Research

Interdisciplinary Focus Groups will be held in three EU countries (Italia, Germany, Spain), targeting JITs and bringing together representatives

of a range of sectors contributing to FI for THB, including private businesses, labor inspectorates, banking, financial providers,
LEAs, and prosecutors.

The participants will discuss business models identified in their national contexts & best practices for tighter cross-sectoral and cross-border cooperation. The results of the FGs will be made public and disseminated to relevant actors

The organization of 3 focus groups in Italy, Germany and Spain, inviting different Police Forces in order to analyze how investigations are conducted, focusing on:

Trafficking for prostitution and sexual exploitation (Italy);

Trafficking for labour exploitation (Germany);

Trafficking for child exploitation (Spain).

The analysis will be focused on data sources useful to carry out analysis based on artificial intelligence tools. The understanding of the business model is also important to define connections between a normal case of prostitution and a case of THB and what happens as soon as this link emerges. Therefore, the focus groups will be concentrated on technical aspects in addition to the more traditional juridical and theoretical analysis on models. Also, additional countries and European organizations can be involved in this research (i.e. Portugal and Greece).

THB Business Model Elicitation: Based on the results of the Focus Groups and further case study analysis, UNCHAINED will map the network of actors involved in THB based on their financial footprint and the transactions that have linked them in order to develop a comprehensive, up-to-date roadmap showing the key trends in financial flows between those involved in the trafficking chain, through perpetration or enjoyment of the proceeds.

The roadmap will focus on new and emerging trends within Europe, exploring the ways in which business models vary according to the different forms of exploitation, national contexts, and the different actors involved (in terms of perpetrators (e.g. OCG, ethnic or familial ties), facilitators, and victims (e.g. men, women, children, disabled)). It will highlight the different interception points and the sectors with which law enforcement must cooperate in order to identify and follow suspicious financial actions.
This roadmap will serve as a reference point on initiating THB investigations and progressions to these from reports of other financial crimes, guiding practitioners on which actors to involve and which legal and technical tools to employ.

Seminars
and conferences

Online national seminars to raise awareness of the long-standing and emerging trends in THB business models and financial flows and how to identify them

Relevant actors will be invited to attend the seminars: (1) entities in a position to identify anomalous or suspicious financial behaviour (incl. private businesses (especially those dealing in real estate and high value goods), the accounting sector, financial institutions, Money Service Businesses (MSBs), customs officers and border control, social benefit providers, and the banking sector); (2) actors and organisations involved in financial investigations (incl. national Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs), forensic accountants, LEAs, and relevant legal practitioners); and (3) national and EU policy makers, who are in a position to prioritise financial investigation and design a policy framework that responds to the dynamic trends in trafficking in human beings, money laundering, and organised crime.

Final conferences

To disseminate the projects results and outcomes and to promote the implementation of the training following project termination, a one-day international conference will be held in Italy.

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Training

program

UNCHAINED training courses aim to enhance first-line practitioners’ skills in the identification and report of suspicious financial activity. The program is divided into two:

LEA ToT training courses

Aimed to trainers from the European law enforcement sector, this training aims to enhance the use of financial investigation (as understood by the FATF 2012 definition) in order to advance investigations into trafficking in human beings.

Private business and public authority ToT training courses Link

For the representatives from these sectors, the training aims to strengthen the target group’s capacity to identify indicators of illicit financial transactions or anomalous or suspicious financial activities and offer concrete guidelines for reporting procedures and cooperation with

Activities

Research