The organisations and networks found in the survey in the three countries vary in size, level of organisation, and how they establish, operate and expand their operations. There are some conclusions to be drawn.
The majority of the cases in the Swedish survey are small or medi-um-scale operations and mainly very spontaneously organised. Both the women involved and the organisers are few. In most cases, only one person is involved as the main character; he or she recruits the women and takes them to Sweden. Women are personally recruited from among the organiser’s acquaintances and the woman or her fam-ily often knows the procurer. Only one large organisation was found to be involved in the Swedish survey, for which the main organisers have changed several times. In this case, it is believed there is an or-ganisation running the criminal operation from the source country, but this has not been confirmed. Some informants do not consider it organised due to several factors, including the change of main organ-iser.
The Finnish survey showed similar organisations involved in the procuring business. There are reports of affiliation with Russian and Estonian criminal networks that are operating with Finnish procur-ers. Some informants in the Finnish survey also believe these organi-sations are involved in most procuring operations in Finland. Swedish operations are not limited to Estonian and Russian women and pro-curers; in small-scale cases the procurers and women also come from eastern Europe and the Balkans. The results of the Finnish survey show that the criminal networks involved in procuring are not par-ticularly large.
In the networks, the organisers work either alone or in partner-ships, usually of two people, in some cases up to four. Horizontal di-versification varies among the cases. Large-scale operations are more diversified and several people are used for different tasks, both as fa-cilitators inside the organisation and employed from the outside for certain assignments, such as arranging housing. Diversification is less apparent in small-scale organisations, where the main organisers man-age most tasks or are assisted by friends, family and acquaintances. In small-scale cases family members are often involved in the operation.
But there are many examples found in the data of how both small and large-scale organisations spontaneously contact and use people for different tasks, whose skills may range from languages to Internet expertise to expertise in the procuring business. The people contacted are already known to the organisers in one way or another. Thus, the organisers may involve many people in order to succeed with the busi-ness, but few are paid. The organisers are often from the lowest social stratum and have no conventional employment. In most cases they are of the same background as the women they recruit, which applies in many of the cases where both perpetrators and victims are from ethnic minorities.
The important facilitating actors include taxi drivers. There are re-ports that taxi drivers are involved in the business in all three coun-tries. They are often paid for their services; there are reports of drivers being paid to take people to brothels and sex clubs. Taxi drivers also play other roles. In some cases, they are also organisers, clients them-selves, or facilitators who help the organisers in various ways.
The study shows that the purpose of establishing and operating these organisations is dependent on their size and level. The major or-ganisations (medium to large-scale) come to the destination country with the sole purpose of establishing a sex business. Small to medium-scale operations are often organised by people already residing in the country, in many cases Swedish citizens. In these cases, the organisers’
networks are often made up of family/friends/acquaintances and are very spontaneously formed. The final category operates only from the source country, and may either be more highly organised with a
genu-ine and defgenu-ined purpose and the goal of sending women on city tours or to organisers who purposelessly tour the country with women.
Expansion and competition were mainly found in the major organ-isations, which need people to be able to expand, especially facilita-tors given tasks like finding and sub-leasing flats, booking tickets, etc.
Any real competition strategies are also found in these organisations.
The organisers are sometimes very creative about adapting to the outside world. The main example is presumably how the largest or-ganisation developed strategies, especially to disrupt police opera-tions to monitor the phases in the sex trade. In this way, the large-scale organisations are more aware of what the police are doing than are other organisations and networks. They may have learned more and been operating for a longer time. Many of the small-scale organi-sations found in the Swedish survey have not been operating as long.
The larger the organisation, the more sophisticated and the greater their involvement in more advanced multi-criminal activities, espe-cially with regard to major drug cases. But there are other criminal activities involved in nearly all cases, whether related crimes or petty crimes like shoplifting. There are only a few major criminal activities involved.
There is little information about the involvement of the legal sphere in procuring in the three countries. There were only two cases found in Sweden, in the single large-scale organisation, and no information found on organisations being used as fronts for the sex trade. Records of corruption were found only in the Estonian survey.