This report is the outcome of an innovative study carried out by a team of experts under the United Nations Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking. It aims to highlight knowledge gaps in existing documentation and pave the way for the implementation of future anti-human trafficking strategies by providing recommendations and guidelines for decision makers and other concerned actors. The study explores the relationship between organized illegal enterprises and human trafficking via a business model; focusing on the social/economic/criminal/cultural elements that encourage human trafficking to thrive. Using 25 cases from around the world, this study highlights the actors (individual and group) and the multitude of activities involved in the chain of events that constitutes human trafficking as an illegal commercial activity. It makes available a number of tools and policy measures for governments to use to comprehensively combat trafficking enterprises and protect those most at risk.