Thread: Ecuadoran says he is a suspect in Brockton, MA. slaying

Ecuadoran says he is a suspect in slaying

By Peter Schworm and Miriam Valverde

Globe Staff | Globe Correspondent / February 22, 2011


The man wanted in connection with the slayings of a Brockton woman and her 2-year-old son told officials in Ecuador that he fled the United States with a fake passport because he was a murder suspect, authorities said yesterday.

Luis A. Guaman Cela, 40, an illegal immigrant, shared an apartment in Brockton with the victims, Maria Avelina Palaguachi-Cela, 25, and her son, Brian, and according to authorities was the last person to see them alive.

Their bludgeoned bodies were found in a trash bin behind their Brockton apartment Feb. 13. A few hours later, authorities say, Guaman flew from New York to his native Ecuador under an assumed name.

On Friday, Guaman was arrested in Ecuador after police received a tip from his estranged wife in the United States. When he was arrested, he told police he used the false passport because he was wanted for murder in Massachusetts, an agent of the judicial police in Ecuador said.

The agent, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media, said Guaman appeared agitated when stopped by police.

“He was very nervous in the moment,’’ he said. “As if he knew the magnitude of what he had done.’’

Massachusetts authorities have not charged Guaman in connection with the Brockton slayings or named him as a suspect. The Brockton Enterprise reported some of the details about Guaman’s arrest in yesterday’s editions.

Officials in Ecuador have not questioned Guaman about the Brockton slayings because they have not received the necessary authorization from US officials, the agent said. According to Ecuador’s consul in Boston, Guaman is not cooperating with authorities.

A spokesman for the country’s embassy has said the government will cooperate with US authorities. Ecuador and the United States have an extradition treaty, but Ecuador’s constitution limits extradition of its citizens to other countries.

Guaman, who was working in Brockton as a roofer, had used several aliases and in the past three years had been accused several times of violent crimes.

In 2007, he allegedly punched a girlfriend, grabbed her by the throat, and threatened to kill her and her infant daughter. He is also wanted on felony warrants from Spring Valley, N.Y., on charges of kidnapping with malice and assault, and on a pending assault case in Brockton.

Both victims in the Brockton slaying died from blows to the head.

At a hearing Saturday, a judge ordered Guaman held for 30 days while authorities gather evidence. If he is found guilty of using a false passport he will face one to three years in prison, according to the police official in Ecuador.

Relatives of Palaguachi-Cela, a native of Ecuador who came to the United States several years ago,that Guaman was wanted in the United States and had probably entered the country under a false name.

Once in Ecuador, Guaman called his wife to wire him money and threatened to harm her family in Ecuador if she did not cooperate. He asked her to wire the money to a woman he had met online and was arrested outside a money wiring service.

Relatives of Palaguachi-Cela were with the police and helped identify him, the official said.

A funeral for the victims, as well as a third family member who died last week, will be held tomorrow at St. Patrick Church. Palaguachi-Cela’s nephew, Luis Gilberto Tenezaca Palaguachi, 25, of Brockton, died after falling off a New Bedford roof.

Calling hours will be held today from 3 to 8 p.m. at Russell & Pica Funeral Home in Brockton.

Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com, Miriam Valverde at MValverde@globe.com

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... n_slaying/

Just another hard working family guy do roof work that no American would be willing to do. Steve knows the type.

The face of a system failure
The passport photo didn’t look like him, and yet the Brockton murder suspect was waved through, fleeing the country


By Shelley Murphy and Maria Sacchetti
Globe Staff / March 5, 2011

The age listed in the passport was 26. The man who presented the document to security officers at John F. Kennedy International Airport was 40. His face bore only a passing resemblance to the photograph.

Yet, Luis Guaman cleared security without incident last month and boarded a plane for his native Ecuador using an Ecuadoran passport in the name of Segundo Castro.

His escape from the United States not only became a headache for investigators who have charged him with murdering a woman and her son in Brockton, but it starkly highlights a weakness in American airport security.

That weakness was supposed to have been addressed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when a commission assessing the nation’s vulnerabilities recommended comprehensive screening at airports and border crossings in order to “dramatically strengthen the world’s ability to intercept individuals who could pose catastrophic threats.’’

But while the Department of Homeland Security has created layers of security to keep weapons and terrorists off planes, aviation security specialists say it is still far too easy for someone with a stolen passport or faked identification to get through security while departing from US airports.

“The problem is this . . . there is nothing in place right now, that I’m aware of, where that [Transportation Security Administration] agent can do anything with that passport other than look at it,’’ said Douglas R. Laird, president of Laird & Associates, an aviation security consulting firm in Reno. “They can’t scan it through a reader and tell if it’s good or not. That’s a weakness.’’

It doesn’t mean that airplanes are more vulnerable to attack, aviation security specialists cautioned, because all passengers are searched and questioned and their bags are scanned.

Laird said the priority for airport security is not catching fleeing felons, but rather “to keep the airplane from falling out of the sky.’’

Still, the specialists said, passports and other IDs are a security issue that could be exploited by terrorists and other criminals trying to hide their identities. Currently, TSA agents have few tools for reviewing the documents, and must check hundreds of passports by hand with the aid only of magnifying glasses and blacklights. Ultimately, they rely on their eyes — and training in basic facial recognition — to compare travelers’ faces with passport photographs that can be years old.

“If you don’t have a system where you can scan the passport, that tells you through technology if it’s good or bad, you’ve got a problem,’’ said Laird, a former Secret Service agent and security director for Northwest Airlines. “You don’t really know who it is.’’

Al Felzenberg, a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale University and former spokesman for the 9/11 Commission, said it is difficult to assess the risk posed by those using fraudulent documents. But he believes that using such biometric identifiers as fingerprints to verify the identity of people leaving the country would minimize the chances that terrorists could use faked documents to board planes.

“We should have a sense of knowing who’s leaving, who’s coming, and how often,’’ Felzenberg said. “There are more sophisticated ways to do this, and if it’s a priority for the government, it should be done.’’

The 9/11 Commission recommended the use of biometrics, like digital fingerprints, photographs, and retinal scans, to screen people entering and exiting the country, to verify travelers’ identities and keep track of how long they stayed.

The names and birthdates of all passengers flying in and out of the country are collected by airlines and checked against the FBI’s watch list and no-fly list, which includes the names and aliases of suspected terrorists.

Also, under the US Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology system, which has been gradually phased in since 2004, the Department of Homeland Security collects digital fingerprints and photographs from most non-US citizens when they apply for a visa or arrive at the nation’s airports and other entry points. Each time they enter the country, those prints are run through a massive law enforcement database to weed out suspected terrorists, alleged criminals, or illegal immigrants.

Congress had mandated that the agency implement a biometric screening system by the end of last year for foreign visitors exiting the country. But after running pilot programs at a dozen airports and two seaports in recent years, homeland security officials have yet to implement a biometric sytem that tracks visitors when they leave. They have said they are still reviewing it.

Passengers boarding planes at the nation’s airports are required only to show their boarding pass and passport, driver’s license, or other government-issued identification to a TSA screener, who checks whether the photo matches the person and uses a blacklight and magnifying glass to verify whether the document appears authentic or has been tampered with.

“TSA’s top priority is the safety of the traveling public,’’ said agency spokesman Greg Soule. “Every day TSA screens nearly 2 million passengers and utilizes many layers of security to keep our nation’s transportation systems secure. Every passenger passes through multiple layers of security, to include thorough screening at the checkpoint.’’

As for how Guaman was able to slip past security with a passport that was issued to a man 14 years his junior who bore little resemblance to him, Soule said an investigation into the matter is ongoing.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said they had no record of Guaman and believe he had entered the country illegally.

Guaman boarded an Aerolineas Galapagos flight hours after police had discovered the bludgeoned bodies of his housemates, Maria Avelina Palaguachi-Cela and her son Brian, 2, in a trash bin behind their Brockton house Feb. 13. Investigators were seeking him for questioning when they discovered he was in Ecuador. Guaman was indicted in the murder case Wednesday, and state and federal authorities are trying to persuade Ecuador, which forbids extradition of its citizens, to return him to the United States to stand trial. He is being held in Ecuador on a fake passport charge.

Last year, TSA screeners caught 200 people with fraudulent documents trying to board flights at US airports, Soule said. It is unknown how many went unnoticed.

Richard W. Bloom, an aviation security and counterterrorism expert who teaches at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Arizona, said

it was a little worrisome that Guaman was able to pass through security with the passport of a 26-year-old. But he said there may never be a way of making the system foolproof.

“Regardless of how good a security program is, there is going to be a base rate of things happening,’’ he said.

US Representative Stephen F. Lynch, a South Boston Democrat, said that keeping suspected terrorists from entering the country has been a top priority since 9/11, but it may be difficult to come up with a system that will catch passengers with fraudulent documents from leaving the country that is cost-effective and not too burdensome for all travelers.

“I think eventually you are going to need something more thorough,’’ Lynch said. “We can always do better, that’s for sure, as this case demonstrates.’’

www.boston.com

Accused murderer Luis Guaman guilty of ID theft, immigration violations in Ecuador

By Erik Potter

Enterprise Staff Writer

Posted May 20, 2011 @ 03:32 PM

Last update May 20, 2011 @ 06:44 PM


BROCKTON —


Luis Guaman – charged in Brockton with murdering a mother and her toddler son in February – faces up to three years in prison in Ecuador after his conviction there on Friday of identity theft and immigration law violations.
But the family of the Brockton homicide victims hope that pressure from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will put Guaman behind bars for much longer, their lawyer said Friday.
“I really hope Hillary Clinton gets involved here so we can get some help,â€