The Cruel Road North

Every year, Latin American smuggling networks exploit thousands of people from Africa and Asia as they try to make their way to the United States and Canada.

Their journeys are long, difficult, and dangerous.

Each migrant travels thousands of miles by plane to South America, often stopping in several countries along the way. Once in the Americas they secretly make their way north on buses or planes, on speed boats or rafts, in taxis or private cars. Many have been raped, robbed, or killed, left to die in the jungle or abandoned in the desert of the southwestern U.S.

It’s a lucrative business. Police documents, official statistics, and accounts from dozens of migrants suggest Latin America’s smuggling networks are making hundreds of millions of dollars a year from the clandestine trade, which is then moved around the world through front men, small businesses, and money transfer companies.

OCCRP and our Latin American partner Centro Latinoamericano de Investigación Periodística (CLIP), along with 16 media outlets in 14 countries, worked together on the largest ever journalistic investigation into these little-known routes. From the hills of Nepal to Mexico’s border camps, we mapped the paths migrants take, the dangers they face, the political hurdles they have to clear, and the people who profit from trafficking in their hopes and dreams.

Together, our work gives an unprecedented insight into some of the least-covered smuggling routes in the world — and tells the stories of some of the many people who have taken this cruel road north.