Man pleads guilty to immigrant smuggling; used RGV as a safehouse

The Brownsville Herald
March 5, 2012
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas (AP)

A South Texas man has pleaded guilty to charges that he was the leader of an immigrant smuggling ring for almost a decade.


The U.S. attorney's office says Armando Olmedo-Trevino rose from a smuggler to the person running the conspiracy from his home in Wharton, about 60 miles west of Houston. Olmedo-Trevino and six other suspects pleaded guilty Friday.


Prosecutors say members of the ring worked to get immigrants across the border and into safe houses in the Rio Grande Valley before they were moved north. Federal agents caught about 400 illegal immigrants who were being smuggled.


Olmedo-Trevino and the others who pleaded guilty Friday are scheduled to be sentenced in May. They all face 10 years in prison.

Man pleads guilty to immigrant smuggling; used RGV as a safehouse | texas, immigrant, used - Brownsville Herald