Earlier human smuggler organizations have undergone a significant transformation by today, adapting to changes of the economic, political and legal environment of today. In Hungary, for example, loosely organized and occasionally operating human smuggler groups with changing personnel at the time of the change of regime, have become by now professional organizations integrated into international OC networks. Internationally, recruiters and organizers in the so called migration sending countries are at the root of the networks. At the intermediate level, a variety of special tasks requiring specific local knowledge and expertise need to be organized, performed and monitored. At the level of the local executors strongly conspired organizations are acting functionally separated into subunits and specialists for subtasks. Human trafficking is financed through complex illegal financial transactions, in which crypto-currencies play an important role, too. Law enforcement has to face a number of procedural and evidence problems in the international cooperation. Detecting international organized crime networks requires close international cooperation of police and judiciary authorities. One relatively new form of international criminal cooperation is the organization of JITs within the European Union that can carry out cross-border investigations. Within the framework of a joint investigation team, members of the authorities of another member state may take part in the proceedings of a given member state. The evidence gathered by the investigation team can be used directly in all participating member state. Based on the empirical research conducted at the National Institute of Criminology in 2019, it can be stated that the Hungarian courts have a very consistent but differentiated sentencing practice in human smuggling cases.