Smuggling

Waves are shown crashing into San Diego's coastline with a rescue helicopter flying above.

At least 3 killed, dozens hospitalized after boat capsizes off San Diego

At least three people were killed and more than two dozen others were hospitalized Sunday after a boat capsized and broke apart in rough water just off the San Diego coast during a suspected human smuggling operation, authorities said.

Blurry image of woman in pink hodded sweatshirt standing in front of window, with reflection of trees

With smuggling costs skyrocketing, parents balance risk and debt for their children’s future

Conflict
Man on a boat lifting a young child to hand to rescuers

A year after the Italy-Libya migrant deal: Fewer deaths at sea but persistent abuse on land

Economics
social media

UN: Traffickers use social media to lure migrants to slavery, death

Global Politics
Diego - GNE

This Kansas high school student must pay back $3,000 after smugglers helped him leave Guatemala

Education
Italian coastguard personnel in protective clothing carry the body of a dead immigrant off their ship, Bruno Gregoretti, in the Grand Harbor of Valletta, Malta, on April 20, 2015.

‘I am saving up to take the death boat to Europe’

Justice

Despite the clear and growing dangers of crossing the Mediterranean Sea in search of refuge in Europe, the stream of migrants is only getting bigger. The people making the journey say it’s better to take a deadly chance than die slowly in civil wars or along the dangerous routes away from home.

MOAS rescuing migrants in November, 2014.

An American millionaire works to rescue migrants off the coast of Italy

Global Politics

This American millionaire set up the first privately-funded search and rescue operation in the waters off of North Africa.

Shukri Alassouli's wife and two children were among some 450 people who drowned in a fishing boat rammed by people smugglers last month in the Mediterranean Ocean.

A ‘mass murder in the Mediterranean’ leaves nearly 450 lost at sea, including this man’s family

Conflict

Shukri Alassouli, a 33-year-old man from Gaza, was trying to find a better life for his young family in Europe. But their journey across the Mediterranean in smugglers’ boats turned into what the UN called the deadliest accident of its kind, killing hundreds and losing Shukri’s wife, daughter and young son at sea.

Blue jerry cans, usually used by smugglers ferrying oil from Syria to Turkey, are stacked for sale in front of a shop in the Turkish border town of Hacipasa.

ISIS is selling cheap oil to its enemies — from Syria’s government to the Kurds

Conflict

ISIS is funding its war by selling oil from the fields it controls in Iraq and Syria, to the tune of millions of dollars. Strangely enough, the enemies it is fighting are some of the main customers. That complicates the US goal of crippling the ISIS war machine.

Venezuela says its new grocery loyalty card will stop the toilet paper speculators

One of the drivers behind the Venezuelan street protests is a lack of basic consumer goods, from toilet paper to food. Now the government thinks it has a partial answer — a sort of supermarket loyalty card that it hopes will cut down on hoarding and speculation. But some critics say the idea is just creepy.One of the drivers behind the Venezuelan street protests is a lack of basic consumer goods, from toilet paper to food. Now the government thinks it has a partial answer — a sort of supermarket loyalty card that it hopes will cut down on hoarding and speculation. But some critics say the idea is just creepy.