Considered as the most "mysterious," the most difficult to investigate and the most easily overlooked criminal act by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), human trafficking could be thriving in Botswana as a result, analysts say. There have been signs that the crime is growing in Botswana. For example, in 2007 the Philippines Bureau of Immigration arrested a Motswana, Peter Lucky, who was suspected of being a member of an international human trafficking ring.
He was expelled from the country soon after his arrest and declared a prohibited immigrant. Police's Diamond and Narcotics Squad had interrogated many suspects, among them businessmen, police officers and labour consultants, in connection with a large-scale human trafficking network in Botswana. The suspects were believed to be part of an organised human trafficking ring that ferried people from Bangladesh and Pakistan into Botswana and neighbouring South Africa. At the time the investigations were launched the police were said to have broken a number of organised cells, which had been using Botswana as a destination and transit for trafficked persons. So serious is the issue of human trafficking that it has become a regular agenda item for Botswana Police Annual Senior Officer's retreats.
