"Let the Mexicans interested in the passage to the United States leave their message," continues one of the many ads of smugglers spotted on TikTok by a journalist of the digital investigation service of AFP.
The announcement is accompanied by a photo of a group of people in camouflage clothes, advancing at night between shrubs in an arid place on the border between the two countries, similar to the landscapes of the Sonoran desert (northwestern Mexico).
Another account offers migrants to cross to the other end of the border in the northeastern state of Tamaulipas, with a photo of minors aboard an inflatable boat. "We also make crossings with children and families," the announcement said.
Similar profiles are counted in the hundreds in other countries of departure of candidates for travel to the United States (Guatemala, Colombia and Ecuador), AFP found.
"Pollero"
Under the #pollero label (the Spanish for smugglers in Mexico), the alleged traffickers also recruit drivers for their illegal immigration network in Arizona, with a promise of a salary of $3,000 to $15,000.
"If you have a car and you want to make easy money, write to me," reads a message in English.
For $7,000 per person, migrants are transported in the trailer of a van or truck standing, crammed, without air, for hundreds of kilometers, sometimes with death at the end of the road.
On June 27, 56 migrants were found dead of asphyxiation in an abandoned trailer near San Antonio, Texas.
On December 9, 2021, another 56 migrants also died in a truck accident on a highway in Chiapas in southern Mexico.
A total of 7,661 migrants have died or gone missing on the way to the United States since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
© CLAUDIO CRUZ / AFP
Also on TikTok, migrants find advice and sharing experiences for their perilous journey.
On the outskirts of the Mexican Commission for Aid to Refugees (Comar) in Mexico City, Brenand Vilne, a 30-year-old Haitian, shows on his phone publications he has been looking for to cross the Darien, the forest between Colombia and Panama where many refugees lose their lives.
Andrea, 25, and Beatriz, 29, left Venezuela last October. Andrea shows AFP the profile of a young woman who has managed to enter the United States, and who provides advice to those who are still on the way (medication...). "Everyone's experience is very personal," Beatriz relativizes.
TikTok claims to prohibit the "promotion of criminal activities".
"We do not tolerate content that promotes human exploitation, including human trafficking," a spokesman for the network in Latin America told AFP.
Attacked on several fronts, TikTok, a subsidiary of the Chinese group Bytedance, claims to have eliminated on its own initiative 82% of videos related to criminal practices in the third quarter of 2022.
Its CEO Shou Chew will be heard Thursday by a powerful parliamentary committee of the House of Representatives in Washington.
300 investigation files
Mexican authorities are conducting their own cybersecurity investigations and operations to combat organized crime online.
© CLAUDIO CRUZ / AFP
In a room full of computers in Mexico City, experts from the Criminal Investigation Agency of the Attorney General's Office have been following profiles on social media since 2017.
The unit has been involved in some 300 human trafficking investigation files, according to an official spokesman, Rolando Rosas.
Rosas highlights the good cooperation with platforms: "Digital service companies are obliged to hand over information in the event of a crime."
The unit's agents intervene when a trafficker's payment is negotiated or materialized through cyber means, according to the head of the unit, Benjamín Oviedo.
A February IOM report confirms that TikTok is being used as a "means of promotion" by smugglers, for example by showing videos of "successful cases of irregular crossings" into the US.
IOM conducted its survey of 531 migrants in transit, of whom 64 per cent said they had access to a smartphone and internet during their journey.
© 2023 AFP