http://www.news-press.com/apps/pbcs.dll ... 50400/1075

From Today's Editions Of The News-press

SW Florida tackles smuggling, trafficking
Feds, local fronts working together to combat crimes

By Erin Gillespie
egillespie@news-press.com
Originally posted on October 15, 2006

HISTORY
• August: Two Miami men, Juan Gonzalez-Hernandez and Noel Lopez, are accused of smuggling 20 Cubans onto Marco Island. They've pleaded not guilty.
• August: After pleading guilty, Eliseo Escalante Santizo is sentenced to nine months in federal prison for transporting aliens into the country, where they were to be sold into sex slavery.
• March: The Florida Highway Patrol stops two vehicles in and discover more than 20 illegal immigrants.
•August 2005: FBI agents and Lee County sheriff's deputies bust a prostitution ring in Fort Myers. Also that month, Collier County officials helped two girls who escaped from a prostitution ring in that county.
•May 2005: Fernando Pascual pleaded guilty this year to sex trafficking of a then-13-year-old Guatemalan girl. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison after his arrest last year.

DEFINITIONS

• Smuggling: A contract between two people to get an illegal immigrant across the border into the U.S. for payment.
• Human trafficking: The exploitation, by sex slavery or forced work, using threats, of any individual, not necessarily an immigrant.


Collaboration and awareness in Southwest Florida are helping fight smuggling and human trafficking.

Local and federal law enforcement are working with community groups to combat smuggling, which involves transporting or aiding illegal immigrants, and human trafficking, which happens when people are exploited for labor or sex.

Incidents of both have occurred throughout Lee County in recent years.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Fort Myers is working to get the big guys — the people who pay to have illegal immigrants brought here.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office, meanwhile, is using a $600,000 federal grant and help from a local task force to educate Floridians on signs of trafficking, and to identify and help victims.

"What we're attempting to do is shut this down as a smuggling route," said Doug Molloy, managing assistant in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Fort Myers.

A smuggler caught last year had 33 people on a boat and was charging $10,000 each, said Molloy, 50.

Smugglers can face 10 years in federal prison and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

Last year, a 13-year-old Guatemalan girl was found in Cape Coral, where she'd been kept as a sex slave.

"Somebody is making a lot of money off these people's labor, and that's the ultimate target," said Molloy, who's been with the U.S. Attorney's Office for 15 years and has been a prosecutor for 25.

But catching those who are transporting illegal immigrants isn't the goal: Molloy wants the people who are paying smugglers to bring immigrants to the area.

In many cases, it's an employer or grower in the agricultural industry. In others, it's someone who plans to turn over the immigrants to sexual slavery.

Molloy said his office works the case like a drug investigation: going from the bottom up, arresting and prosecuting middlemen and others until they find the person at the root of the smuggling case.

"We want to prosecute the employers who are knowingly hiring illegal aliens," he said.

So far, the local U.S. Attorney's Office has not prosecuted employers for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants, but Molloy said he believes that will be happening.

Part of the problem is getting information from people who are scared of deportation.

However, the government can offer immigration help to people who testify, Molloy said.

"What we're attempting to do is build an information base and we may be using illegal aliens," he said.

The office also is considering undercover work, he said

Asked about recent immigration raids by the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement with the help of Lee and Collier county sheriff's deputies, Molloy said they did not necessarily hinder smuggling investigations.

"But it wouldn't be inaccurate to say it's a cross-purpose," he said.

Smuggling can turn into human trafficking, although human trafficking doesn't always occur with immigrants.

Smugglers — also called coyotes — sometimes offer to bring people to work, but then tell the immigrants they owe $1,000, said Lee County sheriff's Detective Shawn Ramsey. If they don't have the money, they are forced to work it off.

Molloy said there are more incidents of arrests on human trafficking in Southwest Florida because of heightened awareness. If people can recognize the signs of trouble, it often leads to more cases being prosecuted in an area.

Groups such as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers and the Lee County Human Trafficking Task Force have joined with local and federal law enforcement to educate the community on smuggling and trafficking.

Sometimes, neighbors will call law enforcement to say something odd is happening at the house next door. Molloy said his office has even taken calls from clients of prostitutes reporting suspected cases of sex slavery.

Ramsey said a new state law requires prosecutors, law enforcement personnel and some judges to be educated in the signs and prosecution of human trafficking.

The easiest way to determine whether someone is being exploited is by control, he said.

"It their an individual who insists upon speaking for them? How did you get into the U.S.? Do you owe people money? What happens if you don't pay?" he asked.

The answers to those questions can quickly determine someone's problems.

Nola Theiss, chair of the Lee County task force, said local and federal officials are sensitive to smuggling and human trafficking.

"I think that we are certainly on the right track, but smuggling is almost more on the surface than human trafficking," Theiss said. "It's a simpler crime. It has a beginning and an end. With human trafficking, it often doesn't end until the people are dead."