LU-MRRL Lecture Series: The Patricio Transnational Criminal Organization: A Network of Forced Labor Trafficking

Last summer, a team of two student researchers, Michelle Matthews and Mary Franklin, and Dr. Gary Kowaluk (criminal justice) from Lincoln University took part in the Department of Homeland Security’s Summer Research Team Project for Minority Serving Institutions. The project included a grant to spend the summer with the George Mason University’s Criminal Investigations Network Analysis (CINA) Center.

In cooperation with the CINA Center, the LU group designed a research project to study illegal labor trafficking by doing a Social Network Analysis of the Patricio Transnational Criminal Organization, a large illegal labor trafficking organization that was in indicted in 2021 by federal attorneys in the Southern Georgia District Court.

The group will present the results of the research done during the summer and its proposal for integrating this research into its larger research on social networking and illegal labor trafficking between Mexico and the United States.