One Billion Euros is the Annual Revenue Generated from Human Trafficking

Georgi Petrunov

Bulgarian National Radio, Hristo Botev Program, 14 April 2009

The annual revenues generated from human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation are about 1 billion euros and at least half of this sum is returned in Bulgaria. RiskMonitor’s Georgi Petrunov shared this data. in an interview for the Bulgarian National Radio. This and other findings were presented at the conference “Money Laundering Related to Human Trafficking” organized by RiskMonitor and the National Investigation Service. RiskMonitor’s estimations are based on a one-year research and conducting around 150 in-depth interviews. Results show that there are between 8,000 and 12,000 victims of Bulgarian origin who are exploited abroad. The average price of a sexual service is 70 euros and prostitutes have 270 working days per year.

Two other participants in the conference also took part in the radio show together with RiskMonitor’s criminology expert Georgi Petrunov. Messrs Roumen Georgiev, Deputy Director of the National Investigation Service and Evgeni Dikov, Supreme Prosecutor’s Office of Cassation also agreed with the main conclusion derived from RiskMonitor’s research. All experts believe that regardless of the increased levels in countering money laundering from human trafficking there is much more to be done. It is quite often that human trafficking is regarded as a crime performed by separate individuals rather than by criminal organizations. Practice is missing in connecting investigations related to human trafficking to those of the laundering of the generated income. In order to generate good results in combating these crimes, it is required that the processes of investigation of the predicate crimes and tracking the cash flows are done simultaneously. Performing these parallel actions is the route to reach to the summit of criminal organizations.