E/CN.4/2002/94/Add.1 page 12 and comprise a chain of agents stretching right up to the moment of arrival in the country of destination, including moneylenders, transporters, those who falsify papers and those who smuggle people across the border. There are routes by air and sea from Ecuador to the United States via Central America and Mexico, and to Europe, especially Italy and Spain. 28. The Special Rapporteur noted that the smuggler’s activity begins with the preparation of false papers or the sale of false visas for genuine passports. She heard reports that smugglers make use of legal documents authorizing the departure of minors, as well as illegal documentation in which the age, name and nationality of the minor are false.10 The activities of the smugglers are supported by those of the moneylenders. These agents lend money to people of limited means at usurious interest rates and create situations in which the members of migrants’ families who remain behind are veritably oppressed by debt. Because they are illiterate, many such family members sign pieces of paper which are blank or contain statements they do not understand, with the result that houses and land are signed over to the usurer. 29. In the case of smuggling by sea, the smugglers make sure they assemble a large number of migrants, whom they transport by bus to the Ecuadorian coast, to wait in houses, hostels or hotels from which the networks operate, for an appropriate moment to board ship. Some persons reported that migrants make a second payment to the captain or his crew. The same procedure is followed in the case of smuggling by air, but at the individual level. The individuals are transported to Quito or Guayaquil, where they wait in hotels or hostels (with which an arrangement has been made) until they are moved to the international airports. The documents which they use to travel are normally given to them at the last minute. The sums reported in connection with the total amount paid to the smugglers range between US$ 8,000 and US$ 19,000. The Special Rapporteur also received information indicating that some travel agents serve as a screen to conceal smuggling of migrants, offering documentation and visas together with air tickets. 30. The Special Rapporteur was informed that the Congress has revised article 440 of the Penal Code in order to categorize this smuggling as an offence.11 The Commandant General of the police described the difficulty of intercepting groups of people when they are travelling within Ecuador with the aim of leaving the country illegally with the help of smugglers, owing to the duty of the authorities to uphold the right to free movement of persons. The Ombudsman conveyed to the Special Rapporteur his concern that in some transit countries, the police and smugglers negotiate the handing over of some groups of migrants in return for the passage of others. A cause for concern is the information received by the Special Rapporteur relating to alleged collusion by some members of the Ecuadorian security forces, who facilitate illegal departures in return for money. 31. In the south of Ecuador, many migrants’ families say they do not know the whereabouts of their relatives, whether they have been detained, or whether they have died in the attempt to emigrate. They do not know the names under which their relatives travelled, or the route taken. They also told of extreme forms of abuse in the transit countries, the sexual abuse of women, imprisonment with criminals or in inhuman conditions, extortion and ill-treatment by police authorities, etc. Civil-society organizations in the south called on the Special Rapporteur to highlight the absence of machinery to investigate such abuses and the need to create transparent machinery to establish the whereabouts of the migrants.