Combatting Human Trafficking Holistically through Proactive Financial Investigations

Human trafficking — a crime with enormous human cost — is mostly money-driven. By focusing on its financial aspects, this article argues that enhancing financial investigations by making them proactive is crucial to combat this low-risk and high-profit offence holistically. By providing insight into research carried out as of 2015 in the framework of an anti-human trafficking public–private financial partnership in the Netherlands, this article indicates some concrete improvement in detecting potential victims in bank records, thereupon following financial flows, and ultimately discerning the structures, networks, interactions and patterns of this offence. While these findings specifically relate to the Dutch context, this contribution sets out actionable ways forward for other states as well. After detailing how to approach hard, soft and open source data, this article also explains how to improve international cooperation throughout the entire chain, from banks to financial intelligence units and law enforcement. Such enhancements are urgently needed if we are to live up to the international community’s pledge under three Sustainable Development Goals to combat human trafficking, so as to leave no one behind in our global economy.