ROME (Sputnik) – Terror groups such as Daesh have begun transportation of undocumented migrants to earn money making up losses caused by decreased oil and antiquities' trade, Alessandro Pansa, an Italian senior intelligence official, said Tuesday.
"IS [Daesh] has recently significantly retreated. Its sources of revenue, primarily smuggling oil products and antiquities, are at the edge of drying out. We think that terrorists are resorting to human trafficking as a new source of revenue," Pansa told La Stampa newspaper.
The intelligence officer added that partnership in the cooperation on human trafficking between terrorist organizations and criminal group was emerging.
According to the Council of Europe's Group of Experts on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (GRETA), about 150,300 migrants arrived in Italy in 2015 and around 164,000 migrants came by November 2016, while the number of asylum applications in 2016 exceeded 78,300 by mid-September.
