by Anna Giaritelli
| May 11, 2018 01:49 PM

A third Colombian national has been extradited to the U.S. to face charges for trying to smuggle illegal immigrants into the country as well as for the deaths of two people who died while being trafficked, the Justice Department said.

Fredis Valencia Palacios, 29, appeared in the Southern District of Florida court Thursday. He was charged in January on four counts of conspiracy to encourage and induce illegal immigrants to come to the U.S. and three counts of encouraging and inducing them to come to the U.S.

Valencia Palacios is one of three Colombians, including 26-year-old Carlos Emilio Ibarguen Palacios and 23-year-old Jhoan Stiven Carreazo Asprilla, who were previously extradited to the U.S. to face charges for the group's work.

The indictment states that beginning in November 2014, the three Colombians and other unnamed co-conspirators began organizing a human trafficking network to illegally smuggle people 2,500 miles north to the U.S.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations offices in Bogota, Colombia, and Miami found that, in at least one instance, two people died while being trafficked.

The trial is scheduled to start Aug. 6.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions has repeatedly said that smugglers will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and has warned illegal immigrants against traveling to the U.S. border because of the dangers Customs and Border Protection agents have heard about from others who have made the journey.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/n...gal-immigrants