May 7, 2007, 11:41PM
Effort to smuggle drugged boys into U.S. fails


Associated Press


LAREDO — Two women were stopped at the border trying to sneak into the U.S. with three boys who had been drugged and dressed as girls, customs officials said Monday.

The women — a mother and her daughter from Dallas — were arrested late Saturday along with the boys' mother, who arrived at the port later, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials said. All three are facing federal immigrant smuggling charges, officials said.

The boys, ages 1, 4 and 5, were given to Mexico's child protective services in Nuevo Laredo.

According to officials, Angelita Muñoz, 38, and her daughter, Stephanie Muñoz, 20, and the three boys were stopped at the Gateway to the Americas Bridge shortly before midnight Saturday. The women had birth certificates for the three boys, which identified them as girls.

Officials think the boys' mother, Maria Rosio Lopez Martinez, 23, had given sleeping pills to the children.

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