Thread: FL-Phone call tripped up smugglers, feds say

Phone call tripped up smugglers, feds say
Federal immigration agents indicted two migrant smugglers on a rare charge of hostage-taking.
Posted on Tue, Jul. 29, 2008reprint print email
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BY ANDRES VIGLUCCI
aviglucci@MiamiHerald.com
It was a run-of-the-mill immigrant-smuggling case -- a boatload of Cubans brought from the island for $10,000 a head -- until the smugglers made a serious goof.

As often happens, the alleged smugglers held onto their passengers until relatives paid their fee. Except that one relative they phoned to demand cash from happens to be a U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer. He promptly alerted agents at his sister agency, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to documents filed in Miami federal court.

The officer and an ICE agent then set up a late-night meeting at a drugstore parking lot, swapped the cousin for $10,000 in cash and signaled a waiting ICE SWAT team, which arrested the two alleged smugglers.

Now the pair find themselves indicted not just for alien-smuggling, but also on the rarer and more-serious charge of hostage-taking. The accused smugglers, Niovel Chirino Alvarez, 33, and Lazaro Martinez Padron, 21, face life in prison if convicted.

Both have pleaded not guilty.

ICE officials declined to comment, citing the pending nature of the case.

But the indictments, announced Monday, and investigators' statements filed in Miami federal court describe how the alleged smugglers unwittingly handed immigration agents a crack at an often hidden aspect of alien smuggling -- holding people for alleged ransom.

CALLS RECORDED

ICE agents recorded some telephone calls between the accused smugglers and the border-protection agent discussing the payoff.

An attorney for one of the indicted men, however, called the hostage-taking charge ''puffery,'' saying the passengers were treated well and never threatened or harmed.

''It's an unnecessary exaggeration of what occurred,'' said Scott Saul, who is representing Martinez Padron. ``When these people were brought in, they were treated in a humane manner and given food. There were no weapons. No guns were held on them. They were not locked up.''

Saul said the demands for money are already covered by the alien-smuggling charges filed against his client, which allege that Martinez Padron was doing it for money.

''This is an average immigrant-smuggling case,'' Saul said. ``I'm not condoning it, but this is just the typical things that go on all the time. The people who are alleged to be involved just wanted to get paid.''

One of the passengers was Martinez Padron's own son, Saul said.

An attorney for Chirino Alvarez did not return a telephone call from The Miami Herald for comment.

MAJOR CRACKDOWN

The case comes amid a wide-ranging crackdown by ICE and the U.S. attorney's office in Miami on alien-smuggling from the Caribbean, in particular Cuba, that has resulted in scores of indictments of alleged smugglers during the past two years.

It began June 15, when Customs and Border Protection officer Louis Perez got a call from a woman who told him his cousin had been smuggled in from Cuba and would not be released until his $10,000 fee was paid, according to an affidavit by ICE agent Thomas Roberts. Roberts' statement suggests Perez did not know until then that the cousin was being smuggled in, but it is not explicit on the point.

In a follow-up call, Chirino Alvarez told Perez he was holding several passengers whose families had not paid their fees, Thomas said. ''Chirino Alvarez then threatened that if the money was not paid, he would have to take the migrants back to Cuba, and that it is a dangerous journey, implying that migrants often fall into the sea,'' Thomas' statement said.


http://www.miamiherald.com/news/5min/story/621358.html

I guess blackmail is just business as usual to attorney Saul. I would love to have him expose his business records if he considers this as something that happens every day.

Saul practicing law in Florida? How? He is a nut case for sure. Why does he think people can do this on American soil?

What to do? ICE - ICE ARE YOU WORKING 24 HOUR DAYS