Thread: Man awaits sentencing in smuggling of Eastern Europeans

www.signonsandiego.com

Man awaits sentencing in smuggling of Eastern Europeans

By Onell R. Soto
UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
September 6, 2005

Their accents gave them away.

They were passengers in cars crossing into the United States at the San Ysidro, Otay and Tecate border crossings who had California driver licenses or U.S. passports but either couldn't speak English or spoke it with a thick Eastern European accent.

They weren't Californians. They were illegal immigrants from former communist countries, the likes of which are rarely seen at local border crossings.

They were arrested and later identified as part of a San Diego-based smuggling ring with contacts halfway around the world. The operation illustrates how Mexico is a transit point for smugglers moving people from Eastern Europe to the United States.

In one instance, authorities said the illegal immigrants were smuggled in a Mercedes-Benz.

"They made an effort to blend in with the normal cross-border traffic from Tijuana," said John Day, a special agent with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The investigation quickly focused on Yervand Asriyants, 42, a native of Azerbajian who prosecutors say used at least some criminal proceeds from smuggling to buy a five-bedroom Carmel Valley home.

Property records indicate Asriyants paid $946,000 for the home in 2003. He pleaded guilty in June to conspiracy to smuggle aliens and alien smuggling.

Asriyants is scheduled to be sentenced today in San Diego federal court. He faces about three years in prison. Prosecutors also are seeking to have him forfeit the Carmel Valley home.

"We haven't had someone from Eastern Europe for a while," said Dane Bowen, who oversees human trafficking and alien smuggling investigations for the San Diego office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "That part is unique."

The ring was dismantled in December, Bowen said.

Authorities said the smuggling of Eastern Europeans by this ring dates to the mid-1990s.

Immigration and FBI agents discovered that people in Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Russia agreed to pay $5,000 to $10,000 to make their way to the United States through Mexico.

The illegal immigrants got tourist visas for Mexico and traveled by air through airports in Amsterdam, the Netherlands; Madrid, Spain; and Mexico City before landing in Tijuana, agents said.

There, they met Asriyants, who hired drivers – typically a U.S. citizen – to take them across the border.

Asriyants provided fake or borrowed paperwork such as passports and driver licenses and coached the immigrants on what to say if they were questioned by border inspectors, an FBI agent said in an affidavit filed in court.

The drivers were immigrants from the former Soviet Union or Americans willing to risk breaking the law, Day said.

Many were from East County, including some who were approached in casinos.

After the investigation began, agents began connecting the ring to earlier cases of Eastern Europeans stopped at the border trying to enter the country illegally.

Most of the smuggled men, women and children intended to pass through San Diego to the East Coast, particularly New York and New Jersey, Day said.

Many who were apprehended asked to be granted political asylum, he said. Most were deported, but several were allowed to stay in the United States as asylum seekers.

Investigators have not connected the ring to any terrorism, but say any concerted effort to skirt immigration laws poses a threat to the United States.

Nor have they linked it to human trafficking, in which women are brought to the United States to work as prostitutes against their will.

It is impossible to know how many people were smuggled, but in the 1½ years the organization was under surveillance, agents intercepted 43 people during 30 smuggling attempts.

"We were able to identify quite a few of the conspirators," Day said.

In all, eight people were prosecuted in San Diego, receiving sentences from probation to a year in prison.

That "U.S Citizen" Should be tried for treason or at least deported.

http://www.10news.com


Leader Of Smuggling Ring Headed To Prison
Defendant Must Forfeit Carmel Valley Property, Cash

POSTED: 7:53 am PDT September 7, 2005
UPDATED: 8:00 am PDT September 7, 2005

SAN DIEGO -- The leader of a San Diego-based immigrant smuggling ring that brought Russian, Ukrainian, Polish and Lithuanian citizens through Mexico into the United States was sentenced Tuesday to three years in prison.

Yervand Asriyants, 42, pleaded guilty June 9 to one count of conspiracy to induce illegal aliens to enter the United States and two counts of bringing illegal aliens into the United States for financial gain.

"We are particularly concerned about organizations that smuggle aliens from many different parts of the world, because they represent a myriad of threats to our nation's security," said U.S. Attorney Carol Lam.

U.S. District Judge Irma Gonzalez ordered the defendant to forfeit a $1 million residential property in Carmel Valley.

Asriyants must also forfeit more than $36,000 in cash that federal agents found at his residence and in a safe deposit box, said Assistant U.S. Attorney William P. Cole.

According to court documents, Asriyants headed a ring that smuggled aliens primarily by vehicle through U.S.-Mexico Ports of Entry.

Asriyants is the fifth member of the alien smuggling conspiracy to be sentenced, Cole said. Three others are awaiting sentencing later this month.