Thread: Dozens Arrested in Rancho Palos Verdes Panga Bust

Bet there are more pangas headed here or are out there right this moment. On and on it goes....

By Sandy Mazza Staff Writer
Posted: 12/10/2012 08:23:10 AM PST
Daily News


Police believe that a Mexican smuggling boat, or panga, may have contained up to 40 people when it landed off the Palos Verdes Peninsula this morning. Authorities say 25 suspected illegal immigrants were detained. Port police, Los Angeles County Sheriff's deputies and other law enforcement officers were called into assist after the U.S. Coast Guard found the open-hulled panga off the PVP coastline at dawn. Chuck Bennett/Staff Photographer

U.S. Border Patrol agents had been surveilling the boat, which carried 19 men and six women, for a possible smuggling operation, according to Virginia Kice, spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Authorities arrested those aboard as the boat approached the shore just off Abalone Cove at about 5 a.m.

In addition to ICE, the U.S. Coast Guard and several state and local law enforcement agencies are assisting in the investigation.

Some passengers cried as they were photographed and interviewed by Homeland Security investigators. Most were dressed casually in sweatshirts and jeans.

"The 25 individuals are being interviewed by (Homeland Security) investigators to develop further evidence related to the smuggling attempt and identify and suspects who were complicit in the scheme," Kice said.

"Those subjects who are not held for possible criminal prosecution will be remanded to the custody of the U.S. Border Patrol to be processed and repatriated."

Maritime smuggling activity has increased off the Southern California coast in recent years, Kice said. There have been more than 200 intercepted human- and drug-smuggling operations this year alone, she said.

On Dec. 2, U.S. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Terrell Horne III was killed as he and others approached a panga suspected of being involved in drug smuggling off the coast of Santa Cruz Island.

Horne, a 34-year-old Redondo Beach resident, was approaching the panga with three other investigators in an inflatable boat when the suspect's vessel rammed into them. Horne, a married father of two with a third child on the way, suffered a fatal head wound when he and another man were thrown into the ocean.

25 suspected illegal immigrants detained after panga is intercepted off Rancho Palos Verdes - LA Daily News

Added an article from above to the Homepage:
http://www.alipac.us/content/25-susp...ho-palos-1197/

By Sandy Mazza Staff Writer
Posted: 12/11/2012 09:02:06 PM PST
Updated: 12/12/2012 07:27:29 AM PST
presstelegram.com

Federal authorities investigating the panga that came ashore in Rancho Palos Verdes this week filed documents Tuesday that revealed where the boat came from, how much the suspected undocumented immigrants paid for the trip and where they were headed.

The affidavit, based on a series of interviews with those taken into custody Monday, was filed in support of smuggling and conspiracy charges brought against four men.

Federal authorities said the panga originated from somewhere near Tijuana, Mexico. The two dozen occupants traveled in a 27-foot, single-engine outboard, open-hull boat that was spotted before dawn Monday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents surveilling the Abalone Cove area with a "forward-looking infra-red device." (The area is regularly used to smuggle undocumented immigrants and drugs into the U.S. from Mexico.)

The agents noticed that the boat was traveling quickly, with no lights, and was very low in the water. Suspecting a smuggling operation, they called in Homeland Security, the U.S. Coast Guard and local police.

As additional investigators arrived in the Portuguese Bend area, the smugglers' plans began to unravel quickly. At 6 a.m., Palos Verdes Estates police officers found two minivans parked near where the panga was headed. The drivers were talking on cellphones and tried to drive away as officers approached, according to the affidavit.

The men at the wheel of those vans - Maricela Salazar-Diaz and Jose De Jesus Chavez - were among the four charged with conspiring to smuggle illegal immigrants. They admitted in interviews that they intended to drive the immigrants to a Wal-Mart store in Montebello. The drivers were told they would be paid $100 per person. Chavez said he had made $1,800 a week before by doing that.

Ivan Ramirez-Leyva and Juan Francisco Becerra-Ruiz also were charged with smuggling. They were identified by passengers as the men in charge of navigating the boat. Ramirez was convicted of smuggling illegal aliens to the U.S. in a panga last year. He spent 17 months in prison before he was deported earlier this year.

The boat passengers told investigators that they met smugglers in Tijuana, and paid sums of $3,000 to $9,000 for rides to the United States. No one was sure where they boarded the panga.

The trip was tense at times because the boat pilots argued over the engine noise and twice threatened to throw one of the passengers overboard because he was "too fat."

Everyone aboard was a Mexican citizen except one man, who was Guatemalan. Some of the passengers told investigators their plans once they arrived in America.

One man wanted to move to Minnesota. Another worked as a mechanic and came to visit his daughter, who lives in Chula Vista. Passengers were headed for Riverside, Huntington Beach and Salinas to visit family and work.

Passenger Gustavo Vargas said he had just been deported from Michigan in May. He was recently in a Tijuana bar watching boxing when a man approached him and offered to take him back to the United States for $8,000.

The passengers will be repatriated to Mexico unless they are held as witnesses in the criminal trial.

Affidavit reveals details about panga intercepted by Border Patrol - Press-Telegram