The intersection of human trafficking and organized crime? What the data tells us
Oct 8, 2026
Recap of the Allies Against Slavery webinar "Organized Crime & Human Trafficking: The Story the Data Tells," held October 8, 2026, with Sarah Sowell Van Dyk (Vanderbilt University), Dr. Marcel van der Watt (National Center on Sexual Exploitation), Dr. Nick Freeman (University of Alabama Institute of Data and Analytics), and Rochelle Keyhan (Collective Liberty).
Is human trafficking organized crime? Sometimes, but far less often than the dominant narrative suggests. In an analysis of 2,390 federally prosecuted U.S. human trafficking cases, 67% showed no characteristics of organized crime. Only 21 cases, under 1%, involved a cartel, mafia, or syndicate. Yet the organized groups that do appear account for a disproportionate share of victims, and online sex buyer communities themselves meet the UN definition of an organized criminal group.
Over 400 practitioners from law enforcement, prosecution, direct services, government, and research joined the webinar. Here's what they heard.
Key findings at a glance
67% of federally prosecuted human trafficking cases (2000–2022) involved no organized crime group.
Among the 635 cases that did, 69% were small "Mom & Pop" operations or loose "Crime Rings." Cartels, mafias, and syndicates made up just 3%.
Illegal Enterprises were only 18% of organized crime cases but accounted for 54% of identified victims.
Sex buyer demand drives sex trafficking, yet one expert estimates federal spending on demand reduction research at about $2 million over 25 years.
An analysis of 1.2 million posts from nearly 73,000 users on a sex buyer forum found that buyer communities meet all five criteria of the UN definition of an organized criminal group.
Investigating trafficking as an enterprise rather than a single incident can dismantle networks while reducing reliance on survivor testimony.
Why is human trafficking framed as organized crime?
The link goes back to the Palermo Protocol. In 2000, the United Nations adopted the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons as part of the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime. As Vanessa Bouché, Chief Impact Officer at Allies Against Slavery, noted in her opening, even the location was symbolic: Palermo, Sicily, is the historical birthplace of the Italian mafia.
"From the very beginning, human trafficking has been framed as an organized crime problem. This framing is important. It shapes how we picture traffickers, which cases get investigated, where resources go, and what kinds of responses we build. But a framing isn't the same thing as evidence." — Dr. Vanessa Bouché, Allies Against Slavery
That set the webinar's guiding question: what does the data actually tell us? Bouché was equally direct about the limits of any dataset:
"When data is collected, it reflects only what was detected and reported. When it's coded, our choices and any missing information shape the record. And in analysis, interpretation can outrun what the data can support." — Dr. Vanessa Bouché
What do federal prosecutions reveal about organized crime and human trafficking?
Sarah Sowell Van Dyk, a Ph.D. candidate at Vanderbilt University, presented research she co-authored with Vanessa Bouché and Eva Garrido, published in the Journal of Human Trafficking. The study asks whether federally prosecuted cases support the common belief that trafficking is carried out mainly by large, complex crime groups.
"Many of us carry an image of trafficking driven by cartels and international syndicates. We wanted to test that image against data." — Sarah Sowell Van Dyk, Vanderbilt University
The 5-S typology of organized crime groups
To test the claim, the researchers first had to define organized crime. Their 5-S typology describes any criminal group along five dimensions:
Size: the number of members (small, medium, or large)
Scope: territorial reach (local, national, or transnational)
Sophistication: how complex the operation is, such as document fraud or money laundering
Structure: how authority is organized, from decentralized to hierarchical
Self-identification: how the group sees itself, from a named gang to family or simple accomplices
Combinations of these dimensions produce five types of groups: Mom & Pop, Crime Ring, Gang, Cartel/Mafia/Syndicate, and Illegal Enterprise.
Most prosecuted trafficking cases are not organized crime
The team coded every case in Allies Against Slavery's Federal Case Database, part of the Lighthouse Data platform, from 2000 through 2022. That's 2,390 cases, over 4,500 defendants, and nearly 11,500 identified victims.
"Our headline finding is that 67% of the 2,390 cases show none of the characteristics of any organized crime type. Federal prosecutions are mostly capturing individuals or very loosely coordinated activity." — Sarah Sowell Van Dyk
Organized crime type | Share of organized crime cases |
|---|---|
Crime Ring | 48% |
Mom & Pop | 21% |
Illegal Enterprise | 18% |
Gang | 10% |
Cartel/Mafia/Syndicate | 3% (21 cases) |
Based on the 635 federally prosecuted cases that involved organized crime.
Case counts and harm don't line up
Counting cases alone hides where exploitation is concentrated. Illegal Enterprises made up only 18% of organized cases but 54% of victims. Crime Rings flip the other way: 48% of cases, but only 18% of victims.
"The groups prosecuted most often are not where harm is most concentrated. Business-like enterprises can scale their exploitation, especially in labor trafficking, where it's built into ongoing operations." — Sarah Sowell Van Dyk
Van Dyk was clear about the data's limits. Prosecuted cases reflect what gets detected, and the most sophisticated operations may be better at avoiding investigation. About 78% of federal cases involve minor sex trafficking, and 70% of those have a single defendant. A single network can also appear as several small cases.
Her conclusion for policy: a one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to work. Minor sex trafficking tends to be local and loosely organized, calling for community-based detection and prevention. Labor trafficking tends to involve more sophisticated groups, calling for interagency and international cooperation and financial crimes expertise.
Why is sex buyer demand central to sex trafficking?
Dr. Marcel van der Watt, President and CEO of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (NCOSE) and a former police investigator, shifted the focus from traffickers to the market itself. With John Winterdyk of Mount Royal University, he co-edited a special issue of the journal Dignity on sex buying, sex trafficking, and organized crime. To their knowledge, it is the first concerted scholarly effort since the Palermo Protocol to examine the three together.
"No commercial enterprise, criminal or otherwise, can exist without demand for what's being sold. Sex trafficking is impossible without prostitution, and prostitution and sex trafficking are impossible without sex buyers." — Dr. Marcel van der Watt, National Center on Sexual Exploitation
Demand reduction is an international obligation
Van der Watt noted that addressing demand isn't a new idea. Article 9(5) of the Palermo Protocol requires parties to discourage the demand that fosters exploitation leading to trafficking. In December 2022, UN General Assembly resolution 77/194 called on governments to intensify efforts to eliminate that demand.
Why demand remains neglected
Despite these commitments, demand remains under-researched and under-funded. Van der Watt cited Dr. Mike Shively, who estimated at a 2024 NCOSE panel that the federal government has spent about $2 million on demand reduction research in over 25 years.
"We argue the reasons are not primarily evidentiary or logistical. They're ideological." — Dr. Marcel van der Watt
He illustrated how far buyer networks reach with a case he testified in. In State v. Seleso in Johannesburg, a 16-year-old orphan from Lesotho was trafficked into South Africa and forced to perform live-streamed sex acts for buyers on a U.S.-hosted website.
"The crime spanned at least three countries, and the evidence showed more than 6,000 unique log-ins to her profile from sex buyers around the world. That is how ubiquitous sex buyers are inside these interconnected systems." — Dr. Marcel van der Watt
The eight papers in the Dignity special issue, by scholars and practitioners from South Africa and the United States, show that normalizing or decriminalizing sex buying does not reduce harm. Instead, van der Watt said, those approaches "create environments where trafficking flourishes, accountability shrinks, and organized crime becomes entrenched."
Are online sex buyer communities organized criminal groups?
Dr. Nick Freeman, Professor at the University of Alabama's Institute of Data and Analytics, presented "Behind the Screen: Online Sex Buyer Networks and the Organized Criminal Promotion of Exploitation," co-authored with Ava Kamdem, Vanessa Bouché, Ben Silver, and Justin Euteneier and published in the Dignity special issue.
The team tested buyer behavior against the UN Convention against Transnational Organized Crime, which defines an organized criminal group by five criteria: a structured group of three or more persons, existing for a period of time, acting in concert, to commit one or more serious crimes, to obtain a financial or other material benefit.
"Importantly, we use the definition as a yardstick for the data and not as a legal finding about any individual." — Dr. Nick Freeman, University of Alabama
What the data showed
The study analyzed one large, public sex buyer forum from April 2018, when federal authorities shut down Backpage, through December 2024. That's about 1.2 million posts from nearly 73,000 users. The researchers mapped who replies to whom and used a fine-tuned language model to score every post's content.
Structured and persistent: more than 15,000 communities of five or more users who interact repeatedly over years, linked across 467 cities in 73 regional city communities.
Acting in concert to commit crimes: on average, a post had a 31.7% probability of criminal acts content, such as favorable reviews and links to ads.
Material benefit: on average, a post had a 64.9% probability of benefit content, such as warnings about scams and suspected stings.
"So the forum is not a bulletin board of isolated posts. It is a set of standing groups whose members interact repeatedly over years." — Dr. Nick Freeman
Freeman noted that posts mentioning a pimp, visible distress, or a disclosure of abuse often treat it "as a detail of the transaction rather than a warning sign."
"Taken together, the evidence is consistent with all five criteria. Buyer communities on this forum are decentralized, without a single leader, but they are structured, persistent, coordinated, and organized around reducing risk." — Dr. Nick Freeman
He outlined three implications for practice. Central users who hold networks together are leverage points for investigation and deterrence. Because networks are regional, regional and interstate task forces fit better than single agencies. And treating buyers as an organized group shifts accountability away from victims and toward the people who sustain demand.
How can investigators disrupt trafficking enterprises without relying on survivors?
Rochelle Keyhan, CEO of Collective Liberty, brought the conversation back to practice. As an Assistant District Attorney in Philadelphia, she secured convictions in the city's first two human trafficking trials, and she later led disruption strategies at Polaris. Her presentation drew on her Dignity article, "Disrupting Transnational Human Trafficking Networks: A Practitioner's Perspective on Intelligence-Driven, Offender-Focused Strategies."
Keyhan contrasted three investigative approaches. A vice approach looks for prostitution and sometimes finds trafficking. A special victims approach starts with a victim and builds the case around what happened to them. An organized crime approach starts with the criminal activity and builds outward until it finds the enterprise. Her message, from her slides:
"Stop investigating incidents. Start investigating systems." — Rochelle Keyhan, Collective Liberty
In one example, a single organized crime investigation into a Thai spa network traced recruitment, debt, transportation, commercial fronts, banking, and money laundering up to leadership, resulting in 37 convictions. An enterprise approach also relies less on survivor testimony:
"The less the prosecution depends on the survivor, the more choice the survivor can actually have." — Rochelle Keyhan
Three takeaways for the anti-trafficking field
Vanessa Bouché closed the webinar with three takeaways.
The data offer nuance to the organized crime story. "The question isn't just how much trafficking is organized. It's whether our investigative and enforcement systems are built to reach the organized networks doing the most harm."
We can't disrupt this market without addressing demand. "Sex buyers are the financial engine of sex trafficking." Yet demand remains one of the most overlooked and under-funded parts of the field.
Reaching organized criminal networks means investigating them as enterprises. "Building cases around the whole system, rather than a single incident, can dismantle the networks that exploit people, while also lifting the burden of the case off survivors."
Frequently asked questions
What percentage of human trafficking cases involve organized crime? In U.S. federal prosecutions from 2000 to 2022, 635 of 2,390 cases (about 27%) involved an organized crime group, while 67% showed none of the characteristics of any organized crime type. Prosecuted cases reflect what gets detected, so they may undercount sophisticated groups.
Do cartels drive human trafficking in the United States? Rarely, based on federal prosecutions. Cartels, mafias, and syndicates accounted for 21 of 2,390 cases, or 3% of organized crime cases. Small groups such as Crime Rings and Mom & Pop operations made up 69% of organized cases.
What is the 5-S typology of organized crime? The 5-S typology classifies criminal groups by size, scope, sophistication, structure, and self-identification. It yields five group types: Mom & Pop, Crime Ring, Gang, Cartel/Mafia/Syndicate, and Illegal Enterprise.
Why does sex buyer demand matter for ending sex trafficking? Sex buyers create the market that makes sex trafficking profitable. Article 9(5) of the Palermo Protocol requires countries to discourage this demand, yet demand reduction research remains under-funded.
Can sex buyers be considered an organized criminal group? A 2026 study of 1.2 million posts on a sex buyer forum found that buyer communities meet all five criteria of the UN definition of an organized criminal group. They are decentralized but structured, persistent, coordinated, and organized around reducing risk.
Watch the webinar and read the research
Watch the full recording:
Organized Crime and Human Trafficking in the United States — Bouché, Sowell Van Dyk & Garrido, Journal of Human Trafficking (2026) [Swap in the link to the accepted manuscript on the Allies site]
Sex Buying, Sex Trafficking, and Organized Crime: Introduction to a Special Issue — van der Watt & Winterdyk, Dignity (2026)
Behind the Screen: Online Sex Buyer Networks and the Organized Criminal Promotion of Exploitation — Kamdem, Bouché, Silver, Freeman & Euteneier, Dignity (2026)
Disrupting Transnational Human Trafficking Networks: A Practitioner's Perspective on Intelligence-Driven, Offender-Focused Strategies — Keyhan, Dignity (2026)
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