International Journal on Criminology Volume 7, Number 2, Spring 2020 | Page 96
Human Trafficking Network Investigations: The
Role of Open Source Intelligence and Large-Scale
Data Analytics in Investigating Organized Crime
Leah F. Meyer and Louise I. Shelley 1
Leah F. Meyer founded the Human Trafficking Intelligence Project to research
human trafficking and equip investigators with tactically relevant
tools to uncover trafficking operations. She previously worked on DARPA’s
Memex project as Project Manager and Investigative Analyst, providing
investigative support to law enforcement and building software to investigate
human trafficking. She worked with the international NGO, Polaris,
building the BeFree SMS hotline and serving as Regional Specialist for the
National Human Trafficking Hotline, developing case response and building
capacity for law enforcement, service providers, and government agencies
to serve human trafficking victims. Email: [email protected]
Louise Shelley is the Omer L. and Nancy Hirst Endowed Chair and a
University Professor at Schar School of Policy and Government, George
Mason University. She founded and directs the Terrorism, Transnational
Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC). Her most recent books include
Dark Commerce: How a New Illicit Economy Threatens our Future (PrincetonUniversity
Press, 2018), written while an inaugural Andrew Carnegie
Fellow 2015-2017, Dirty Entanglements: Corruption, Crime and Terrorism
(Cambridge University Press, 2014), and Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective
(Cambridge 2010). She is the recipient of the Guggenheim, NEH,
IREX, Kennan Institute, Fulbright, and Rockefeller Fellowships. Email:
[email protected]
Abstract
This paper examines the migration of trafficking for sexual exploitation
to the web and explores open source research techniques,
analytical tools, and datasets used to uncover a Chinese organized
crime network engaged in human trafficking. Memex, a US government
research program that produced a large dataset and software
application tools, provided surface and deep web intelligence
through escort advertisements and sex buyer review forum posts
to law enforcement investigators. The tools provided visualizations
1 The research done for this paper by Louise Shelley was done under the NSF grant: EAGER:ISN: A
New Multi-Layered Network Approach for Improving the Detection of Human Trafficking, Award
Number: 1837881.
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