A language known as the 'migrant's code' and made up of a series of secret communications between human smugglers has been discovered as part of research carried out by Tuscia University in the Lazio city of Viterbo.

The theory has been drafted by Michele Empler, who has a PhD in society and change, and Livio Calabresi, a researcher at Milan's State University.

The two young researchers say that it allows them to understand the metalanguage used by smugglers to attract and then manage migrant trafficking from Sahel to Europe.

The duo, coordinated by Professor Alessandro Sterpa, say they have discovered a code which uses symbols to publicize journeys to Europe, thus reaching people who speak different languages while eluding controls.

The results of the research were presented on Saturday, September 27, during a congress on 'the exploitation of migration in the war against liberal democracies', organized by the Center for Higher Defense Studies in Rome.

Emoticons to manage migrant trafficking

"The code," explained in a statement issued by the Center for Higher Defense Studies, "which has been summed up in an algebraic formula that can be replicated, has translated the language which, surprisingly, uses the most banal of representations: emoticons."

The two researchers, created a web crawler that uses artificial intelligence and were able to extract data that led to the creation of a code. They discovered that the smugglers deployed symbols in the form of "emoticons, which cannot be deciphered by traditional security systems and posted on the most widely used social networks," stated the press release.

"Through these symbols, we were able to not only identify information concerning movements and agreements aimed at trafficking, but also the disinformation that drives flows towards target countries like Italy," explained Empler.

All this is happening "in broad daylight," he noted. "They are able to escape control because they don't use semantics we know and which we can thus decipher," added the researcher.

AI could aid national security

Once they entered this "ocean," the two researchers found "images, videos and content including contacts and phone numbers that create attractive and naturally fake realities, which migrants trust because they believe them to be real and verified," noted Calabresi.

Among them were videos "showing how easy the trip is, with photos and addresses of homes in Italian cities" allegedly waiting to host them and assuring migrants of the "certainty of obtaining valid documents," he explained.

The fake information is freely circulating online and eluding control thanks to the use of simple images like emoticons. Empler and Calabresi did not hide their enthusiasm for "further developments that can be gleaned from the elaboration of AI trained on this paradigm that could aid national security."

The discovery made by the two researchers, the press release stressed, "could undoubtedly contribute to identifying methods and channels fostering illegal immigration and which, with more funding, could be a fundamental tool for the government and defense."