US immigration officials say they 'dismantled' multimillion-dollar human smuggling ring

AUSTIN — A lucrative and long-running human smuggling operation that brought hundreds of undocumented immigrants into the United States, often crammed into semi-truck trailers or sealed inside wooden crates, was "disrupted and dismantled" by a federal immigration task force, a newly unsealed indictment from South Texas shows.

The indictment handed up by the federal court in Laredo on Aug. 9 details a multiyear and multimillion-dollar operation involving at least eight defendants and describes migrants being brought into the country after being hidden inside several sorts of vehicles or containers disguised as ordinary cargo with little regard for their safety or comfort.

"The methods the (smuggling operators) used to transport migrants were particularly dangerous," the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas said in the indictment that was unsealed Tuesday. "(The operation's) drivers transported migrants in suitcases placed inside pickup trucks; in the back of tractor-trailers; under locked hard bed covers of pickup trucks; in empty water tanker trucks; and in empty wooden crate boxes that were strapped to flatbed trailers."

The indictment also contains several photographs of migrants inside trailers and containers that were taken after being rescued by immigration officials. In a news release issued by the U.S. Justice Department and the Department of Homeland Security, officials said the smuggling operation was taken down by a unit called Joint Task Force Alpha that worked with the governments of El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico and with unnamed law enforcement agencies within the United States.

The details of the human smuggling operation

The news release and indictment names Erminia Serrano Piedra, 31, of Elgin, who the document says goes by the nickname of "Boss Lady," as the leader of the smuggling operation. The charges against Piedra and the others include conspiracy to transport aliens, putting people's lives in danger and conspiracy "to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection an alien for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain."

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Authorities said all of the defendants have been apprehended and the arrests took place at unspecified locations in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The indictment asks that the defendants be kept in custody until trial. In addition to prison time if the defendants are convicted, the government is seeking the forfeiture of more than $2 million worth of property.

"This organization was motivated by personal greed, and Piedra and her co-conspirators prioritized that greed over the safety of those that they illegally smuggled," Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. said in remarks prepared for a news conference in Washington.

Authorities said they traced Piedra's bank records and found that she had deposited more than $1.3 million in December 2017 and August 2021. They also said she had been detained by authorities in 2013 and in 2017 but had not been prosecuted.

The newly unsealed indictment says agents conducting surveillance in May 2021 "heard loud thumps" from a vehicle.

"They approached the covered bed portion of the truck and asked if there was anybody hiding under the cover," the indictment said. "A female voice answered and stated she and others were trapped inside and were struggling to breathe."

That discovery led authorities to 65 other migrants who were being kept at a "stash house" in Laredo.

Human smuggling is a multibillion-dollar enterprise

According to a report published this year by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, people who are smuggled in the country are at risk of rape, beatings, kidnapping and robbery. Transnational human smuggling is a multibillion-dollar enterprise and a "daily occurrence" along the southern border, according to the report.

“The Rio Grande Valley is the busiest area for human smuggling activity in the U.S. right now,” the report says. "From San Diego, California, to Brownsville, Texas, there is activity every day.”

In the operation targeted by Joint Task Force Alpha, which focuses on "networks operating in Mexico and the Northern Triangle," the migrants typically paid their smugglers $8,000 — $3,000 up front and $5,000 upon arrival. Drivers were paid as much as $2,500 for each person they transported, according to court documents. The migrants were commonly referred to as “boxes” or “packages” by the smugglers.

Why immigration is a political flashpoint

Illegal immigration and human smuggling have been a political flashpoint since unauthorized border crossings began to spike after Donald Trump left the White House and the Biden administration rolled back many of the former president's hardline policies.

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Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has repeatedly said President Joe Biden, a Democrat, has done little or nothing to stem the flow of migrants and accused him of carrying out "open border" policies. In recent months, Abbott has sent migrants who have been given at least temporary permission to remain in the United States on buses to Washington, New York and Chicago. Other Republican governors, including Florida's Ron DeSantis, have also transported migrants to other regions where Democrats are in charge.

Without delving into the political debate, the Joint Task Force Alpha news release said the task force and other border-related moves by the Biden administration are "unprecedented in scale to disrupt and dismantle these human smuggling networks." So far, Homeland Security "has committed over $50 million and surged over 1,300 personnel in Latin America and along the Southwest Border," the release said.

The task force's operations have so far resulted in 100 domestic and international arrests. And taken together, the administration's efforts have led to almost 5,000 arrests, according to the news release.

John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.

This article originally appeared on Corpus Christi Caller Times: Large-scale human smuggling operation at border dismantled, feds say