With more than a million arrivals in Europe in 2015, the mass migration has impacted the continent politically, economically, and socially. According to Europol, a law enforcement agency, in 2016 more than 90% of migrants going to the European Union have experienced some kind of smuggling during their journey. Many articles aggregate human smuggling with human trafficking. However, there is a lack of empirical examination and of different types of smuggling. In this study, I focus on migrant smuggling. Nevertheless, human smuggling is often seen as a crime that is organized, where a new “service” gets added to their principle activity (drug smuggling, money laundering…), as stated by Finckenauer, and performed by people who have never been involved in transnational criminal organizations. I assess this puzzle: How does human smuggling differ from human trafficking and organized crime, by examining primary and secondary sources such as scholarly literature and local newspapers? I argue that human smuggling has some traits of organized crime; however, considering entirely as it, limits the study of smuggling, as a business activity, and limits the prevention of illegal immigration. Human smuggling has traits of organized crime: the structure, the persistence, and violence have shown that these elements are not voluntarily present in the activity of smuggling. Nonetheless, the main purpose of this activity is treated as a business: where demand and supply meet and where price fluctuates depending on these factors. Migrant smuggling needs to be seen as a mutually consenting act between a migrant and a smuggler: the migrant is looking to flee because of instability in his/her country for the hope of a better life while the smuggler is considering smuggling as a business. This project aims to give a nuanced understanding of human smuggling to better intervene at the source of this mass migration.