Human- smuggler industry well-organized , like cartels

[FedUpinFarmersBranch]

Tucson Region
Human-smuggler industry well-organized, like cartels
The Associated Press
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 05.18.2008
advertisementMESA — Human smugglers have built sophisticated criminal enterprises generating an estimated $2.5 billion annually through their Arizona operations alone, authorities say.
Working in league with Mexican drug cartels, human-smuggling kingpins have set up networks of drivers, warehouse operators, distribution specialists and enforcers to move their loads from northern Sonora through the Phoenix metropolitan area and to their final destinations throughout the U.S.
The smugglers, or coyotes, call the illegal immigrants pollos — chickens — human cargo without value beyond what it can bring on the open market, the East Valley Tribune reported in a series on the human-smuggling industry.
"For a while, I think there was a sense that the coyotes were sort of freedom fighters, that they were one step removed from the Humane Borders people who provide water and transportation out of the goodness of their hearts," said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, whose agency has gone after the money generated by human-smuggling rings.
"The people we are dealing with are well-organized, very well-armed, and apparently will stop at nothing to maximize their profit from human beings.
"That includes examples of severe brutality and murder. It makes the drug business look almost good by comparison."
Police and federal immigration agents on the American side of the border acknowledge they don't know much about the inner workings of the human-smuggling organizations, particularly about their upper echelons in Mexico.
Top bosses insulated
Although hundreds of people employed in the human- smuggling industry have been prosecuted in Arizona, the defendants are typically low-level drivers and drop-house guards, the hired help who are usually not part of the core organization and know little or nothing about their bosses or how they operate.
Human-smuggling rings are organized along the same lines as traditional Mexican drug cartels. The top bosses are based in Mexico, where they operate openly, relatively safe from American police and prosecutors, authorities said.
The drug lords are probably not the ones operating the human-smuggling networks, said Phoenix police Lt. Vince Piano, who has headed investigations targeting drug and human smugglers.
But illegal-immigrant smugglers likely pay some percentage of their earnings as tribute to the drug cartels in return for being allowed to operate openly in Mexico.
Human smugglers would need permission to use smuggling routes controlled by drug traffickers, Piano said.
"They are going to take a percentage for using their transportation route," Piano said, referring to the drug cartels.
"They definitely have corridors that are regulated, and allowances are given as to when things can be smuggled and when they can't, based on what the organizer or the drug lord says."
Federal immigration agents responded to 163 drop houses in the Phoenix metro area last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.
Of those, 127 were in Phoenix and areas west of Phoenix. Another 25 drop houses were in Mesa, eight in Chandler, two in Apache Junction and one in Tempe.

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http://www.azstarnet.com/metro/239548



arizona

[jonhaloi]

Follow the money and I bet it leads to the Mexican government, after all, they are REALLY benefitting from having masses of lower classes earning in foreign countries. The Mexican government benefits by:

1)not having to pay social welfare costs of 10% of Mexico's population.
2)having these people send money back to Mexico.
3)Mexicans get treated in 1rst world hospitals in the US
4)Mexicans get a 1rst world education in the US
5) ...you know the rest...

[had_enuf]

Duplicate

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-115908-industry.html