Illegal immigrants may still be at large after coming ashore on Jupiter Island
July 10, 2007

JUPITER ISLAND — Law enforcement officials are searching for additional illegal immigrants who might have come ashore early Monday morning with four Haitian nationals who were apprehended and turned over to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

As many as 12 immigrants might have been dropped off on the beach about 3 a.m., said Robert Swathwood, a patrol agent with U.S. Customs and Border Protection. This is the fifth time in the past year authorities have captured immigrants on the island — one of America's richest towns.

Four people — two women and two men — were apprehended near Hobe Sound Beach Park about 6 a.m., but another group of four to five people managed to hitch a ride in a pickup truck and flee the island, said Chief Ted J. Gonzales, of the Jupiter Island Department of Public Safety.

A Jupiter Island gardener reported seeing possibly another illegal immigrant, a woman in her mid to late 20s, on Gomez Road about 8:30 a.m., but she fled into the woods, Gonzales said.

The immigrants, believed to be of Haitian descent, were likely meeting up with friends or family members already living in the United States, Gonzales said.

About 1 p.m. Monday, his office stopped two people of interest on a side of Bridge Road as they drove away from the beach parking lot in a tan 1986 Mercedes-Benz. The man and woman told immigration officials they were on the island to pick up family members coming ashore on a boat and were worried about their fate, Gonzales said.

The car is registered to a Delray Beach resident named Jean David Romulus, 41.

Law enforcement officials are still investigating how the illegal immigrants came on shore, but it is believed their boat left West End, a village on Grand Bahama Island, about 10 p.m. Sunday, Swathwood said.

The only real clue the four people from the beach have provided is that the boat that transported them had two engines, Swathwood said.

"They're being very uncooperative," Swathwood said. "They don't want to describe the boat. They don't want to describe the smuggler."

Although most refugees on Jupiter Island merely are looking for a better life for themselves, Gonzales said, law enforcement officials must take all illegal landings seriously in case the smugglers are transporting narcotics or illegal firearms.

The ultra rich town is a frequent landing spot for boat captains smuggling immigrants from the Caribbean, who likely want to avoid more populated areas in Palm Beach and Miami to the south.

In the past year, three illegal immigrants have drowned off Jupiter Island while attempting to come ashore. A Bahamian boat captain named Rickey Thompson and his first mate, Leon Brice Johnson, are believed to have forced the immigrants off a boat at gunpoint and have been indicted on federal murder charges in connection to their deaths.

Roselyne Lubin and Alnert Charles, both Haitian nationals, died during one of Thompson and Johnson's alleged smu

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