http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/m...3smuggler.html
Judge in Mexico City sentences smuggling-ring leader to 14 years




By Sandra Dibble
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
May 23, 2006

TIJUANA – The owner of a Lebanese restaurant who confessed to running a smuggling ring that helped Middle Easterners cross the border to San Diego has been sentenced to 14 years in prison by a federal judge in Mexico City.

Salim Boughader Mucharrafille, the owner of La Libanesa restaurant, was the leader of a criminal group whose clients paid between $3,500 and $4,500 to be taken by car to San Diego, according to Mexican law enforcement authorities.

Boughader, a Mexican of Lebanese descent, was initially arrested by U.S. authorities in December 2002 on smuggling charges.

In March 2003, he pleaded guilty in federal court in San Diego to running a ring that helped more than 100 immigrants cross the border to San Diego; most of the clients were Lebanese, including one man who died from heat exhaustion. Boughader was sentenced to a year and a day, but apparently he didn't serve the entire sentence.

In November 2003, Mexican federal agents arrested Boughader along with four other people in Tijuana, according to a statement from the Mexican federal Attorney General's Office.

The Mexican federal judge found Boughader guilty of charges of organized crime and human smuggling, according to a statement released Sunday by the Attorney General's Office. Besides the sentence of 14 years and three days, he was ordered to pay a fine of 24,250 pesos, or about $2,150. Three men and a woman who were detained in Tijuana along with Boughader each received a 10-year sentence and a fine of $1,200, the statement said.

In June 2005, The Associated Press, citing a 2004 report by the Sept. 11 commission staff, described Boughader as the only “human smuggler with suspected links to terrorists” convicted at that time in the United States.

According to the AP, Boughader admitted that one of his clients had worked for a TV network owned by the terrorist group Hezbollah.

Boughader's small cafe, which he ran with his sister, was a popular spot that offered such Middle Eastern foods as hummus and stuffed grape leaves. The cafe is now closed.



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Sandra Dibble: (619) 293-1716; sandra.dibble@uniontrib.com