Thread: TX-Three smugglers arrested, 14 Central American illegal imm

Three smugglers arrested, 14 Central American immigrants in custody

ValleyCentral.com
Friday, February 19, 2010

Three people are behind bars after Border Patrol agents found 14 Central American immigrants crammed into a bedroom of a squalid apartment in Mission.

U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Raquel Mata-Hernandez, Edgar Ivan Hernandez-Valdez and Milton Bladimir Sola-Flores on immigrant smuggling charges Tuesday.

The three are accused of using an apartment at 6213 Charro Street as a stash house for illegal immigrants.

Court records show that a Border Patrol agents received a tip that the apartment was being used for illegal activity.

Authorities performed a stake out and saw 15 people getting out of a Ford Taurus around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday.

Investigators later followed Hernandez-Valdez and Sola-Flores to a gas station off La Homa Road and 5 Mile Line.

Mata-Hernandez allegedly gave investigators consent to search the apartment.

Court records show that the two-bedroom apartment was messy and unclean. The 14 immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador were all crammed into one bedroom.

Mata-Hernandez said she and her husband had been renting the apartment for a year and that got paid $20 dollars per immigrant.

Court records show that Hernandez-Valdez and Sola-Flores were caretakers while Mata-Hernandez was a leader. Her husband was not identified in the court records.

Mata-Hernandez, Hernandez-Valdez and Sola-Flores appeared before U.S. Magistrate Court Judge Peter Ormsby in McAllen on Thursday morning.

Court records show that Mata-Hernandez and Hernandez-Valdez are from Mexico while Sola-Flores is from El Salvador. All three of them are illegal immigrants.

Judge Ormsby denied bond for them until a Tuesday afternoon hearing.

http://www.valleycentral.com/news/story.aspx?id=419002

These three should forfeit everything they own, as one never knows what possessions were purchased by their ill-gotten gains.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1019541.html
Here is another story of another stash house in the Rio Grande Valley