Increase in immigrants from Asia and Africa turns the Amazon rainforest into a corridor

People from 69 countries were arrested in the framework of a recent operation against illicit trafficking of migrants and human trafficking carried out throughout the American continent, indicating the rise in the number of Asians and Africans crossing oceans and continents to reach USA.

The fifth edition of Operation Turquoise, coordinated by Interpol, brought together immigration officials from across the Americas from November 27 to December 1 in an attempt to dismantle international criminal organizations.

Victories include the arrest of a Portuguese citizen who bought newborn babies from poor Brazilian women to sell in Europe, the arrest of three suspects linked to the well-known Venezuelan prison gang Tren de Aragua, and the freezing of assets worth US $286,000 dollars belonging to a network that recruited Brazilians for a cyber fraud center in Cambodia.

In its fifth annual Turquoise Operation, Interpol said it brought together law enforcement agencies from 31 countries on the American continent, including Cuba for the first time, as well as France and Spain. Together they made 257 arrests, rescued 163 alleged victims of human trafficking and detected almost 12,000 undocumented immigrants from 69 countries.

Dozens of the victims were children, 12 of them in Honduras. Sixty-nine countries is the highest number in history and is more than double the 28 countries reported in the first operation in 2019.

Focused on migrants heading to the United States and Canada, this year’s operation showed a “marked increase” of migrants from Asia and Africa, particularly China, which was the third most common country of origin, behind Venezuela and Ecuador, Interpol said.

“The number of nationalities detected during Operation Turquoise V demonstrates how this important migratory corridor, previously considered a route reserved to the Americas, has become the target of organized crime groups from around the world,” Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock said in a statement.

Migrants who cooperated with police provided information about recruitment tactics, travel conditions and the cost of smuggling, which ranged from $2,700 to $20,000 per person depending on the trip, according to Interpol. Traffickers often have ties to illicit drug trafficking.

The number of migrants encountered at the US-Mexico border from countries outside Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 43% between fiscal years 2022 and 2023, according to data from the United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP).

In October, the first month of fiscal year 2024, there were almost 12,000 migrants at the border from these “extracontinental” countries, almost the same number that arrived in all of 2021.

The United States Department of Homeland Security describes the current trend as “the highest level of mass migration since World War II”. CBP attributed it to “economic difficulties and political turmoil” triggered in part by natural disasters and a global pandemic.

Brazil as a migration center

Operation Turquoise also offered a glimpse of the enormous role Brazil plays in transcontinental trade, with migrants passing through the country. Most were destined for the United States, others for Europe, and some settled in Brazil itself, according to the local Federal Police.

The Federal Police deployed agents in nine points in Brazil, the fifth largest nation in the world by area and which shares a border with 10 other countries.

Brazil has detected patterns such as migrants from Cuba and Haiti traveling to the small coastal nation of Guyana, crossing illegally into the country and making a two-day overland journey to the Amazon city of Manaus. There they begin a boat trip of more than 1,000 kilometers and a week long through the Amazon to the jungle outpost of Tabatinga, on the border with Colombia and Peru.

Tabatinga also attracts migrants from elsewhere in the Caribbean basin bound for Europe, according to police. On one route, citizens of the Dominican Republic obtain fake Colombian passports in Colombia, cross into Brazil at Tabatinga and then undertake the long journey to Sao Paulo, more than 3,200 km away, their last stop before Europe.

“We have this open-arms (immigration) policy (…) and we have complicated neighbors when it comes to drug production and everything else,” said Commissioner Cristiano Eloi, head of the Brazilian Federal Police for the fight against human trafficking and migrant smuggling.

“And we have these more than 16,000 kilometers of border with all these Latin American countries. So it is absolutely impossible to take care of every inch of our borders.”

Another Federal Police agent, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not the official spokesman, said many criminal suspects mix with immigrants, who are often reluctant to cooperate. Additionally, Brazilian law prevents police from detaining people simply for immigration violations.