Two held on alien smuggling charges


December 7, 2007


By Jerry Seper - Two foreign nationals have been arrested in a federal grand jury indictment handed up in Washington in October on charges of conspiracy and alien smuggling in their roles in bringing East Africans into the United States.

Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Julie L. Myers, who heads U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), said Mohammed Kamel Ibrahim, 26, a native of Ghana and naturalized citizen of Mexico, and Sampson Lovelace Boateng, 53, of Ghana, are charged in the 28-count indictment returned by a grand jury in October and unsealed yesterday.

"Criminal smuggling organizations earn millions of dollars through the ruthless exploitation of illegal aliens," said Mrs. Myers. "I'm proud of the international cooperation between ICE agents and our law-enforcement partners in Mexico and Belize that culminated in these arrests."

Mr. Ibrahim was detained on a provisional arrest warrant by authorities in Mexico City in response to a U.S. government request for his arrest and extradition. Mr. Boateng was arrested at Miami International Airport on Nov. 5 after arriving on a commercial airline flight from Belize.

According to the indictment, Mr. Ibrahim operated an alien-smuggling organization based in Mexico City that had been moving aliens, primarily East Africans, to the United States through Mexico since at least 2005. Beginning in June 2006 and continuing through February 2007, it said he worked with Mr. Boateng, a Belize-based alien smuggler and document provider, and others to smuggle illegal aliens to the United States for commercial advantage and private financial gain.

ICE spokeswoman Kadia H. Koroma said the indictment says Mr. Ibrahim and other co-conspirators recruited East African aliens who wanted to be smuggled into the United States in exchange for money. She said Mr. Ibrahim worked through Mr. Boateng and others to fraudulently procure various foreign travel documents, such as Mexican visas, that enabled aliens to travel through Africa, South America and Central America en route to the United States.

Using the fraudulently obtained Mexican visas, she said East African aliens traveled into Mexico City, where they were met by Mr. Ibrahim and his associates. After housing the aliens for several days or weeks in Mexico City, she said Mr. Ibrahim and his associates smuggled the aliens into the United States through various means, including by storing them for more than 12 hours at a time in the luggage compartments of buses traveling north to the United States border.

"The Department of Justice is committed to aggressively prosecuting individuals who undermine our national security and seek to profit off of the movement of illegal aliens through our borders," said Assistant Attorney General Alice Fisher.

The investigation was conducted by ICE agents in Los Angeles and Washington and is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Brian Rogers of the Justice Department's Domestic Security Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Bratt in Washington.

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