Thread: Ring that smuggled 10,000 busted

Human-smuggling ring broken up by investigators

21 arrested; 10,000 illegal aliens were moved through Valley, task force says

by Sean Holstege - Dec. 13, 2008 12:00 AM
The Arizona Republic

Investigators have broken up a Phoenix smuggling ring that transported as many as 10,000 illegal aliens in two years around the country, Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard announced Friday.

Goddard called the network "the Greyhound bus lines of human smuggling" because the smugglers hauled immigrants in as many as 10 vans from Phoenix-area drophouses to 22 other states.

They did business mostly in cash, collecting hundreds of dollars for each immigrant from employers and relatives in other states on arrival and, after taking a cut, smuggling payments to cartels across the border in Mexico, authorities said.

Driving bags full of cash south across the border has become a key smugglers' tactic to skirt an Arizona crackdown on wire-transfer payments.

Authorities arrested 21 suspects, including a person suspected of being a local kingpin. Thirty-five have been indicted by a state grand jury, and investigators are seeking dozens more. All but two of the suspects identified Friday were in the country illegally, prosecutors said.

The grand jury charged the suspects with conspiracy, money laundering and participating in an illegal syndicate.

The arrests culminated a seven-month investigation involving state prosecutors, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Border Patrol, state Department of Public Safety and Phoenix Police Department.

Detectives on the team described the arrest as a death blow to a network they say was led by Rosalio Palacios-Alfaro, 26, an illegal immigrant from Mexico.

The so-called Operation En Fuego probe began in May when Phoenix police responded to a south Phoenix drophouse where one smuggling gang had raided another.

Police later found the charred body of one smuggler in a dumpster and another still alive who had been bound and gagged and stuffed into a closet for five days.

Evidence led to the transportation ring led by Palacios-Alfaro, investigators said. Significant follow-up investigations remain, they added.

In addition to rounding up more suspects and fugitives, detectives are trying to establish which Mexican cartel figures the Phoenix cell worked for.

Cash payments were often made in other states by would-be employers, not relatives, which is more typical. ICE agents want to know if these employers knowingly tried to hire undocumented workers.

Those employers and some relatives typically paid $2500 for the transport of each immigrant. They would wire $1,800 to cartels in Mexico, where the journey started, and pay $700 in cash to the Phoenix-based ring, which contracted with the cartels.

Detectives said the drivers took $100 per immigrant, and Palacios-Alfaro another $400. That left $200 for the smuggling cartels, slipped into Mexico in bulk cash, Goddard said.

A van would leave from one of five Valley drophouses with up to 15 illegal immigrants. The network also operated its own auto-repair shop for the vans, officials said.

Investigators seized $39,000 during this week's arrests but estimate that Palacios-Alfaro's network earned up to $7 million total.

A state task force has seized $17 million in suspected payments wired from relatives of illegal immigrants in other states to Phoenix coyotes. After the court-approved forfeitures, cartels started wiring money to Western Union outlets in northern Sonora. In two weeks, the Arizona Supreme Court is scheduled to review the legality of Arizona investigators tracking and seizing suspected coyote payments in Mexico.

"This organization is pretty typical of the ones that operate here," said Troy Henley, ICE deputy special agent-in-charge.

In the past two years, ICE has dismantled about 10 smuggling organizations, although Operation En Fuego netted far more individual indictments than usual.

Investigators explained how smugglers would bundle 10 to 15 immigrants in their vans and make four to six long-distance trips every week. Drivers took back roads past Globe and Monument Valley to avoid detection on the interstate system.

During at least one trip, a van broke down in the Utah desert. The driver stashed the broken van, with the immigrants locked inside without food or water, until a replacement van arrived 15 hours later.

During this week's arrests, four vans were on the road.

One was pulled over in Arizona and another in Pennsylvania. Police are looking for two more vans.

http://www.azcentral.com/community/phoe ... n1213.html

And Phil Gordon says the state should not put so much emphasis on this activity. Does this give us an insight into how effective Janet Naploitano will be at DHS?

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/ ... dt.01.html


Dobbs: Well, authorities in Arizona have smashed a major human trafficking operation. The smuggling ring specializing in delivering illegal aliens to communities all across the United States.

This bust comes as local officials are begging the Obama transition team to give them top priority in ending the smuggling of illegal aliens, something the Bush administration, of course, has refused to do.

Casey Wian with our report.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): They call it "Operation Enfuego," a six-month effort by federal state and local officials in Arizona to dismantle the U.S. portion of an illegal alien smuggling operation.

Authorities allege the Phoenix-based gang drove groups of illegal aliens in mini-vans to 22 U.S. states, primarily on the East Coast. 86 alleged illegal aliens were apprehended. So far untouched, the Mexican smugglers who actually brought them across the boarder.

TERRY GODDARD, ARIZONA ATTORNEY GENERAL: As we take down each link, we're making it more difficult to conduct the total operation.

WIAN: Friday, they announced 35 indictments, 21 arrests, and the seizure of five so-called drop houses used to harbor illegal aliens and drugs, as well as weapons, vehicles and cash.

GODDARD: There is no question this is one of the most lucrative criminal activities you can be involved in.

WIAN: During the first half of the year, authorities in Maricopa County found more than 160 drop houses. Officials began running television ads asking the public to report suspicious activity.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Illegal immigration is fueling Arizona's violent crime and drug problem. About 90 percent of illegal drugs come from south of the border. Armed gangs involved in human smuggling have made Phoenix the kidnapping capital of America.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WIAN: Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon, who has been accused by border security activists of being soft on illegal immigration, Thursday spoke with senior members of President-elect Obama's transition team. He asked for more Border Patrol agents and more resources for multi- agency operations near the border. MAYOR PHIL GORDON, PHOENIX: One of the most productive things that the new administration and Congress could do is to continue to fund these joint operations, federal, state and local law enforcement, that go after the heads of the monsters.

WIAN: Alleged leaders of the En Fuego operation face up to eight years in prison.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WIAN: Also this week, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms announced the arrest of nine people in two Phoenix suburbs on charges of attempting to smuggle more than 100 weapons, including assault rifles, into Mexico for a drug cartel. Lou?

DOBBS: Well, Casey, that's fascinating to watch the mayor of Phoenix. That's quite an abrupt reversal for the mayor, Phil Gordon. He's been an absolute political battle with Maricopa County sheriff, Joe Arpaio. I mean -- Arpaio has been doing more than anyone in the state of Arizona to enforce immigration law.

What's the deal?

WIAN: Well, it -- sure seems as if Mayor Gordon has had a change of tune on this issue because he was criticized very loudly for Phoenix's former sanctuary policies with the police department there. Perhaps this is something that bodes well nationally.

Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano is going to be the new secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. Barack Obama says he's going to defer to her to determine how -- how fast they're going to continue to build the border fence if at all and how to enforce immigration laws. Perhaps she'll have a change of tune as well, Lou.

DOBBS: Well, one can only imagine why the tune has been what it's been.

Thank you very much, Casey Wian.