In some Libyan detention centres, migrants are allowed to phone contacts to ask them to transfer money. EU migration policies have increasingly focused on controlling borders outside Europe. But in the domain of counter-migration, they benefited from an incentive structure created by EU policies. In the process, that state has developed vested interests in the continuation of the extortion business — interests that EU policies have helped to create. Yet EU policies have also unwittingly helped to lend such conspiracy theories a degree of plausibility.