Immigrant-smuggling case tied to Carlsbad

By Greg Moran, UNION-TRIBUNE

Tuesday, May 3, 2011 at 5:53 p.m.



SAN DIEGO — Four men have been charged in federal court in Orange County with smuggling illegal immigrants into the country in an investigation that began with the discovery of a boat on a Carlsbad beach.

The fishing boat was a panga, a vessel often used in human smuggling rings. It was discovered just after 7 a.m. Friday by Carlsbad police, who then contacted federal agents.

The agents from the U.S Border Patrol and a border security task force out of Los Angeles suspected the boat was connected to an immigrant-smuggling ring they had been investigating, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Agents had been monitoring a van parked Thursday night in a Rancho Palos Verdes neighborhood. The surveillance was dropped Friday morning when the van left the location without any passengers.

Investigators said they suspect the boat was supposed to make landfall farther north than Carlsbad but because of engine trouble had to abort that plan and come ashore well south of Rancho Palos Verdes.

After learning of the abandoned panga, the agents tracked the van to an apartment building in Anaheim. There they found nine illegal immigrants whose clothes were still wet and caked with sand.

They arrested four men: Mario EcheverrÃ*a, 24, a U.S. citizen living in Mexico and believed to be one of the ring’s leaders; Javier Gomez Dominguez, 30, of Mexico, the caretaker of the Anaheim house; Jose Sevilla, 26, the boat’s alleged captain; and Fernando Medina Gonzalez, 34, of Mexico, the boat’s alleged navigator. All made their initial court appearances Monday in Santa Ana.

Homeland Security officials said the arrests show how maritime human smuggling has expanded from San Diego County into Orange and Los Angeles counties.

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