Abstract
This policy document examines the evolving role of European Common Operational Partnerships (COPs) in addressing transnational organized crime, with a particular focus on migrant smuggling and trafficking in human beings (THB). COPs were originally designed as collaborative law enforcement initiatives centred on cooperation among public authorities. However, the operational realities of contemporary criminal networks increasingly demonstrate the limitations of a model based primarily on institutional and police-to-police cooperation.
While the European Union has already acknowledged the added value of involving non-governmental organisations, international organisations, and selected non-profit actors in related initiatives, this paper argues that the current COP framework should be further reconsidered and reshaped into a more inclusive operational model. Criminal organisations involved in THB operate across highly adaptive and transnational ecosystems that often exceed the capacities and competences of state actors alone.
Existing COPs have produced important results in liaison, capacity building, training, and cross-border information exchange. Nevertheless, the current structure remains incomplete, as the earliest indicators of exploitation are frequently identified not by national criminal police forces, but by a wider ecosystem of actors. These include victim-support organisations, shelters, labour-rights services, trade unions, municipal authorities and local police bodies, ports and reception services, rescue operators, legal-aid providers, cultural mediators, internet service providers, platform operators, financial institutions, forensic experts, AI and OSINT specialists, and investigative civil society organisations working closely with border communities.
This policy document proposes the development of a formally governed public-private pre-investigative layer within future COPs. Inspired by Financial Intelligence Unit and anti-money laundering (FIU/AML) cooperation models, the proposed framework adapts these principles to a victim-centred THB context. Private-sector and civil-society actors would not replace or replicate police functions, nor conduct covert criminal investigations. Rather, they could lawfully contribute structured risk indicators, red-flag reports, typologies, OSINT preservation packages, victim-sensitive documentation, and referral inputs prior to the opening of formal criminal proceedings.
Under this model, public authorities would retain exclusive responsibility for validation, prioritisation, criminal investigation, coercive measures, evidentiary activities, and prosecution. The central objective of the proposed framework is therefore the creation of a disciplined and auditable system of THB indicators capable of translating weak operational signals into reviewable and legally compliant pre-investigative intelligence inputs.
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