LINK-KG: LLM-Driven Coreference-Resolved Knowledge Graphs for Human Smuggling Networks

Abstract--Human smuggling networks are complex and constantly evolving, making them difficult to analyze comprehensively. Legal case documents offer rich factual and procedural insights into these networks but are often long, unstructured, and filled with ambiguous or shifting references, posing significant challenges for automated knowledge graph (KG) construction. Existing methods either overlook coreference resolution or fail to scale beyond short text spans, leading to fragmented graphs and inconsistent entity linking. We propose LINK-KG, a modular framework that integrates a three-stage, LLM-guided coreference resolution pipeline with downstream KG extraction. At the core of our approach is a type-specific Prompt Cache, which consistently tracks and resolves references across document chunks, enabling clean and disambiguated narratives for structured knowledge graph construction from both short and long legal texts. LINK-KG reduces average node duplication by 45.21% and noisy nodes by 32.22% compared to baseline methods, resulting in cleaner and more coherent graph structures. Human smuggling networks represent highly adaptive and organized systems involving a web of actors, routes, vehicles, and intermediaries, often operating under the radar of restrictive immigration policies [1]. These networks exploit legal loopholes, adjust swiftly to enforcement changes, and frequently intersect with transnational criminal organizations. Effectively analyzing their structure and behavior is critical for informing policy, enhancing security, and preventing exploitation. However, much of the actionable insight remains embedded in lengthy, unstructured legal documents, such as court rulings, field reports, and case transcripts, making automated analysis both essential and challenging.