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 News from Around the Americas | June 2006 
US Arrests Five in Alleged Human Smuggling from Mexico
 AFP
| | US Border Patrol officers arrest a man who just jumped over the US-Mexican border line. US officials broke up a large-scale gang allegedly responsible for smuggling into the United States hundreds of persons, including infants, from Mexico. (AFP/Maxim Kniazkov) |
US officials broke up a large-scale gang allegedly responsible for smuggling into the United States hundreds of persons, including infants, from Mexico.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spent a year investigating the ring and on Friday fanned out across southern California and eastern Arizona to arrest five of the 11 persons who had been charged late Thursday, ICE said in a statement.
"With these arrests, we have dismantled a criminal organization responsible for smuggling a significant number of aliens into (the) southwestern United States," ICE agent David Wales said in a statement.
"As this case shows, ICE is not only targeting the people affiliated with these criminal organizations, but we're also going after the infrastructure that supports this ruthless and highly lucrative enterprise."
US federal officials have targeted human smuggling as an international criminal enterprise rivaling drugs and weapons in the amount of money paid.
ICE alleged that the smuggling operation began in Sonora, a Mexican state on the US border. Smuggled persons were dropped off in houses near Yuma, Arizona and taken to Ventura County, California.
Charges were filed against Juan Ramirez, alias "El Diablo," 37, as the alleged leader of the gang, which charged 1,600 to 2,000 dollars per trip to southern California and up to 2,800 dollars to deliver persons to other parts of the United States, ICE said.
Those charged could face up to 40 years in prison if found guilty of human smuggling, ICE said. |
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