28 men indicted for smuggling immigrants

By Carol J. Williams
Los Angeles Times


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May 21, 2008 - 12:00 am



Federal grand juries in Key West and Miami have indicted 28 South Florida men on charges of smuggling immigrants, the U.S. attorney's office said yesterday.

The dramatic move was apparently aimed at the thriving industry in which speedboat operators charge Cubans thousands of dollars to be spirited out of their homeland.

The indictments stem from 13 smuggling operations intercepted over the past two years. The charges - involving the thwarted smuggling of more than 225 foreign nationals, all but 11 of them Cuban - could send each defendant to prison for as long as 10 years.

Most of the smuggled immigrants were Cubans picked up late at night on the shores of their island by "go-fast" boat captains paid as much as $10,000 a head, usually by relatives in Florida seeking reunification with kin they left behind.

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