“Leave this weekend”. Suspected smugglers are using TikTok to recruit candidates for the illegal transfer from Mexico to the United States, a challenge for authorities and for the platform, whose CEO will be heard in Washington on Thursday.
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“Let Mexicans interested in crossing to the United States leave your message,” continues one of the many smuggler ads spotted on TikTok by a journalist with AFP’s digital investigative service.
The announcement is accompanied by a photo of a group of people in camouflage clothing advancing at night between bushes in an arid place on the border between the two countries, similar to the landscapes of the Sonoran Desert (northwest of Mexico).
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Another report offers migrants to cross the border in Tamaulipas state (northeast) with a photo of the minor aboard a rubber dinghy. “We also make crossings with children and families,” says the announcement.
Similar profiles can be counted among the hundreds in other departure countries of candidates traveling to the United States (Guatemala, Colombia and Ecuador), AFP noted.
“pollero”
Under the keyword #pollero (the Spanish term for smugglers in Mexico), the suspected human traffickers also recruit drivers for their illegal immigration ring in Arizona, with promises of between $3,000 and $15,000.
“If you have a car and want to make money quickly, write to me,” says an English message.
For $7,000 a person, migrants are huddled in the trailer of a stationary van or truck, airless, transported hundreds of miles, sometimes with death down the road.
On June 27, 56 migrants were found suffocated in an abandoned trailer near San Antonio, Texas.
On December 9, 2021, 56 other migrants also died in a truck accident on a highway in Chiapas, southern Mexico.
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According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a total of 7,661 migrants have died or disappeared en route to the United States since 2014.
Migrants can also find advice and an exchange of experiences for their dangerous crossing on TikTok.
Near the Mexican Refugee Assistance Commission (Comar) in Mexico City, Brenand Vilne, a 30-year-old Haitian, reveals in his telephone publications that he has attempted to cross the Darien, the forest between Colombia and Panama where many refugees die their lives lose .
Andrea, 25, and Beatriz, 29, left Venezuela last October. Andrea shows AFP the profile of a young woman who managed to enter the United States and who advises those who are still on the way (medication…). “Everyone’s experiences are very personal,” explains Beatriz.
TikTok claims to ban “promoting criminal activity.”
“We do not tolerate content that promotes the exploitation of people, including human trafficking,” a spokesman for the network in Latin America told AFP.
TikTok, a subsidiary of Chinese group Bytedance, has been attacked on multiple fronts and claims to have eliminated 82% of videos related to criminal practices on its own initiative in Q3 2022.
Its CEO Shou Chew will be heard by a powerful House of Representatives committee in Washington on Thursday.
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300 investigation files
Mexican authorities conduct their own investigations and cybersecurity operations to fight organized crime online.
In a room full of computers in Mexico City, experts from the Attorney General’s Office of Criminal Investigation have been tracking social media profiles since 2017.
According to an official spokesman, Rolando Rosas, the unit was involved in around 300 investigation files into human trafficking.
Rosas emphasizes the good cooperation with the platforms: “Digital service companies are obliged to provide information in the event of a crime.”
According to unit head Benjamín Oviedo, unit agents intervene when a trafficker’s payment is negotiated or cybernetically secured.
A February IOM report confirms that TikTok is being used by smugglers as a “promotional tool” such as showing videos of “successful irregular smuggling cases” in the US.
IOM conducted its survey of 531 migrants in transit, 64% of whom said they had access to a smartphone and the internet during their trip.