Thread: CA-Ring smuggled dozens of immigrants into U.S.

Authorities: Ring smuggled dozens of immigrants into U.S.





By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

7:30 p.m. September 8, 2008

SAN DIEGO – An immigrant-smuggling ring operating for years out of a spacious Fallbrook house brought dozens of people into the country and made its operators hundreds of thousands of dollars, authorities said Monday.
Illegal immigrants were provided with bogus documents, crossed the border at San Ysidro and then waited in the guest house on the same property as the 3,200-square-foot, four-bedroom home until friends or family paid the smuggling fee.


http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metr ... uggle.html

FALLBOOK: Family charged with smuggling immigrants
By Teri Figueroa - Staff writer | Monday, September 8, 2008 7:08 PM PDT ∞

Four Fallbrook family members were arraigned in a San Diego federal courtroom Monday on allegations that they hid illegal immigrants in their home while waiting for someone to come up with the fees for smuggling them across the U.S.-Mexico border, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced.

The indictment charging Maria Del Carmen Alvarez, Indalecio Alvarez-Montoya, Juan Alvarez and Patricia Marquez was handed up by a federal grand jury on Aug. 29 and unsealed Monday. It could not be immediately accessed Monday evening.

In a statement Monday, federal prosecutors alleged that the four defendants sheltered illegal immigrants in a two-bedroom guesthouse on their Fallbrook property, 354 Rancho Camino Road, and kept them while waiting for people to wire money for smuggling them across the border.

The indictment also alleges that the smugglers arranged to have the payments wired in small amounts to multiple recipients.

Prosecutors allege that the smugglers used false documents or hid the immigrants in vehicles to get them across the border.

The indictment charges the four defendants with conspiracy to bring in illegal aliens for financial gain, 15 counts of bringing in illegal aliens for financial gain, 15 counts of transporting illegal immigrants, 14 counts of harboring illegal immigrants, conspiracy to launder money and three counts of filing false tax returns.

The defendants have been involved in the smuggling plot since 1996, prosecutors alleged.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/09 ... 04c70b.txt

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4 in family are facing smuggling charges


Immigration ring described in court
By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

September 9, 2008

An immigrant-smuggling ring operating for years out of a spacious Fallbrook house brought dozens of people into the country and made its operators hundreds of thousands of dollars, authorities said yesterday.
Illegal immigrants were provided with bogus documents, crossed the border at San Ysidro and then waited in the guest house on the same property as the 3,200-square-foot, four-bedroom home until friends or family paid the smuggling fee.

A Fallbrook couple and their adult children pleaded not guilty to conspiracy, smuggling and tax charges in federal court yesterday. They were arrested Friday.

The matriarch, Maria del Carmen Alvarez, 53, asked a judge to appoint a publicly paid lawyer, saying she doesn't have a job.

But prosecutor Tim Salel said that's not true.

“She has been working, albeit in alien smuggling, for the last three decades,â€