Posted on 02/02/2012 9:04:30 PM PST by moonshinner_09
Five people are charged in a plot to employ African Americans from Compton to avert suspicion when bringing illegal immigrants across the border. In the calculus of cross-border human smuggling, Maria Lopez-Diaz allegedly concluded that black instead of brown equals green.
The 60-year-old Compton woman, prosecutors say, tried to cash in on racial profiling by operating a human smuggling ring that hired mostly African American drivers who didn't speak a word of Spanish to ferry small groups of immigrants from Mexico to Los Angeles.
In the end, the venture failed. Authorities announced charges Thursday against Lopez-Diaz and four others, including conspiracy and transporting and harboring illegal immigrants. Lopez-Diaz, two family members and a driver were arrested by agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol.
A second driver facing a conspiracy charge, 32-year-old Yvette "Hazel" Binford, remains at large.
Authorities said the group's approach was the latest innovation they have seen in the evolving trade of sneaking illegal immigrants into the United States.
"It's absolutely true that most of the people involved in transporting human smuggling networks are Hispanics, by virtue of the fact that most customers are Hispanics," said ICE Special Agent in Charge Claude Arnold. "This organization thought, 'What if we recruited those who attract less attention from law enforcement?' Obviously they were wrong."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
That's correct. They may require a deposit, but the rest is effectively indentured servitude.
Asian gangs do the same thing, except they smuggle women to work in the "massage parlors".
You missed the second part of my posting.
They don't track the person they smuggled into the US. They track his family back in Mexico (or Guatemala, or El Salvador, etc.).
If they don't get paid, the family pays the price.
They have networks set up so that they know the employers or they know who the person is living with. They also take advantage of the fact that their customers are basically illiterate, uneducated farm people who don’t know anything about the US. And, as someone else mentioned, they resort to the simple tactic of threatening to hurt their family members in the home country.
Some do allow credit- but it is like owing Tony Soprano, not a good idea to default, the illegal or their family will be kidnapped/murdered. Most smugglers hold the illegals in a house until family that is already here pays the cost of the trip. Many also pay their way by smuggling in drugs.
Few are given credit, most of the time the illegal pays their way by smuggling in drugs or family that is already here pay. If credit is given and the smuggler loses track of the illegal you can bet they know where to find family members to kidnap/torture/murder in case of default.
Or if the illegal has family here, they have no qualms about going after the family here either. One of the causes of the crime rate surrounding illegal communities- especially kidnapping, etc.
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