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Definition

Smuggling is the illicit transport of materials or persons across legally constituted borders or boundaries. A wide variety of goods are or can be smuggled, from tobacco products to nuclear material to human beings. The motives for smuggling are equally diverse. Some people smuggle to avoid taxation, this is especially the case with tobacco and alcohol, while others smuggle because the item itself is illegal, as with drugs or nuclear material. States may engage in smuggling in order to avoid internationally applied sanctions or to obfuscate clandestine activities, such as the development of weapons programs. Human smugglers typically seek to benefit financially either by profiting from the facilitation of illegal migration or through the exploitation of the people within their power as either sex workers or underpaid laborers.

Introduction

Smuggling adversely impacts both human security and state security in a variety of ways, depending upon the particular form under...

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Correspondence to William Patterson .

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Patterson, W. (2019). Smuggling. In: Romaniuk, S., Thapa, M., Marton, P. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Global Security Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_130-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_130-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74336-3

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Smuggling
    Published:
    28 December 2021

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_130-2

  2. Original

    Smuggling
    Published:
    18 July 2019

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74336-3_130-1