021). The goal is to facilitate
close collaboration between border security agencies and
other law enforcement authorities to tackle smuggling in
Nigeria. This also involves strategic partnership and synergy
among a number of anti-human trafficking and smuggling
stakeholder groups, which include the NIS, NAPTIP, Nige-
ria Police Force, and Network of CSOs Against Trafficking,
Abuse, and Labour (NACTAL-Nigeria). The A-TIPSOM
program is hinged on cooperation at the national, regional,
and international levels, focusing on the 5 Ps strategy (Pol-
icy, Prevention, Protection, Prosecution, and Partnership).
The French government’s Ministry of Interior and the
International Security Cooperation Department launched
a project, the “Joint Operational Partnership (JOP)—Nige-
ria: Combatting migrant smuggling and human trafficking.”
The goal is to support NAPTIP’s capacities and promote
actions that facilitate the investigation and prosecution of
smugglers. This is intended to strengthen regional and inter-
national cooperation towards dismantling human trafficking
and smuggling networks. The project has a budget of €1.4
million, which will finance costs related to technical equip-
ment, operational support, and training of personnel at a
regional level (Milipol, 2025).
Methodology
This research is based on qualitative analysis, focused group
discussions, and observation in the Jibia border region in
Katsina State, Nigeria, which shares a border with Niger.
A 3-month investigation was conducted between Octo-
ber and December 2024, with follow-up contacts until
November 2025. This involved some 12 participants in the
Nigeria-Niger Jibia border region/close communities, who
included Nigerian, Chadian, Nigerien, Beninese, and Togo-
lese migrants, migrant facilitators, and border community
members. These participants either engaged in cross-border
migration or actively participated in the local economic life.
The Jibia border stretches to Niger’s Maradi border and pre-
sents a strategic and historically vital route for cross-border
trade and commerce, especially for agricultural goods, live-
stock, and textiles. However, criminal activities also hap-
pen across this borderland region as border communities
continue to experience a surge in cross-border crime and
insecurity, including banditry and smuggling, which affect
their livelihoods.
In addition, in-depth and semi-structured interviews were
conducted in Abuja, Lagos, and Benin between September
2022 and March 2024. A purposive sampling method was
used to select 16 stakeholders and experts in biometric ID
and the digital enrollment program for in-depth interviews.
This included 5 officials from the National Identity Manage-
ment Commission (NIMC) (3 officials from Abuja head-
quarters and 2 officials from the Benin regional office); 2
officials of the Nigerian Immigration Service in Enugu; and
9 National Identity Number (NIN) enrollment agents (three
agents were selected each in Abuja, Lagos, and Benin). The
researcher utilized the snowball/referral method to reach
all the study participants. On occasions where face-to-face
interviews proved impossible, other communication chan-
nels were explored, including Zoom meetings, emails, tel-
ephone calls, and WhatsApp calls/chats. Document analysis
and systematic content analysis were used to interpret quali-
tative textual data, including those generated from interview
transcripts as well as forensic reports from the Nigerian
Financial Intelligence Unit (NFIU).
Nigeria‑Niger Migrant Smuggling Routes
The Jibia-Maradi border, which connects northern Nigeria to
Niger, is a vital and prominent crossing point for both inter-
national migrant routes and traders. The Jibia-Maradi border
region stretches about 1600 km (994 miles) long, connect-
ing Nigeria’s northwest state, Katsina, to Niger’s Maradi.
The borderland also extends to other neighboring north-
ern states, including Kaduna, Kano, Sokoto, Jigawa, and
Kaduna. In Niger, about five regions are bordering Nigeria,
namely, Zinder, Tahoua, Maradi, Dosso, and Diffa. In 2022
alone, cross-border trade between Nigeria and Niger was
estimated at $226 million (Salmanu, 2024). However, the
border was closed in August 2023 by the Economic Commu-
nity of West African States (ECOWAS) as part of the sanc-
tions in response to the military coup d’état in Niger, which
ousted former President Mohamed Bazoum. As expected,
the border closure drastically cut the high flow of cross-
border activities and trade in the borderland, devastating the
thriving migrant economies run by local communities on
both sides of the border frontiers. Beyond the immediate
effects of the border closure on border communities, civil-
ians in Nigeria and Niger faced soaring food prices and high
unemployment rates.
However, economic life and normalcy returned to the bor-
der region in April 2024 following the lifting of the imposed
sanction by ECOWAS. The local migrant economy bounced
back, and migrant facilitators met at the border region and
noted that their hardships were over. Meanwhile, the opening
of the border coincided with the long-awaited declaration
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that China had agreed to release $1.3 billion in funding to
complete the Kano-Maradi railway project, a railway pro-
ject linking Kano, Nigeria’s largest northern city, to Maradi
in Niger. China’s consortium, the China Civil Engineering
Construction Corporation (CCECC), covered about 85%,
while the Nigerian government contributed the remaining
15% (Salmanu, 2024).
Smuggling Economy and Fees: Full Package
or “Pay‑as‑You‑Go”
The smuggling journey is fully dependent on how much
migrants are willing to pay either for a comprehensive
“full package” or the pay-as-you-go plan. While compre-
hensive deals are more expensive, they are also relatively
safer, faster, and with a higher guarantee of success. But less
financially capable migrants always opted for pay-as-you-go,
in which they make payments in bits to different smugglers
at specific points in the journey. West African journeys to
Europe are very costly, segmented, and not straightforward.
This is why many smugglers resettle their clients in North
Africa for longer periods so they can earn sufficient money
to cater for the impending expenses required for the rest
of the journey. Nigerian migrants pay between $2000 and
$3000 to smugglers, otherwise known as “burgers,” who
cross them from Agadez in Niger to Libya and into Europe
(UNODC, 2025). Although the migrants at Jibia maintained
that smuggling fees are not fixed but usually negotiated
between the facilitator and clients, sometimes depending
on a number of factors such as the perceived financial status
of the clients, designated travel routes, anticipated bribery
amounts, and accommodation needs.1 However, migrants
pay an average of $600–$900 each for their travel to North
Africa. This is a comprehensive plan that covers smuggling
fees, bribes, transportation, and miscellaneous expenses
incurred on the trip (UNODC, 2022).
Other West and East African countries move through
dangerous inland routes, including Gao, Addis Ababa,
and Cairo, to reach coastal ports of Algeria, Egypt, Libya,
Morocco, and Turkey, from where they are smuggled by
boats to their various destination points in Europe. Smug-
glers who had to maximize space for their “cargo” packed
their clients like sardines in trucks or rickety boats during
the journey, with many smuggled persons suffering various
degrees of abuse from rape, beating, and starvation. Many
smuggled individuals who arrived in Europe remain in debt
bondage, and in most cases their families become victims
of blackmail. Debt bonds are unusually high, meaning that
clients may never offset them in their lifetime, but the fear
of deportation or violence keeps them perpetually in bond-
age. Apart from the huge financial returns, smuggling there-
fore reinforces organized criminality and fuels bureaucratic
corruption through the bribery of border security officials
across the countries of origin, transit, or destination. For
example, migrants who arrived in Agadez had to pay 10,000
CFA francs (€15) to settle the police at the checkpoint out-
side the town, and of this amount, the municipal authorities
received 1000 CFA francs (€2) (UNODC, 2011).
Migrants could pay between 100,000 and 120,000 CFA
francs (€152–€183) as a smuggling fee when they pass
through Niger’s Agadez. This amount is usually shared
with transporters, the passeurs, and the agent in the ratio of
60, 30, and 10%, respectively. To further reach the Libyan
border, crossing through Dirkou, the Sahara garrison town,
migrants move in convoys that could take 1 month. In this
journey, migrants settle with the police for 5000 CFA francs,
pay 2000 CFA francs to the gendarmerie, and 1000 CFA
francs to the municipality, totaling 9000 CFA francs (€14).
It is estimated that local authorities collected as much as
55.6 million CFA francs (€85,000), or €324,000 per year,
in bribes alone in one single city (UNODC, 2011). On the
Algeria-Mali border, migrants normally paid around 22,500
CFA francs (€34), whereas those that went through the offi-
cially closed Morocco-Algeria border paid higher amounts.
Migrants who travelled through North Africa generally paid
90,000 and 225,000 CFA francs (€137–€343).
Nigerian Smuggling Industry and Operational
Networks
Basically, most smugglers in Katsina and Kano, or “burg-
ers,” are respected natives of the border communities who
enjoy a flamboyant lifestyle.2 These smuggling specialists
also recruit their kith and kin in order to aid their illegal
operations and criminal activities, thus financing new forms
of border insecurity. The smuggler pyramid is flexible and
elastic, involving a complex network of actors such as the
frontmen or touts, the intermediaries or brokers, and the
high-level passeurs or “burgers,” all of whom play distinc-
tive roles and maintain specific forms of service and social
relationships with the clients. The frontmen roam around
the border regions scouting for naive or stranded migrants
to link them up for business. The intermediaries or brokers
are more experienced and knowledgeable in the business
with far-reaching contacts, and they make ad hoc connec-
tions between clients and top smugglers.3 Normally, they are
1 Interview with two Nigerian migrants, Jibia, October 2024.
2 Interview with one Nigerian trader in Jibia, October 2024.
3 FGDs with one Nigerian and two Nigerien migrants in Jibia,
November 2024.
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the ones who bargain for the business at the first instance,
informing their clients about all options beforehand prior to
finalizing the agreement with the top passeur for the final
decision. They are always in direct contact with individual
migrants and organize their lodging and related concerns.
On the other hand, it is the responsibility of the top pas-
seur to finalize transportation services for their clients and
also arrange some policemen and security guards who play
critical roles in the planning of the journey by providing
short-term security, intelligence, and professional guidance
for the journey. The Boko Haram, the former Tuareg rebels,
and Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb are the major bandit
groups that control the smuggling routes from West Africa
to the Libyan border, and these routes are very notorious
for transporting hard drugs, including cocaine and cannabis,
from West Africa to Europe. In some cases, migrants were
approached by brokers who persuaded and convinced them
to carry small wraps of heroin across the Sahara into Europe.
Transporters, who lined up their trucks filled with migrants,
always joined a monthly military convoy from the Niger
army garrison at Dirkou, moving to Agadez for security pur-
poses (UNODC, 2011, 2018, 2022; Ursu, 2018).
The smuggling economy is thus booming in Africa due
to the long network of criminality involved, the bureaucratic
connivance, and the willingness of clients to pay. Since jour-
neys from Nigeria to North African countries could last for
several months, the need for providing makeshift accommo-
dation for migrants becomes extremely necessary. Usually
“hustlers” or front agents are found scattered around the bor-
der communities acting as gateways to the leading smugglers
who own lodging spaces, or “ghettos,” rented to clients for a
specified period in readiness for the long journey.4 The ghet-
tos are also found in Niger’s Agadez town center and lorry
park areas, nicknamed “maassou ghetto” or “maï guida.”
The ghettos, or “safe houses,” are located around the border
crossings, and each apartment may contain a maximum of
10 persons. Meanwhile, Nigeria has also become a transit
country. Nigerian-based Ghanaians who operate organized
criminal networks arrange the transportation of migrants
from Ghana to Antigua via Nigeria. The migrants are first
transported to Abuja and Lagos in Nigeria, from where they
board a chartered flight to Antigua and other countries, aided
by corrupt officials at the airports (NFIU, 2025).
The question as to where the proceeds of smuggling are
invested has also generated a lot of concern, particularly
among anti-smuggling agencies and policy makers. Smug-
glers invest the proceeds from the business in different areas.
This includes investing in real estate in popular locations,
purchasing cars, trading in cryptocurrency, and investing
in several legitimate businesses. A Nigerian smuggler who
recruited over 40 young girls for forced labor and sexual
exploitation in Libya utilized wire transfers to launder his
proceeds from Libya to Nigeria, which he invested in landed
properties in popular cities in Nigeria. Similarly, a Nigerian
woman who exploited young women from southern Nige-
ria for forced labor and sexual exploitation in Dubai under
the pretext of a false job opportunity laundered her illicit
earnings through the gold trade. She bought gold bullion
in Dubai and smuggled it back into Nigeria and resold it
through her legitimate gold business (NIFU, 2025). This
exemplifies how criminal profits are reinvested into legiti-
mate businesses, thus creating a façade of legality without
any suspicions from government authorities.
Sometimes, the criminal proceeds are channeled through
family associates, including families of trafficked victims.
A Nigerian student received multiple fund transfers totaling
USD 13,000.00 in 8 months into her account from Kuwait,
also a destination for child labor and sex trafficking, via the
Money Value Transfer Service (MVTS). She also received
huge amounts from other locations abroad via the MVTS,
which she resent to family associates and her accomplices
using prepaid cards. In August 2022, a Lagos-based female
smuggler received the sum of USD 1515.00 via MoneyGram
from her collaborators in Lebanon and Cameroon laundered
as family support even though she had no family ties with the
sender. She resent about $4582.70 to another Lagos-based
collaborator in three transactions within 1 month (NFIU,
2025). In November 2022, a Nigerian female smuggler
arranged the transportation of two girls from Ibadan, Oyo
State, to Libya, through Sokoto, Kebbi, and the Republic of
Niger. The financial network behind the operation involved
an unlicensed Bureau de Change (BDC) agent in Kano and
a collaborator in Libya. The BDC agent received ₦25 mil-
lion weekly in US dollars from other agents in Dubai, who
converted and transferred the funds to him based on instruc-
tions from the Libyan anchorman. The agent laundered more
than ₦1.5 billion in 2 years through unregulated financial
channels (NFIU, 2025). Teenage girls are also used to smug-
gle cash. A 15-year-old Benin girl who falsely obtained a
Nigerian passport to facilitate her travel to Ghana for work
was apprehended at the Seme Border by the Nigeria Immi-
gration Service. She had with her US dollars equivalent to
eleven million naira, which she claimed was given to her by
her facilitator to deliver to her assigned madam in Ghana
(NFIU, 2025).
At the Seme Border, the Nigeria Immigration appre-
hended a 15-year-old girl, a citizen of the Republic of Benin,
who falsely claimed to be Nigerian using a fake Nigerian
passport. During interrogation, it was discovered that she
was not Nigerian but had travelled to Nigeria to obtain a
Nigerian passport through an agent to facilitate her journey
to Ghana for work. Upon instructing the driver to unload
her luggage, officials later found that she was carrying US
4 Field observation in Jibia, October 2024.
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dollars equivalent to eleven million naira. According to the
girl, the agent had given her the money to deliver to the
woman she would be working for in Ghana.
Smugglers and the Female Migrants
Between 2016 and 2018, more than 20,000 Nigerian women,
many of whom were minors, arrived in Italy via the Medi-
terranean. The UN estimates that some 80% of this num-
ber were victims of human smuggling or faced great risk of
becoming a victim (Scholz, 2019). Some female migrants
travel independently and opt for full-package services,
while others pay by installment and rely on their agents to
get to their final destinations. Informants5 revealed that male
travelers were always asked by smugglers to make their full
payments, whereas the females were simply asked for part
payment or no commitment fee at all as a way to attract them
and encourage their patronage. This promotes the syndrome
of debt bondage from the start of the journey, making female
migrants more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, violence,
and abuse during the journey and forced labor or prostitu-
tion at the final destination. In some cases, trafficked women
were encouraged by smugglers to have sexual relationships
with security operatives and even criminal groups as part of
a settlement in order to facilitate their travel.
Smugglers are particularly interested in this arrangement,
as it could help to cut down the amount of bribe they pay
on the way by more than half, thereby saving more costs
and making more income. In some situations, female clients
who did not consent to sexual exploitation were stripped
and raped on the way and, upon their destination, forced
into prostitution by blackmail over the debt bondage. Even
independent female migrants on pay-as-you-go pacts who
ran out of money along the journey and became stranded
were blackmailed into debt bondage and prostitution. Some
female migrants blackmailed over debt bondage end up
being “traded” by smugglers from one network to another,
with repayment fees calculated based on estimated future
earning capacity. Top passeurs are responsible for these
agreements and maintain very effective transnational com-
munication networks.
Besides, they employ their skills and far-reaching net-
works to arrange fake documents for these clients as required
in specific locations in order to continue exploiting them. In
2017, one Nigerian smuggler trafficked 24 young women to
Italy via Niger and Libya and collected all smuggling fees in
cash. The victims were lured with the promise of job oppor-
tunities in Italy (NFIU, 2025). Smugglers also collaborate
with old-time female migrants who arrange for temporary
accommodation for arriving females, some of whom are sex-
ually abused and pushed into prostitution in order to offset or
redeem their hanging debt bondage. These old-time migrants
are regarded as madams who manage the girls as clients
for the prostitution business and make remittances directly
to top smugglers in charge. For instance, many Nigerian
women who arrived in Italy have had to bear debt burdens
of about £40,000 accrued for their journey from Nigeria to
Italy, which they are obliged to repay by installments (The
Guardian, 2016).
In a typical case of trafficking in persons,6 smugglers
made phantom promises of securing legitimate employment
to their clients and carried out rituals, voodoo, or “juju” cer-
emonies in the process of recruitment to gain psychologi-
cal control over their clients. Potential female clients were
always subjected to traditional oath-taking in shrine or ritual
procedures that may require sacrifices that would be binding
on them. These women were meant to believe that calamity
and misfortune would befall them and their families at home
should they ever nurse the thought of breaking the oath or
reneging from fulfilling its demands. In some cases, the vic-
tims were asked to drink blood mixed with some substances,
eat chicken hearts, and have powdery substances rubbed into
cuts. This is how these unsuspecting young girls and women
are forced into prostitution in the brothels across Europe.
In one popular case tried in France, prosecutors estimated
that 17 alleged victims, aged 17 to 38, contributed about
150,000 euros a month for the syndicate, selling sex for as
little as 10 euros. The accused engaged in a variety of activi-
ties within the broad sex trafficking trade, from “madams”
to pimps, from drivers of the trucks in which the women
perform sexual acts to those laundering the proceeds of the
trafficking (Info Migrants, 2019). The Nigerian government
estimated the number of Nigerian teenage girls held captive
by the sex-slave trade in Libya and Morocco at 10,000, most
of whom come from Edo State, Nigeria (Salem, 2009). The
value of smuggled women who engage in prostitution in their
destination countries could be as much as $228 million per
year (UNODC, 2011). In the past, this practice used to be
a popular business in Edo State, where parents encouraged
their children to join and even made the connections on their
behalf, but in recent times, these practices are also commonly
seen in other parts of Nigeria. These smugglers collaborate
with human traffickers in North Africa who smuggle these
women into Europe for the prostitution business.
Biometric ID and Travel Document Fraud in Nigeria
Migrant smuggling and human trafficking are generally
facilitated by the use of forged identity and travel and
5 Informal conversations with one facilitator and three migrants from
Niger in Jibia, October 2024.
6 This was a popular view among all study participants in Jibia.
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identity documents.7 Smugglers move their clients across
borders undetected through the use of fraudulent identity and
travel documents. There are specific ways by which smug-
glers carry out document fraud in Nigeria. First, by creat-
ing a false or forged document. This involves the recreation
of a genuine document that may belong to real individuals
in order to produce a counterfeit, fake, modified, or altered
copy of the original document (i.e., by changing names, fal-
sifying signatures, and dates). Second, genuine documents
belonging to other individuals may be obtained through
deception, coercion, or corruption from authorized govern-
ment agencies. In other cases, real documents are obtained
officially but with fraudulent identity and forged or fake
supporting documents.8 Lastly, real documents belonging
to other individuals may be used by other persons acting as
impostors or look-alikes. For instance, false identification
documents, including false birth certificates and national
identification numbers, had been used to obtain passports
in Nigeria (Iwuoha and Doevenspeck, 2023). While the gov-
ernment is increasing the quality of identity and travel docu-
ments, smugglers are also improving the quality of docu-
ment fraud. Forged documents have become so sophisticated
that they can be reused several times for international travel.
For example, visas can be reused several times throughout
their validity date, while the same passport can be used to
smuggle several look-alike individuals at different times. In
addition to these levels of sophistication, new methods of
document abuse involved document swapping to facilitate
migrant smuggling by air. In some instances, passports,
flight tickets, and boarding passes are swapped in airport
transit zones.
Passport theft is very common and has become an impor-
tant document fraud method used by smugglers. Stolen
passports are resold and reused in the smuggling market.
Sometimes, migrants themselves or their family members
are involved in this crime, as they sell their own passports for
a fee while reporting them lost or stolen to the authorities. In
such cases, and of course, with the reality of official corrup-
tion, perpetrators get re-issued with new passports over and
over again. A common technique used by smugglers to alter
passport documents is to change the biodata page. This act is
often facilitated by corrupt officials who effect these changes
on blank pages of passports using official printing materials.
An official of the Nigerian Immigration Service reports that;
We are receiving a lot of complaints of stolen pass-
ports and even cases of forged passports. We are not
even talking of the cases of impersonation where crim-
inals sell passports to migrants who use other people’s
passports to travel, claiming ownership. All these are
happening because many Nigerian youths who are
jobless want to travel abroad to make money. As for
how this is possible, I cannot say exactly, but I know
that there are also some bad eggs in the immigration
service who help these criminals to do these things.9
In rare cases, clients may be required to undergo plastic
surgery or bodily alterations such as deforming one’s fin-
gerprint. The aim is to evade detection by facial recognition
technology and fingerprint scanners so as to conceal identity
theft (UNODC, 2010). While it is common to have impostors
who are assigned stolen or altered passports, smugglers also
work in collaboration with professional forgers who produce
fake passports in document factories. Professional forgers
are known to deploy high-powered imported technology to
produce quality counterfeit identity documents.10 However,
the recent sophistication of immigration services through
the use of high-tech biometric recognition technology has
raised new concerns with the possibility of quick detection
of forged documents. This challenge has therefore increased
the demand for smuggler-bureaucrat corruption.
The case of fraudulent visa procurement is also common.
This involves the use of fake or forged supporting documents
in the visa application to the issuing authorities.11 Birth cer-
tificates, boarding papers, flight tickets, residence permits,
foreign sponsorship, and invitation letters can easily be
forged to achieve the purpose. Smugglers also use stolen
identity documents in visa applications, most especially
where the physical appearance of applicants for personal
interviews is not required by the potential host country. The
new practice adopted by professional “visa smuggling”
agents is to create imaginary, nonexistent firms, organi-
zations, or educational institutions, which will ostensibly
provide sponsorship or invitation letters to visa applicants.
Websites and social media accounts are also created to make
it look real and genuine. But these are purely illusory com-
panies operated by professional visa-smuggling dealers who
operate under the cover of a “travel agency” but work in
close collaboration with migrant smugglers. Similarly, fic-
titious events such as conferences, workshops, trade fairs,
and sports festivals are used to fraudulently obtain visas
for the purpose of migrant smuggling. Consular authorities
who rely on paperwork evaluation of visa applicants without
7 Interview with 2 NIMC officials, Benin City, Nigeria, 2 November
2023.
8 Interview with 2 NIMC officials, Abuja, October 2024.
9 Interview with an official of the Nigerian Immigration Service,
December 2024.
10 Interview with an official of the Nigerian Immigration Service,
December 2024.
11 Interview with an NIMC official, Benin City, Nigeria, October
2024.
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physical interviews with applicants run the risk of issuing
visas to fraudulent applicants.
Besides, smugglers engage experts with vast knowledge
of immigration policies and visa application guidelines glob-
ally to provide them with technical advice on a variety of
issues related to migrant smuggling into Europe and Western
nations. Informal relationships built on bribery and corruption
are often initiated by smugglers with employees of relevant
agencies, including the police force, immigration service,
identity-issuing authorities, and border security, in order to
receive more advisory and cover their criminal tracks. When
a bribe is involved, government officials turn a blind eye to the
activities of smugglers, such as approving fraudulent docu-
ments and stamping them without proper checks. In some
cases, the officials even aid the falsification and use of fraud-
ulent travel and identity documents depending on the level
of cooperation, corruption, and complicity mutually agreed
upon with smugglers. Incidents abound where some corrupt
officials who collected bribes but later changed their minds or
asked for higher bribe amounts were threatened with black-
mail should they renege on fulfilling the deal. Some officials
who refuse bribes also face intimidation and receive threats
from smugglers who insist on polluting them.
Smuggling Business Model and Document Fraud:
Framing the “Biometric Border Paradox”
Smugglers maintain a closed operational network, often
referred to as the smuggling business model. This notion
is built on the conviction that smugglers maintain a wide
range of well-resourced, informed, and flexible operational
networks involving multi-layered chains of collaborations
across diverse agencies, professions, and groups in different
countries. These collaborative networks are relational and
structured to operate underground while maintaining classi-
fied contacts with the outside world, including clients, gov-
ernment officials, and security agents (Iwuoha and Edgar,
2024). Hence, smugglers rely on smaller working groups and
experts in specific professional fields to facilitate smoother
operations and achieve their goals. It is in this sense that
most global documents that deal with irregular migration
capitalize on the concept of the smuggling business model.
EU migrant smuggling policies deal concretely with this
term, seeing the business model as a complex system that
needs to be urgently dismantled to curb migrant smuggling
into Europe (European Commission, 2015a). The busi-
ness model is described as “network-based, forming active
hubs where the intensity of smuggling activities is great-
est” (European Commission, 2017, p. 6). This implies that
migrant smuggling can also be seen as a “transnational ser-
vice industry” (Gammeltoft-Hansen and Nyberg Sørensen,
2013). The smuggling business model therefore operates as
a network of service delivery (UNODC, 2018), with a notion
of profitability (Collet, 2015), but also represents a danger-
ous criminal model (Europol, 2020) linked to financial crime
(EMSC, 2019), which requires “proactive financial investi-
gations and effective asset recovery operations” (European
Commission, 2015b).
However, the corporate smuggling business model is
essentially built on reliance on the falsification of identity
and promotion of document fraud. But the document fraud
sub-component of the business model is yet to be clearly
conceptualized or theorized, especially in the context of
irregular migration originating from Africa. Basically, the
smuggling business in Nigeria and, more generally, West
and North Africa is facilitated through the use of forged
identification documents. In Lagos, there are many forgery
agencies that produce different types of identity and travel
documents for a given fee. Due to the surge in youth migra-
tion, the forgery industry in Lagos is rapidly expanding as
a critical migrant economy and thriving as a reliable source
of revenue and livelihood to local operators.
Although much had been done to strengthen the institu-
tional capacity of immigration services and identity-issuing
agencies, especially through the provision of hi-tech fraud
detection technology, it remained a big challenge to tackle
bureaucratic corruption associated with document fraud.
Document fraud, as a component of the smuggling model, is
beyond the broader logic of demand and supply between two
groups of actors: smugglers and migrants (Brachet, 2018),
as defined in various European Commission documents and
other global migration frameworks. Document fraud can be
conceived as a sub-model itself with complex layers of conta-
gious corruption: government officials and professional docu-
ment forgers in the internal layer and smugglers and migrants
in the external layer. But the document fraud sub-model also
functions independently outside the external layer.
This is possible in cases where there are independ-
ent irregular migrants whose journeys are self-facilitated
and not directly traced to smugglers or their co-agents.
For example, recent studies show how many Tunisian
and Algerian families plan their own irregular migra-
tion independently without the support of smugglers or
facilitators (Sanchez et al., 2021). This kind of independ-
ent arrangement also defies the European Commission’s
notion that migrant smuggling is essentially associated
with a business model with profit linked to several chains
of criminal command and smuggling networks. Besides,
community-based patronage also comes into play where
potential migrants leverage a community member’s con-
nection with professional document fraudsters or corrupt
government officials. These instances do suggest a form
of business model: demand and supply, but not the kind
of profitability as narrowly viewed by the European Com-
mission and other global migration actors. Young people
and children traveling unaccompanied who may agree
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with smugglers to work off their bills (IOM, 2016) may
be lucky to bond together with other migrant travelers
who can help them to manipulate their travel and identity
documents or link them to expert document forgers.
This reality clearly reflects the ambivalent/binary
security character of EU biometric ID systems in Africa:
first, as a tool for migration control, and second, as a
contraption for identity conflicts and increased demands
for irregular migration. I conceptualize this contraption
as the “biometric border paradox.” The biometric border
paradox is used to depict the contradiction of the intro-
duction of European biometric ID systems as a tool of
migration and border control in European external bor-
ders in Africa. This means that instead of the biometric
ID programs controlling migration, they rather encour-
aged the opening up of alternative migration routes,
strategies, practices, and processes widely adopted by
migrants and smugglers. This includes the new form
of biometric ID and travel document fraud in corpo-
rate (government) agencies. I coin two key concepts to
depict this modality: biometricycle and biometricyclists.
Biometricycle depicts a tricycle-smuggling wheel via a
biometric ID system: first, local identity-faking entrepre-
neurs; second, IT experts; and third, corporate officials
in the government’s biometric ID sector. The corporate
biometricyclists depict corrupt immigration officials, IT
experts, bureaucrats, and national identity officials who
facilitate nationality swaps and ID document fraud in
transit states. These original concepts, which I develop
in this paper, will evidence exceptional contributions of
biometricyclists to state-sponsored migration and migrant
instrumentalization.
The concept of “biometricycle” presents an innova-
tive and multidisciplinary approach to conceptualizing
and framing migrant smuggling facilitated via corrupt
corporate systems in West Africa. This creates multiple
levels of dialogue: national, European, and global. The
framework, “biometric border paradox,” will be the first
African theoretically grounded perspective to challenge
the European biometric ID border agenda in Africa. My
argument is supported by the “Welsh School” conceptual-
ization of security (Booth, 2007), which opens a powerful
analytico-normative tool to make sense of both the need
for emancipatory security and its ethico-political conse-
quences. The studied case lends itself well to this type of
analysis, as both the European efforts to enhance external
border security and improve people’s lives are present,
with—demonstrably problematic—ethical consequences.
AI‑Enabled Biometric ID Fraud
In recent times, generative artificial intelligence (AI) is
increasingly used to perpetrate high levels of document fraud
in Africa. Migrant smugglers employ professional document
fraudsters who leverage AI tools to create deep fake docu-
ments and hyper-realistic biographical images, thereby driv-
ing a new wave of biometric identity scams and financial
crimes. Beyond the facilitation of irregular migration, the
rise in AI-powered biometric identity and document fraud in
Africa has created a new form of digital security threat and
identity verification challenge. Figures 1 and 2 show break-
downs of biometric identity fraud and document identity
fraud in Africa by region, respectively. Figure 3 compares
the trend of both biometric identity fraud and document
identity fraud in West Africa between 2022 and 2024.
Figures 1, 2, and 3 are very illustrative. West Africa
reports the highest cases of biometric identity fraud,
Fig. 1 Biometric identity fraud in Africa by region. Source: Smile ID
(2025)
Fig. 2 Document fraud in Africa by region. Source: Smile ID (2025)
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followed by East Africa. On the other hand, East Africa
and West Africa have the highest cases of document fraud,
respectively. Spoofing was ranked as the highest form of
document fraud across regions, indicating a common strat-
egy of using falsified or altered documents to circumvent
verification. Documents with altered security features ranked
second, suggesting that the forged documents did not bear
traditional security components such as watermarks or
holograms. Less frequent cases of expired documents were
recorded, reflecting the deflection of expert forgers from out-
dated documents in view of the tightening up of verification
systems. Particularly, Fig. 3 shows that West Africa experi-
enced the highest rise in the cases of biometric fraud in the
first half of 2024, with identity fraud recording about 15%.
Meanwhile, African governments are collaborating with
European governments to boost traditional identity verifica-
tion and strengthen document fraud detection capacity, but
document fraud experts and criminals are also innovating
with the use of AI-powered technologies. The AI tools ena-
ble almost perfect accuracy with fewer chances of detection,
thereby rendering facial recognition and document verifi-
cation systems highly susceptible to high-quality forgeries.
Besides, the AI tools also guarantee mass production of
fake identity documents. In 2024, for example, a clandestine
platform, “OnlyFake,” became notorious for enabling the
online creation of multiple counterfeit identity cards. Users
who accessed the platform paid only $15 per ID, which
bypassed digital verification systems. The fraudulent plat-
form decoded traditional impediments to document fraud,
making it possible for low-level tech operators to access the
system and make huge financial gains from it (Smile ID,
2025). Figure 4 shows some of the new forms of document
manipulation techniques adopted by fraudsters in Africa,
while Fig. 5 shows fraud distribution by ID in Africa.
Figure 5 shows that fraudsters target Africa’s most com-
mon identity document, which is the national ID, with a
fraud rate of 27% of all ID-related cases. The national ID
is the most crucial document needed for international travel
and cross-border migration, thus suggesting why it is a
prime target for document fraudsters. Second is the driver’s
license with a fraud rate of 24%, while the passport comes
next at a 20% fraud rate. It is even surprising that despite the
stricter issuance procedures involved in the obtainment of a
passport, it still has a high fraudulent rate, obviously because
of its critical importance as a first-hand document required
in international migration. While the national ID and pass-
port are obviously critical for migration needs, a driver’s
license is also important, as it serves as a supporting docu-
ment for applicants who seek either a national ID or passport
documents. Besides, the use of a driver’s license has also
become an everyday affair, exposing it to higher risks of
misuse and easy forgery. This explains why it is also a major
point of concern for criminals who forge these documents.
At about 14%, voter ID remains a relatively low target for
fraudsters considering that voter ID neither serves as a sup-
porting document for the obtainment of a national ID card
and passport nor is required for cross-border movements.
Work Permits and Alien Cards, which comprised the
“Others” category, accounted for 19%. These results gener-
ally reflect the significant risks of ID document fraud as well
as potential risks their bearers could be exposed to in situa-
tions of identity theft or identity framing by fraudsters. Not-
withstanding the seemingly relatively lower fraud risks asso-
ciated with passports and other specialized ID documents
such as work permits, misusing them has always proven to
be more dangerous at the international level. Particularly
in cases where international travel or employment fraud is
involved, the misuse of these documents or detection of their
Fig. 3 Biometric and document
identity fraud in West Africa,
2022 and 2024. Source: Smile
ID (2025)
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counterfeit could pose significant financial and reputational
risks.
If we turn to the records in Europe, we see a slightly dif-
ferent scenario. The Europol annual report (2021) shows that
identity documents attract higher demand than other docu-
ment types, making them the most commonly traded type
of fraudulent document. About 35% of reported document
fraud cases were identity cards. The second is passports
(31%), followed by driving licenses (15%) and lastly, resi-
dence permits (7%). In Europe, fraudulent documents are
seen as criminal tools that serve multi-purpose functions.
This means that each document can be reused to promote
different criminal activities. Most reported misused iden-
tity cards had Romanian, Greek, and Italian origins, while
the most reported misused passports had Italian, Greek, and
Israeli origins. Most documents were either counterfeit or
Fig. 4 Emerging document
manipulation techniques in
Africa. Source: Smile ID (2025)
Fig. 5 Document fraud distribu-
tion by ID in Africa. Source:
Smile ID (2025)
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forged, while misused genuine documents had lower risks of
forgery. In the reported cases linked to the fraudulent use of
genuine identity or travel documents, about 89% involved the
use of look-alike documents, in which genuine documents
were used by imposters who posed as the legitimate owners
of the documents, based on physical resemblance. These
are mostly cases of lost or stolen documents masterminded
by document fraudsters working under criminal networks
(Europol, 2021).
The document fraud business appears to be more sophisti-
cated in Europe than in Africa. In Europe, criminal networks
operate fully equipped print shops where the fake documents
are produced. The finished products are thereafter shipped
to clients via courier firms. In 2020, the European Migrant
Smuggling Center (EMSC) tracked down and dismantled
four print shops in which hundreds of travel and travel ID
documents were made for the facilitation of migrant smug-
gling operations. Again, forged travel and identity docu-
ments are increasingly traded online in social media and
instant communication platforms, both on surface and dark
web sites. Criminal groups utilize these online platforms to
market and sell different types of counterfeit identity docu-
ments, providing the opportunity for both forgers and sellers
to receive orders directly from potential clients (Europol,
2021).
Document Fraud and the EU External Borders
Document fraud poses a key threat to the EU’s external bor-
ders. In 2022, some 26,249 fraudulent document users (or
those in possession thereof) were detected within the EU
external borders, while 19,341 fraudulent document users
were detected within the EU countries. This represents
a 5% increase from the 2021 figures, as suggested by the
European Union Document Fraud Risk Analysis Network
(EDF-RAN) (Frontex, 2023). Passports were reported as the
most fraudulent document type, while biometric ID cards
became the second most forged document in the EU within
the period. Fake health/vaccination certificates and work
permit documents were also reported to be commonly used
but relatively low compared to passports and e-ID cards. In
the use of counterfeit resident permits and fraudulent border
stamps, about a 23% increase was recorded compared with
the 2021 figures. Although most detections involved Russian
nationals crossing over different EU land borders, cases of
fraudulent visas were reported to have doubled, showing the
highest increase of a single document type in the reported
document fraud detection.
The visa document fraud involves mainly the detection
of counterfeit or fraudulently obtained short-term (C-type)
visas. However, the use of counterfeit documents was the
most commonly reported document fraud type, depicting
about a 64% rise within the EU, seconded by impersonation,
which represents 15% compared to all other cases (Frontex,
2023). One critical point to note is that in the recent past,
fewer cases of document fraud detections at the EU external
borders involved African migrants. For example, in 2022,
only about 50 to 100 detections of fraudulent document
users at the EU external borders involved Algerian, Ango-
lan, Congolese, Ghanaian, Guinean, Somalian, Gambian,
and Senegalese nationalities each, while about 100 to 500
detections involved Nigerian and Moroccan nationalities
each. Nationalities of Libya, Egypt, Côte d’Ivoire, Tunisia,
Cameroon, and Zimbabwe had fewer numbers, recording
about 20 to 50 detections each (Frontex, 2023).
While the increasing irregular migrant flow from Africa
into Europe is well reported, more irregular cross-border
migration is commonly practiced among many European
irregular migrants. In the sense of logic, this implies a
higher number of document fraud among European irregu-
lar migrants. Three key global issues in the post-COVID-19
era mounted intense migration pressure on the European
borders, which further foregrounded the increase in docu-
ment fraud among irregular migrants. These include, first,
the war in Ukraine; second, the closure of the EU’s airspace
to Russian and Belarusian flights; and lastly, the increased
migration control through the use of more sophisticated
technology and border secularization by some EU countries.
In 2022, for example, the most detected nationality
involved in document fraud was Albanian, followed by
Russian. Iran ranked third in this order. In 2023, Iranians
ranked first while Ukrainians ranked second in terms of the
most prevalent nationalities detected at the EU borders with
fraudulent documents. On the other hand, there has been
an increasing trend of detections of document fraudsters,
involving mainly Indian and Pakistani nationalities who
arrive through the Arabian Peninsula airports. In this pat-
tern, document fraud is mainly channeled through the air
borders, which have become major hubs for threats. This
growing incidence of detections, with the majority of detec-
tions on exit routes to third countries rising by 30% in 2021,
is linked to the increasing exploitation of the EU’s air Border
Crossing Points (BCPs), which are key platforms for irregu-
lar migratory movements involving the use of fraudulent
documents (Frontex, 2023). The most reported nationalities
involved were the Syrians, Turks, and Albanians. Overall,
push factors are constantly high, and as document fraudsters
increase their professionalism in printing and use of identity
fraud technologies, so does the increasing level of border
checks with the help of improved technology for detection of
document fraud. Inasmuch as there are notable regular shifts
in risk profiles, routes, and types of document involved, doc-
ument fraud remains a key method utilized by smugglers
and irregular migrants in crossing EU external borders and
in secondary movements within the EU, whether traveling
Society
independently or enabled through a facilitated journey with
a fee.
Despite laudable efforts and key investments made by the
EU in fighting document and identity fraud, including the
use of the European integrated border management (EIBM)
system to tackle the increasing trend, there are still many
challenges to grapple with in this domain. The irony is that,
as Europol (2021) shows, the enhanced surveillance at the
European external borders and improved security features
for biometric identity and travel documents are unwittingly
driving the demand for fraudulent documents and even
boosting the fraudulent document economy. While visible
progress has been made towards improving the recruitment,
training, or redeployment of experts in document and iden-
tity fraud and fundamental rights, critical investments in bor-
der security and state-of-the-art facilities at BCPs are also
paramount. The EU detection capacity and policing capabil-
ity at external borders still need to be properly streamlined,
with emphasis on close cooperation with stakeholders in
third countries. This could help to enhance document fraud
detection as well as protect victims of smuggling and human
trafficking.
Corporate Smuggling: Bureaucratization
of Document Fraud
Africa is experiencing a greater sophistication of legal
migration processes, combined with an increasing level of
border control and securitization. This, coupled with the
increasing danger of illicit migration routes, has combined
to bring into relevance the underground frontier of smug-
glers’ business in Africa: travel document fraud in which
state bureaucrats are complicit. Smugglers in Nigeria, or
more generally, those in Africa and Europe, work hand in
hand with government officials in both transit and destina-
tion countries to provide fraudulent, but seemingly original,
travel documents to their clients, including passports and
visas. Fraudulent travel documents have become a critical
pillar of the smuggling industry, with smugglers increasingly
engaging in the absurd practice of passport duplication, rent-
ing, and forgery, mostly in connivance with official gov-
ernment workers in the immigration sector. Travelers who
lost their valid travel documents; new applicants who failed
to pick up their produced travel documents; or candidates
for passport renewal who never collected them were always
exposed to the greatest risk of duplicating their documents
by smugglers who sold them to their clients at exorbitant
prices.12
Within the ECOWAS, for example, smugglers are
deeply involved in the travel document racketeering, and
this underground trade is exactly the reason behind the suc-
cess of the smuggling industry in West and North Africa
despite the increased border security. In Libya, buying stolen
or forged passports is a common means of identity transfer
and theft insofar as the smuggled users were able to mingle
their way in. In this case, they must be able to claim the
ethnicity in the stolen identity in the passport and speak
some Arabic language as backup evidence. Production of
fake or fraudulently procured visas and invitation letters,
probably to attend a conference or training program, is also
rampant, a way by which smugglers swindle their clients
who are compelled to pay hundreds of dollars in order to
pass through border checks, both in transit and destination
countries (Interpol, 2018). Bribes are often requested by
public officials who collect huge sums of money and turn
a blind eye to these crimes even when they sense foul play,
both within countries (by police and military at security
checkpoints) and at land and air borders (by border guards
and other airport officials) (UNODC, 2021).
This is why smugglers also factor in the bribe settlement
as part of their smuggling fee. The bribe collected does not
have a fixed amount but can be subject to negotiation based
on each case and according to the prevailing situation at a
time. This shows how much smugglers can be highly con-
nected with the law enforcement agencies, especially with
many border security officials captured on their payroll.
This, combined with the corrupt and lengthy justice system,
explains why there have been low levels of arrests of smug-
glers in Nigeria and West Africa generally, and even when
arrests are made, prosecutions and convictions are rarely
conclusive.
Nigeria’s fragmented ID landscape, on the other hand,
encourages extensive, invasive, and unregulated biometric
and biographic data mining and plundering, which produces
duplicative data across several databases owned by big tech
companies (Iwuoha and Devenspeck, 2025b). For example,
from personal observation and as confirmed by interview-
ees, to enroll in Nigeria’s national identity system, up to 80
personal data fields are extracted from an individual who,
in their quest to access ID-tied public services, also submits
a similar volume and type of personal data to multiple other
ID systems for use and storage.13 Overpopulating optional
or required data fields increases operating expenses in addi-
tion to requiring more time for registration, which lowers
the daily number of registrations but, more importantly,
opens up the risk for data extraction and forgery by crimi-
nal operators.14
12 Interview with official of the Nigerian Immigration Service,
December, 2024.
13 Interview with 2 NIMC officials, Abuja, October 2024.
14 Interview with 2 NIMC officials, Benin city, November, 2024.
Society
The fact that the agents in charge of data collecting sites
are typically unauthenticated, unsupervised, and without
adequate monitoring systems poses a greater risk since they
fail to adhere to the necessary requirements for data security
and integrity (Innovation Village 2024). More concerning is
that unsupervised roadside agents employed by government-
licensed private enterprises to enroll individuals for NINs
engage in sharp practices to make extra profits. The agents
often collaborate with NIMC officials for data pillage.15 The
new ID industry, which is now tarnished by elements of
corruption and extortion, has actually been bolstered by the
mandated use of NINs in Nigeria.
The emergence of a new dimension of invasive acts of
biometric ID fraud is linked to the disturbing wave of unreg-
ulated bureaucratic biometric and biographic data mining
and plundering in Nigeria. In 2022, a hacker nicknamed Sam
claimed to have attacked the NIMC server and stolen over
three million NINs owned by Nigerians:
I just simply got access to their [Nigeria’s] data of
internal files, users, and everything they have. I can
download everything, even the whole bucket. I am
sure that the bucket is full of juice. I wanted to look at
more files, but as we have to follow bug bounty rules, I
stopped doing more. I’ve got one more S3 bucket with
nuclei, and it also contained about 4–5 gigs of data.
(Sahara Reporters 2023, 1).
One private IT firm, XpressVerify.com, a sub-agent to an
NIMC-licensed partner, had unauthorized and unrestricted
access to the NIMC database and unlawfully sold out NINs
and personal data of registered Nigerians. As reported:
Anybody can retrieve details, such as phone numbers,
full names, NIN, address, and photographs of any Nige-
rian whose data is on the National Identity Database with
as little as N200. The website does not confirm what
type of person can check what type of information. There
were no restrictions to the amount of NIN-related data
that could be fetched. Vendors across different Nigerian
cities have been checking the NINs and phone numbers
of citizens from the same database NIMC ought to main-
tain and keep secure (Chioma, 2024:1).
In its playbook, XpressVerify.com created its own applica-
tion programming interface (API) to grant access to other
sub-agents who partook in the profitable crime. Although
these acts were criminalized, the offenders connived with
internal accomplices to achieve their aims. In other words,
bribery and corruption by NIMC partners and vendors are
connected to the increasing level of identity and document
fraud in Nigeria.
Conclusion
This article discussed the European migration control
systems and its connection to the facilitation of migrant
smuggling business across Europe’s external border
in West Africa. Using Nigeria’s experience, the paper
explores the key European migration control measures that
contributed to the expansion of the migrant smuggling
business model. This includes the European capitalist-
driven biometric ID intervention and its securitization
programs across African borders. What this means is that
Europe’s tightening of external borders in Africa contrib-
uted to the expansion of the smuggling business network.
In this paper, more focused attention is paid to the newly
formed travel identity and document fraud cartel in Nige-
ria, a sub-component of the smuggling business model.
The main contention is that the majority of West African
migrants are vulnerable to identity and travel document
fraud in their search for alternative means of migration
into Europe. Non-compliance with the new European bio-
metric ID systems exposes African migrants to certain
types of identity conflicts, state criminalization, and loss
of social integration.
Essentially, the new agency of biometric ID and travel
document fraud is facilitated by corporate agencies through
a system of deep-rooted corruption and cronyism. Besides,
Nigeria’s fragmented ID landscape also encourages exten-
sive, invasive, and unregulated biometric and biographic
data mining and plundering by biometric ID and docu-
ment fraudsters. In order to obtain national e-ID cards for
cross-border travel without being citizens, smugglers and
even independent migrants collaborate with the newly
formed smuggling cells, either “corporate smugglers” in
government agencies or professional document fraudsters,
to execute identity and travel document fraud for migra-
tion purposes. However, European migration actors and
donors replicate counterproductive policies that encourage
risky migration because they fail to recognize this devel-
oping African dimension of the issue based on local facts.
This reality clearly reflects the ambivalent/binary security
character of EU biometric ID systems in Africa: first, as
a tool for migration control, and second, as a contraption
for identity conflicts and increased demands for irregular
migration.
Acknowledgements I express my gratitude to the Alexander von Hum-
boldt Foundation for providing me with the enabling academic plat-
form to successfully carry out this research. Special thanks go to my
academic host in the University of Bayreuth, Prof. Dr. Martin Doeven-
speck, the chair of Political Geography, for his kind academic support
to me during my research fellowship.
Funding Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt
DEAL. This research sponsorship has been provided by the Alexander
von Humboldt Foundation.
15 Interview with NIMC official, Benin city, November, 2024.
Society
Data Availability The research data for this research is held by the
author and will be provided upon request.
Declarations
Competing Interest I hereby declare that there is no competing interest
regarding this article submission.
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attri-
bution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adapta-
tion, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long
as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source,
provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes
were made. The images or other third party material in this article are
included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated
otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in
the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not
permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will
need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a
copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
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Publisher's Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to
jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Victor Chidubem Iwuoha was a Research Fellow of the Bayreuth Acad-
emy of Advanced African Studies, University of Bayreuth, Germany, in
2023–2024, and is currently a Humboldt Experienced Research Fellow
at the same university. His research interests cover international migra-
tion and security studies, and African diaspora studies.
