Hamid and Bushra met on Facebook in 2012 by commenting on a mutual friend's post. Today they use social media to find clients as human smugglers - migrants, asylum seekers and refugees looking to cross the Turkish-Greek border safely.

"We laugh about it now," Hamid said, "but that is how we met."

Like many smugglers active on this border, Hamid and Bushra started out as migrants. "We learned this job by trying to make the route ourselves many times," Hamid said.

But, unlike their competition, Hamid and Bushra are also in love.

For three years after crossing paths on Facebook, Hamid travelled the 340 kilometres from Casablanca to Tangier once a week to see Bushra. They decided to build a life together. But to do that, they knew they had to leave Morocco.

"I am Arab and she is Amazigh (Berber)," Hamid explained. "Even if we are both Muslim, our families wouldn't accept us getting married."

So they decided to go to Europe.

In January 2016, Bushra sold her gold necklace and earrings before taking a taxi to the airport. Hamid was waiting with two tickets to Turkey. "We arrived in Istanbul with €600 between the two of us," Hamid said. "That's what we started with."

A couple in need of a job

Six hundred euros wasn't enough to get them safely over the Turkish border into Greece. To cross the Evros river, they needed jobs.

They moved to Esenyurt, one of Istanbul's most densely populated neighbourhoods. It's where many migrants temporarily set up shop while they arrange passage. Hamid found work as a labourer on construction sites, and Bushra as a seamstress in one of Esenyurt's many informal textile factories.

"It is here that lots of European brands make their clothes for cheap," Bushra said. "I was sewing clothes, thinking 'maybe one day I'll buy this in Europe.'"

It took eight months to gather the money they needed to pay their first smuggler. He was a Syrian man with a good reputation for getting groups over the border and onward to Thessaloniki. The all-inclusive price was €1500 for both of them.

"Dealing with smugglers in the past taught me how to deal with clients now," Hamid said. "Many smugglers overpromise, saying the trip is easy and fast. I try not to do that. I explain the rationale behind the price, and people understand it is risky for them and for me too."

Despite their smuggler's reputation, and their advance payment, Hamid and Bushra's first crossing attempt was a failure.

Bushra recalls it well. "At that time the fence was lower than it is today, but it still had razor wire above it," she said. "We didn't need ladders or anything - just throw the bag over, use your shoes to step over the razor wire on top, and then jump down hoping not to get too many cuts."

Hamid and Bushra were apprehended and handcuffed at gunpoint just after jumping the fence. "The Greek police drove us to a building without any official signs or symbols," Bushra said. "There were around 40 other people there, all handcuffed. Early in the morning they made us cross the river on a dinghy back to Turkey."

The couple said the pushbacks in those days were less violent than those in recent years. "They were easy with us, they didn't strip us or search the women," Bushra said. "Today it's completely different," added Hamid. "If people get taken to those secret facilities on the Evros border, everyone gets searched and beaten before being pushed back to Turkey."

Multiple reports from international human rights organisations including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights give credence to Bushra and Hamid's claims. The Border Violence Monitoring Network issued a statement in the summer of 2023 detailing evidence of illegal pushback operations and enforced disappearances inside detention facilities on the Greek side of the Evros river. It has also gathered hundreds of testimonies of violence by Greek border guards.

Smuggling to pay the bills

In 2021 the couple became smugglers themselves. "It's a good business and allows you to make money very fast if you know what you are doing," Hamid said. "We are doing well, but it took a long time to get to this point."

Hamid said he was first recruited by another smuggler in Istanbul. The smuggler knew Hamid had been pushed back from Greece many times, and wanted him to work as a 'rebery' - a guide who brings the group to a pick-up location in Greece.

Bushra, at first, didn't like the idea. "When Hamid was working as a rebery I was scared he would be arrested in Greece and jailed there," she said. "I would have had to go back to Morocco and I didn't want that."

But, after working as a guide for a few trips, Hamid knew who the smugglers were on the Greek side. He stopped his front-line work and began to organise trips himself.

"The smugglers we work with arrange the Greek side of the crossing. They are all Afghans, but that's no problem. We work well together," he said. "It's the best way of doing this business today."

People got across, business grew, and Hamid began to recruit reberies of his own. He said he looks for people who have been pushed back many times and know the road. He covers their accommodation and pays them a fee for guiding groups across the border.

"Then it's up to them if they want to continue to Europe or come back and work as a guide again for another group," he said.

Bushra, meanwhile, brings in the clients. "We have a good reputation by now and people refer us to others by word-of-mouth," she said. "People also contact us on social media."

She's the customer-facing travel agent, he's the backend logistics. Together they make a successful team.

Their prices vary according to how much each client can afford. "It's €1000 to go on foot with one of my guides to Alexandroupoli," Hamid said. "€2500 to get smuggled by truck, €4000 to get to Thessaloniki by car."

Prices have risen as the trip has gotten more difficult. As an example, Bushra said: "With those old fences it was possible to climb over and jump. For these new ones you need a rope ladder."

Before the birth of Khaled, their 2-year-old son, the couple would go to the border together on weekends, scouting out potential crossing points and checking that rest points and safe houses were still secure. "Those used to be our romantic weekend dates," Bushra laughed.

Now, like most young parents, they simply try to recharge when they're not working. "We work tirelessly when we are organising a trip," Bushra said. "Then we take time off before the next trip to unwind from the stress."

Hamid and Bushra are still saving money to get to Europe. After being pushed back so many times, they said they want their final attempt to be above board. "We want to go to Europe legally once we have enough money to get a visa and start a comfortable life there. Maybe we'll finally get married," Bushra said. "We have a target we want to reach. That is our plan."

All names are pseudonyms

From openDemocracy