NEW BOOK NOW AVAILABLE: DEADLY RISK: AMERICAN CATTLE RANCHING ON THE MEXICAN BORDER AND OTHER TRUE CATTLE RANCHING STORIES. To order: www.nancydalephd.com.
Dr. Dale is author of five books on true stories of Florida pioneer "cow hunters." Dr. Dale is a nationally published writer and an Adjunct Professor in Communcations.
“The Mexican drug trade has left more than 50,000 bodies in its wake since 2006, and the cartels appear to be looking to expand their networks. With this in mind, the National Post’s graphics team takes a look at the flow of drugs across the continent,” Jonathon Rivait and Richard Johnson from the National Post report. Their analysis shows at least 1,000 U.S. cities reported the presence of at least one of four Mexican cartels in 2010. Tampa, Miami, Jacksonville and Orlando are among those cities. Tampa, Miami and Orlando reported the presence of multiple drug cartels with six reports of the Gulf Cartel or C.D.G. in Florida.
According to a February 2012 NARCONON NEWSarticle, “The discoveries of large drug shipments on submarines and fast boats in the Caribbean support the conclusion that South and Central American drug cartels are once again pointing their drug trafficking efforts at Florida.”
“Recent events have spurred concerns that Florida may once again become the target of Central or South American drug trafficking groups. Heightened drug trafficking activity in the Caribbean Sea and in the Dominican Republic point at the possibility that drug cartels are reclaiming their old trafficking channels and bringing their customary violence with them,” notes NARCONON NEWS.
Early this year NBC News Channel 7, in an article titled “Mexican Drug Cartel Busted in the Panhandle”, reported, “Federal and local authorities say the group, called the Gulf Cartel was responsible for bringing millions of dollars worth of marijuana into Florida. The co-ordinated raids began Monday night in Orlando and Washington County. Federal and local officers arrested more than 30 people total, and seized a staggering amount of evidence.” Hezbollah terrorists working with Mexican drug cartels is the subject of this Fox News video report.
The map below was produced by the National Post and shows the infiltration routes and locations of drug cartels across the United States and Mexico:
Dr. Rich Swier is the Editor of Watchdog Wire - Florida. He holds a Doctorate of Education from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, CA, a Master's Degree in Management Information Systems from the George Washington University, Washington, D.C., and a Bachelor's Degree in Fine Arts from Washington University, St. Louis, MO. Richard is a 23-year Army veteran who retired as a Lieutenant Colonel in 1990. He was awarded the Legion of Merit for his years of service. Additionally, he was awarded two Bronze Stars with “V” for Heroism in ground combat, the Presidential Unit Citation, and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry while serving with the 101st Airborne Division in Vietnam. He is a graduate of the Field Artillery Officers Basic and Advanced Courses, and U.S. Army Command and General Staff College. Richard was the Founder/CEO of Sarasota Online, a high technology company that was sold to Comcast Cable in 1996.
The violence along the border and within Mexico is reaching
levels not seen since their revolution of nearly 100 years ago.
Our Department of Homeland Security, as directed by the White
House, has decided that examining the shoes and socks of the elderly at airports
is more important than stopping real, practiced, dangerous known trespassers of
our lands.
The deaths at the hands of illegal aliens in this country each
month exceeds the deaths from one 747 plane crash each month and yet nothing is
done.
The National Guard has been swarmed by well armed Mexican drug
convoy guards -- possibly even Mexican Army Regulars.
To allow the drugs to flow and the border violence to continue
unabated, U.S. Border Patrol agents have been issued S.A.L.U.T.E. cards. These
cards are to be with them at all times and instruct the agent how to act not
"if" but "when" Mexican Army drug convoy guards cross the border near
them.
With The Cartel taking serious pressure at the top of U.S.
DEA’s Hit List, the lesser ranking drug organizations are more active in the
city. The Ismael “Mayo” Zambada drug cartel is now taking control of certain
segments of drug operations in Tijuana. Violent Inter-Cartel clashes are certain
to increase.
The editor of the Tijuana weekly paper Zeta, Jesús
Blancornelas, who was a close observer of the drug trafficking groups actually
survived being perforated by their lead laden antipathy toward him. Not everyone
at the newspaper survives such encounters. Hector Felix Miranda, co-founder of
Zeta, was murdered by two Cartel gunmen. But there’s more.
Francisco Ortiz Franco, another editor of Zeta, departed our
world while sitting in his car with his children (8, and 10) at his side when
two youths wearing masks put four bullets into his face. While the children were
“unharmed” they won’t forget “dead daddy” for a long, long while. The murder
occurred on a busy Tijuana street and only a block from Baja California State
Police offices.
Speaking about the violence and murder in Tijuana, Governor of
Baja California Eugenio Elorduy Walther said: “We consider this a challenge to
authority, but also a challenge to Baja California society.”
Baja California Assistant Attorney General Rogelio Delgado Neri
downplayed all such scurrilous comments as being “scurrilous comments.” Sr.
Delgado even put the total murder rate in Tijuana at “only” 261 a year.
But then Sr. Delgado was, and almost immediately, blasted into
the land of immortality while sitting at a popular Tijuana bar.
Let's look at two of the largest Mexican border towns to see
our future. These towns are developed, have even half a dozen TV stations each,
are each populated by a million people and are success stories.
Pleasant, dusty, romantic Ciudad
Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, offers us secrets we would rather not know.
The "undocumented migrants" of that community have slaughtered as many as 400 young girls
over the last few years just for sport. The bodies are dumped along the border
in shallow graves and some of the bodies have only been found when their
mummified fingers started sticking up out of the sand.
Is there more going on in Ciudad Juarez? Yes. Mexican troops
have surrounded itand the hamlet of Nuevo Laredo
and have brought in M-60 Army tanks to quell the violence. The 400 dead girls
are seemingly just somebody's hobby, there's serious violence going too.
In the case of Tijuana, the actual murder rate is more than
about 500 per year (San Diego, California has a murder rate of less than 100 per
year). Of course, this is not the total body count. This is the number of people
discovered on the street, in cars, in houses, or mysteriously plopped at
Tijuana’s city dump.
The city of Tijuana actually has a higher murder body count
than all of Western Europe combined, but such excitement and spice make a quick
visit south just that much more interesting.
While “Chief of Police” and “thirty six years in prison” make
an odd combination, they do go together quite well when they describe Police
Chief Antonio Hermenegildo Carmona and the 36 years he received for aiding
Tijuana’s Arellano Felix drug cartel.
The largest and highest value exports of Afghanistan remain --
opium and heroin.
The highest value exports of Mexico are cocaine, and
heroin.
Mexico's heroin comes from Afghanistan and the heroin is
provided to the Mexican drug cartels by the growing forces of the Taliban and
the ever growing al Qaeda. Yes, the massive drug cartels of Mexico have now
teamed with al Qaeda.
But it gets worse.
The Mexican drug cartels have also branched out into smuggling
more than just drugs into the USA. They -- the drug cartels and al Qaeda
remnants -- are now thesingle largest smuggler of illegal aliensinto the US
This makes perfect sense. The cartels already have the
smugglers, and the routes, and the vehicles. Also, the profit is immense. With
cocaine smuggling you actually have to grow the product and process it, and then
find a sales channel to sell it. With illegal aliens, they grow themselves, you
just ship them across the border and they are self motivated to disappear into
the blue clouds of car exhaust found in most major American cities.
The Mexican drug cartels are quite patriotic. They love their
country. Their country is Mexico.
The problem for the United States Border Patrol is getting
worse, fast. The risks for their agents are mounting. Not only are their
vehicles being machine gunned by AK-47 fire, and even fire bombed with Molotov
cocktails, but Border Patrol agents and even US National Guard troops are being
overrun in the dark of night by Mexican troops guarding drug loads.
Click on the drug mule image below.
Report: Hizbullah, Mexican drug
cartels working together
American officials say ties between
Shiite organization, Mexican drug lords for trafficking of drugs, money, people
into US strengthening over recent year. One official voice concern that al-Qaeda
may use same routes
Ties between Lebanon's Shiite Hizbullah organization and Mexican drug cartels have been strengthening
over the past few years, the Washington Times reported Friday.
Hizbullah relies on "the same criminal weapons smugglers, document
traffickers and transportation experts as the drug cartels," said Michael Braun,
former administrator and chief of operations at the US Drug Enforcement
Administration (DEA).
"They work together," added Braun, "They rely on the same shadow
facilitators. One way or another, they are all connected. They'll leverage those
relationships to their benefit, to smuggle contraband and humans into the US; in
fact, they already are (smuggling)."
A number of American security officials, counterterrorism experts and
drug trade law enforcement officials agreed with Braun's comments and said
Hizbullah's use of the Mexican drug routes continued to increase with time.
The routes in question start in South America's tri-border region of
Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil and continue to smuggling routes above and below
the US-Mexico Border. Hizbullah is also suspected of operating similar routes
through Venezuela and Columbia.
To finance its operations, Hizbullah relies in part on funding from a
large Lebanese Shiite Muslim diaspora that stretches from the Middle East to
Africa and Latin America. Some of the funding comes from criminal enterprises.
'Mexican cartels loyal to no one'
There have been no
confirmed cases of Hizbullah moving terrorists across the Mexico border to carry
out attacks in the United States, but it is believed that members and supporters
of the group have entered the US in this way in the past.
Last year, Salim Boughader Mucharrafille was sentenced to 60 years in
prison on charges of organized crime and immigrant smuggling. Mucharrafille, a
Mexican of Lebanese descent was arrested in 2002 for smuggling 200 people, said
to include Hizbullah supporters, into the US.
Mahmoud Youssef Kourani was convicted by an American court of providing
"material support and resources ... to Hizbullah" in 2003 after crossing the
border two years earlier.
"The Mexican cartels have no loyalty to anyone," a US law enforcement
official told The Washington Times. "They will willingly or unknowingly aid
other nefarious groups into the US through the routes they control. It has
already happened. That's why the border is such a serious national security
issue."
Another US counterterrorism official confirmed that the US is keeping a
close eye on the links between Hizbullah and drug cartels and said it is "not a
good picture." A senior US defense official warned that al-Qaeda could also make use of the trafficking routes to infiltrate
operatives into the US.
The Mexican Drug War has killed an estimated 60,000 people since 2006, but the violence has stayed out of the minds of most US citizens. That is about to change as Islamic extremist groups setting up shop in Mexico.
The House Committee on Homeland Security released a November 2012 report that reveals Islamic terror organizations and networks are indeed exploiting profits from narcotics, and the ease of weapons attainment, and the vast technological abilities of Mexican and other southern cartels that are thriving in Mexico’s lawlessness, along with other southern regions. The report, titled A Line In The Sand: Countering Crime, Violence, and Terror at the Southwest Border, details the growing involvement of Iran and Hezbollah in Mexico and other countries south of the southern US border.
In 2006, the Subcommittee reported on the presence of both Iran and Hezbollah in Latin America. Since then, that presence has continued to grow with Iran now having embassies in 11 Latin American countries that include Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Nicaragua and Uruguay.
This unsettling trend was the reason for a Subcommittee-led Congressional Delegation to Latin America in August 2012. The Delegation traveled to Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay, Argentina, as well as the Tri-Border Area (TBA) of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, for a first- hand assessment of the increasing threat posed by Iran and Hezbollah in Latin America. After conferring with U.S. officials, foreign leaders and other experts within these countries, the Subcommittee has concluded that Iran and Hezbollah pose a threat to the entire Western Hemisphere including the United States and our Southwest border.
These new revelations add further concern to US safety when coupled with the December 2011 indictment of Lebanese drug lord Ayman Juma. The indictment revealed Juma was a go-between for Hezbollah and the Mexican Los Zetas cartel. Juma’s indictment showed that 85 tons of cocaine had been delivered into the US by Juma for the Los Zetas. Juma had laundered $850 million for the cartel, of which he received approximately 12% in commissions. The commissions were then given to Hezbollah to fund terrorism.
The Mexican government has disputed the report as false and even used other US government reports to back up Mexican claims of being free of terror ties. However, the facts and incidents in the November 2012 Homeland Security Committee report speak for themselves, as well as other revelations and public declarations from various officials and agencies within the US government.
3,780 Arrests, $186 Million Seized,
Thousands Of Pounds Drugs Confiscated MIAMI, FL. -- The Drug Enforcement
Administration today announced the results of “Project Below the Beltway”, a
two-year series of investigations targeting Mexican drug cartels and violent
street gangs as part of on-going initiative against the drug distribution
network in America.
Investigations in 79 U. S. cities and several cities
within Central America, Europe, Mexico, and South America have resulted in 3,780
arrests, the seizure of 6,100 kilograms of cocaine, 10,284 pounds of
methamphetamine, 1,619 pounds of heroin, 349,304 pounds of marijuana, $148
million dollars in U.S. currency, and $38 million dollars in other assets
seized.
The series of federal, state, and local investigations began in
May 2010 and culminated yesterday.
In addition to the federal
investigations, "Project Below the Beltway" also consisted of numerous state and
local investigations that targeted the Sinaloa and Juarez Cartels from Mexico
and associated drug trafficking organizations around the world and in the
U.S.
The DEA Special Operations Division (SOD) coordinated Project Below
The Beltway and the efforts of the DEA, Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI),
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security
Investigations (HSI), Internal Revenue Service (IRS), Customs and Border
Protection, United States Marshals Service, the Office of Foreign Asset Control,
and numerous state and local law enforcement entities.
CONGRESSMAN XAVIER BECERRA STATEMENT TO SUBCOMMITTEE ON BORDER & MARITIME SECURITY
WASHINGTON, DC – Today, Congressman Xavier Becerra (CA-34), Chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, spoke before the Subcommittee on Border & Maritime Security. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery: “Good morning and thank you, Chairwoman Miller, and Ranking Member Jackson Lee for the opportunity to testify before the Subcommittee today on approaches to border security. With the recent passage of a comprehensive and bipartisan immigration reform bill by the U.S. Senate, this hearing is timely. “As this chamber considers a comprehensive reform of our nation’s immigration laws for the first time in almost thirty years, the public support for doing so has never been stronger. The American people overwhelmingly support the creation of a functioning immigration system that reflects our American values of fairness, and ensures that those caught up in a broken system over the last several decades, who have been productive members of our society can come out of the shadows and work towards the full responsibilities of citizenship. “We are a nation of laws and a nation of immigrants. Balancing these two important pillars, the U.S. Congress can once again prove that when confronted with challenges, we can be a pragmatic and forward-thinking body that resolves any issue the American people set before us and which reflects our best interests and values as Americans. “As Congress moves forward, the architecture of the immigration system must be one that is comprehensive and built to last. Therefore, it must be responsive to the ever changing dynamics of the world’s economy, migration patterns, innovation and technology to ensure America’s competitiveness and enduring status in the world, as well as protecting this nation against evolving threats. Simply fixing one aspect of our immigration system ensures that we will fall short of making our country stronger economically and safer from external threats. Therefore, our task should be to fix the whole immigration system, not merely one or two parts. “Just as a true immigration reform solution is comprehensive and about more than piecemeal fixes, improving border security is more than examining the sum of its parts. It is more than enforcement, manpower, assets, infrastructure and technology at our borders. Border security depends on a number of factors including bi-national relationships, trade agreements, foreign aid, commercial goods and, of course, people. Achieving border security today requires us to look beyond the obvious, to look beyond fences, boots on the ground, and even our own borders, in order to accomplish lasting and better border security. “For the better part of the 20th century and today, border security and immigration to the U.S. have been inextricably tied, with each impacting the other in various ways over time, but always one with the other. Border security and immigration reform are not an “either/or” proposition. As we build a better, smarter, more accountable and efficient border security strategy and system, we cannot ignore its ties to the way in which our immigration laws address permanent and temporary visas, the reunification of families, our nation’s labor market and employment needs and interior enforcement mechanisms. To focus on one without focusing on the other is akin to fixing the brakes on a car without fixing the engine: you need both to get where you’re going. “And although we have not modernized our immigration laws for almost thirty years, in that time, our laws have advanced historic and wide-reaching border and interior enforcement measures. The U.S. government today spends more on immigration enforcement--- $18 billion a year --- than it does on all other criminal federal law enforcement combined. That is almost a quarter more than total spending for the FBI, DEA, Secret Service, U.S. Marshals, and ATF. “This surge in resources spent at the border continues today with diminishing returns. Lawmakers continue to pour increasing resources to prevent unauthorized immigration even though net unauthorized immigration from the Southern border is at a 40-year low. We have met or exceeded the border security “benchmarks” of previous immigration reform proposals so that today we have a force of over 21,000 Border Patrol agents, over 21,000 Customs and Border Protection officers, hundreds of video surveillance systems, at least 9 unmanned aerial vehicles and more fencing, barriers, towers, technology and other assets than at any time ever before in our nation’s history. “We also know that while security and enforcement in the desert between our ports of entry has dramatically improved, the same cannot be said for security at our ports of entry where millions of goods and people cross every day. As border enforcement has increased over the last several decades, unauthorized entries are now less likely to occur between our ports of entry and more likely to occur through our ports of entry, or as the result of legal entries that result in visa overstays. “However, focusing the bulk of resources on apprehending unauthorized desert crossers has come at the cost of resources to prevent trafficking of humans, narcotics, currency, and counterfeit goods through our ports of entry. The greatest border security threats we face today come from Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs), not economic migrants crossing the desert. “In addition, spending on border enforcement between the ports of entry has created an imbalance in resources at ports of entry to the detriment of our economy. Today, 6 million U.S. jobs depend on the $500 billion in yearly cross-border trade between the U.S. and Mexico. Currently, 37 of our 50 states rely on Canada as their largest export market. Insufficient resources at ports of entry result in excessive delays for commuters, tourists and merchants and approximately $6 billion in lost economic output. “Finally, I would be remiss if I did not mention the extraordinary impact that increased border enforcement has had on local communities along all our borders. Nearly 2 out of 3 Americans live, and nine of the top ten largest metropolitan areas are located, within 100 miles of a land or coastal border (approximately 197.4 million people). “At the Southern border, the rapid ramp-up in border enforcement over the last two decades has resulted in the division of cross-border communities, in security measures that have ignored the culture, voice and input of border residents, increased cases of Border Patrol and CBP abuse and corruption, civil rights violations, in more migrant deaths, and a militarized border. “Given the muscular enforcement landscape at the Southern border; the evolution of modern threats, our current economic and security needs, and the impact of enforcement on border communities, it begs the question of why we are still focused on yester-year responses to the exclusion of modern common-sense security measures. More enforcement on its own will not solve our immigration problems; just as no laws can negate the laws of supply and demand, or the human drive to survive. What we need is better, smarter and more effective border enforcement combined with broader immigration law reforms that strengthen our economy and nation. “The Senate’s recent passage of S. 744 the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act,” was evidence that reaching a bipartisan solution on a comprehensive immigration reform bill is entirely within our capabilities as legislators. I was pleased to see balanced reforms related to permanent and temporary visa programs, improvements to family-based and employment-based immigration, a worker verification system with strong due process provisions and a workable path to citizenship. However, the border security provisions were a tone-deaf response to the realities of our current state of border security and evidence that “more” is not a substitute for “better.” “I look forward to hearing testimony from today’s witnesses on S. 744, the Senate’s comprehensive fix to our broken immigration system and H.R. 1417 the Border Security Results Act of 2013. We need a debate that takes into consideration previous border security efforts, and in the words of Chairwoman Miller “what a secure border looks like, how we get there and how to accurately measure progress and results.” I hope that as we seek to define border security that we acknowledge that any legislative measure cannot be a one-size-fits all policy and must reflect the diversity and complexity of our borders. “Building a smarter, more accountable and efficient way to enforce and better secure our border is imperative. Any border security proposal must be agile and adaptable to: real-time intelligence, on-the-ground needs, changing technologies, operational capabilities and resources, analytical and cognitive criteria, and strong transparency, accountability and oversight measures. “The use of metrics and performance measures in assessing and determining whether or not our borders are secure are important elements of an overall picture of security and effectiveness. Metrics can and should be instructive; however, it is unclear whether they are dispositive. Reliance on static or fixed metrics alone as absolute evidence of security achieved is illusory. “It ignores an ever-changing border landscape and does not properly account for its affect on international and domestic economies, quality of life in border communities, the true security of communities, the frequency and severity of local criminal activity, changes in international land, air and sea travel and commercial operation volumes, and other measures, outcomes and cognitive reasoning that cannot always be truly captured by data. “In addition, real-time law enforcement requires agility, flexibility and responsiveness to an ever changing landscape of threats and risk-assessments. To hamstring our law enforcement to an inflexible metric ignores the nature of law enforcement. We have seen the ways in which inflexibility in lawmaking can lead to perverse incentives and unwanted or hazardous results for security and law enforcement, despite our best intentions and planning. “Legislative proposals which seek to tie border enforcement to the fate of those who would come forward and register for any legalization program are of great concern to me. To strive towards achieving the highest level of security and effectiveness at our borders is rational and reflects our mutual desires as Americans to achieve the best when it comes to securing our nation. But the idea that we would condition the fate of 11 million people---who meet all of the rigorous legalization requirements that we ask of them---on a trigger linked to achieving a fixed border security metric is irrational. “Any legalization program will ask the undocumented to come out of the shadows, undergo background checks, pay taxes, and learn our language. It will require them to demonstrate personal responsibility. To punish them from adjusting their status based on bureaucratic malfunctions or short-comings over which they had no control---even when they have met their personal responsibilities---is not consistent with our values of justice and fair dealing. To return to the car analogy I used earlier, to penalize the safe driver for the manufacturer’s defect or failure makes no sense. “We need to fix all the parts of our broken immigration system, but what kind of border security measures do we need? We need measures: 1) that are responsive to a morphing security environment; 2) that promote the robust economic engine of cross-border trade; 3) that restore parity to our commercial and security operations by investing in ports of entry; 4) that add manpower where we need it, such as Customs and Border Protection Officers at land, air and sea ports or Homeland Security Investigators for worksite and visa overstay enforcement; 5) that address the most urgent security threats such as those posed by transnational organized crime; 6) that consult with border communities in developing local and sector-specific solutions; 7) that are transparent and fiscally accountable; 8) that promote a culture of ethics and integrity; and 9) which protect civil and constitutional rights. “In conclusion, I thank this Subcommittee for its work on the important issues related to the security of all our nation’s borders. Today’s hearing is more critical than ever and as Members of Congress we must rise to meet the challenge and the opportunity that the American people have placed before us. I am optimistic that we can get to a bipartisan solution on a comprehensive fix to our broken immigration system that includes a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented individuals within our borders. I look forward to working with this committee as we move forward towards a solution that respects our values and history as a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws.”
Mexican troops have rescued 165 people who were purchased and kept as slaves by a Mexican drug cartel. The adults, children, and pregnant women had been kept in Mexico less than one mile from the U.S. border.
The 165 people were intending to illegally cross the U.S. border, but their human smugglers sold them to a cartel instead of helping them across, according to a report from the U.K.’s Mail Online. The victims are reported to have been from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News, one of our nation’s leading experts on human trafficking, Dottie Laster, illuminated the issues facing people who attempt to enter the U.S. illegally and other migrant workers.
“Many people from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala enter Mexico illegally to work there. Not all of them intend to come into the United States,” said Laster. “The ones who do intend to come here often have to pay for someone to bring them. They get into trucks, but sometimes the coyotes sell the trucks to cartels for slaves.”
Laster said anti-human trafficking efforts are seeing more and more cases of slavery, not only in Mexico but in the United States as well. “Regardless of anyone’s feelings about illegal immigrants who are coming to work, many of these people end up in forced-servitude, having to work against their will under the threat of force or of promised violence to their wives, children, or other family members back home,” said Laster.
“Though the high number of individuals in one location in this case is somewhat unusual, we see cases nearly everyday where people have been kidnapped, coerced, and enslaved against their will both north and south of the U.S. border,” said Laster. “Such situations are not confined to only Mexicans or people from south of our border. We see vulnerable people from all over the world, usually young women, victimized by the same situations."
"Many of our cases involve U.S. citizens who were victimized,” she added.
Laster’s assertion that vulnerable U.S. citizens are also victims of forced-servitude or sex slavery is reinforced by recent reporting from Breitbart News regarding the FBI and their recent success in freeing multiple American child sex slaves in the northern U.S. Editor's note:Breitbart's Brandon Darby worked undercover with the FBI in anti-human trafficking efforts and with Dottie Laster. Darby continues to help Laster in her efforts. Follow him on Twitter: @BrandonDarby.
Like many victims of human trafficking, Marcela was tricked into the sex trade by a man she thought she could trust. She met him in her small hometown in Veracruz state when she was 16. Posing as a wealthy businessman, he asked for her hand in marriage, promising a comfortable lifestyle. Instead he took her to the Merced neighborhood of Mexico City, a hotbed for prostitution. She was kept under duress in a hotel room and forced to have sex with up to 40 men a day, who paid $15 each to her so-called boyfriend and his accomplices. Girls suffering from human trafficking are often kept under such conditions for years. However, after a week, police raided the hotel, and Marcela defied the threats from the traffickers to testify in court, sending them to prison. “When it was happening, I just blocked it out, as it was so painful,” says Marcela, who asked that her name be changed. “It took me a long time to regain any confidence in myself, to rebuild my life.”
Now 21, Marcela works with activists in support of a new drive by prosecutors to make sure other girls don’t suffer what she did. Their efforts have been aided by Mexico’s first federal law on human trafficking passed in 2012. (Before this, the issue was governed by varying state laws.) The new act dictates custodial sentences for perpetrators at all links in the trafficking chain with sentences up to 40 years. Activists estimate that hundreds of thousands of women in Mexico, including many underage girls, are coerced into sex work or other forced labor, though the clandestine nature of the trade makes it impossible to know exact figures. Under the new law, any sex work involving girls under the age of 18 qualifies as human trafficking. Laws governing prostitution vary across Mexico’s states, and it is often tolerated in red-light zones, such as those on the U.S. border.
(VIDEO:Mexico’s Feared Narcos: A Brief History of the Zetas Drug Cartel)
The fight against this trafficking is complicated by the deep involvement of the country’s notorious drug cartels in the business. Narco gangs like the Zetas — a criminal army founded by defectors from the Mexican military — have diversified their portfolio to include kidnapping, extortion, theft of crude oil, gun running and lucrative human-trafficking networks. It’s impossible to know the exact value of Mexico’s human-trafficking trade, though the U.N. estimates the global industry to be worth $32 billion a year. “As the drug war has become more intense, the networks that traffic women have made their pacts with cartels,” says Jaime Montejo, a spokesman for Brigada Callejera, a sex-worker support group in Mexico City. “Those that don’t cannot survive.”
In addition to selling women for sex, Mexican cartels also have been known to kidnap women and girls and use them as their personal sex slaves. “Human-trafficking crimes have a devastating effect on victims and their families,” says Rosi Orozco, who served as a Mexican federal deputy, drafting the new law, and now works closely with prosecutors. “There are parents who are searching and searching for their children and can’t sleep because of this nightmare.”
The antitrafficking drive has gained momentum in Mexico City, where a special prosecutor took power in May and has since overseen 86 raids on hotels, bars and massage parlors, rescuing 118 women and charging 62 alleged traffickers. Other significant arrests have been made across Mexico in states including Hidalgo and Puebla in recent months. Activists are also supporting cases as far away as the U.S., where Mexican women have been smuggled over the Rio Grande into forced sex work. This month, police in New Jersey arrested six Mexican nationals on sex-trafficking and organized-crime charges following a raid on a brothel in the town of Lakewood. “For too long, human-trafficking victims have suffered out of sight on the fringes of society,” acting state attorney general John Hoffman told reporters on July 18.
(MORE:Mexico Goes After the Narcos — Before They Join the Gangs)
Gangs like the Zetas are involved in human trafficking at many links on the chain. Cartels control most of Mexico’s smuggling networks through which victims are moved, while they also take money from pimps and brothels operating in their territories. Prosecution documents show numerous cases in which cartel members have confessed to murdering pimps who crossed them or burning down establishments that refused to pay their “quota.” Mexican marines arrested the Zetas’ leader, Miguel Angel Treviño Morales, this month and prosecutors say that human trafficking will be among the long list of charges leveled against him. “The cartels know that drugs can only be sold once, but women can be sold again and again and again,” says Teresa Ulloa, director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and Girls in Latin America and the Caribbean. Ulloa, who has helped hundreds of victims of sex trafficking in Mexico, says organized crime is involved in 70% of cases.
The new human-trafficking law takes into account cases of women forced to work directly for cartels, punishing anyone who helps bring women to them. Some recent testimonies made to journalists and activists cast light on the horrifying ordeals of women held in servitude for long periods by the gangsters. In one account taken by the former deputy Orozco, a woman from El Salvador described how she was kidnapped by the Zetas in Mexico, repeatedly raped and then also forced to cook and wash bloody clothes and machetes. While she was finally freed by one of her captors, other women are believed to experience similar brutal treatment before ultimately being murdered. This month, a mother located the body of her daughter in Oaxaca state after a two-year-long search; she discovered that her daughter had been held by a gang of Zetas and was repeatedly raped before being decapitated.
In western Michoacán state, the brutal Knights Templar cartel is alleged to have kidnapped large numbers of girls and held them for sex. Jose Manuel Mireles, a doctor who has become the leader of an armed vigilante group fighting the cartel in the village of Tepalcatepec, said the cartel’s systematic use of rape as a tool of terror was the final spark that made residents take up guns this year. “They arrived at people’s houses and said, ‘Bathe your daughter, she is going to stay with me for some time,’ and they wouldn’t return her until she was pregnant,” Mireles said in a video testimony posted on the Internet.
(PHOTOS:Auto Defensa: Rough Justice in Mexico’s Lawless Mountains)
The vigilante militias, like the one headed by Mireles, have sprung up in a string of western Mexican towns in recent months, setting up checkpoints and rooting out alleged cartel members. The government has taken a rather ambiguous stance on these militias: President Enrique Peña Nieto condemned vigilantism, but local police have arrested only a few vigilantes. In recent weeks, the government has also sent in thousands of extra federal police, soldiers and marines into Michoacán to combat the cartels. In response, the Knights Templar gunmen carried out a series of attacks both on the vigilante militias and the federal forces. On Sunday, alleged gunmen from the Knights Templar killed a vice admiral in the Mexican navy and his bodyguard on a Michoacán road.
Back in the Merced neighborhood, many sex workers continue plying their trade independently in the shadow of Mexico’s bloody drug war and the predations of human traffickers. Patricia, who has been a sex worker in the Merced for 30 years, says she believes the majority of Mexican prostitutes are not coerced, though they face few options in life. “I have no problem with my clients. Many are good people,” Patricia says. “One even brought me medicine when I was sick.” However, Marcela, who was forced into sex work as a teenager, says there are often coercive pressures that cannot be seen, like threats against the sex worker or her family. “There might be some women who do it out of choice, but many are forced,” Marcela says. “Nobody, when they are a young girl, says, ‘I want to be a prostitute.’”
Palm Beach County is 'perfect storm' of human trafficking
Promised work in Boca, workers used as slave labor in Mississippi
September 15, 2012|By Brett Clarkson, Sun Sentinel
Recruited from the Philippines and other developing nations, the workers were promised jobs that paid $7.50 an hour as servers at the Polo Club of Boca Raton.
It was a lie.
After arriving in the U.S. with temporary work visas, they were shipped out in a pickup truck to a grubby trailer on the edge of the woods in Purvis, Miss., where they would work 12 hours a day, six days a week picking pine straw, which is used to make mulch. At night, they slept in a filthy, unheated trailer with no potable water. It was November 2009 and there was snow on the ground.
"We were afraid," said Regie Tesoro, 35, one of the victims. "We didn't even know about why these people were doing this to us — just for money."
Tesoro is one among thousands of victims of human trafficking, a crime federal investigators say is growing across the country – and in South Florida. Palm Beach County, with its agriculture and tourism industries always on the lookout for low cost labor, is a "perfect storm" for human trafficking, investigators say.
"It's a multibillion dollar business," said Carmen Pino, assistant special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Homeland Security Investigations in Miami. "It's everywhere."
Pino said the crime is creeping into everyday life in South Florida, even though many people might not realize it.
"The possibility of anybody at anytime encountering a victim of human trafficking in South Florida is very possible," he said. Human trafficking is akin to slavery and involves people, often foreign workers, being forced to perform work for little or no pay, usually by organized crime groups.
Whether it be prostitution, farm work, the hotel and restaurant industry, nail and beauty salons, or domestic help, the fields in which exploited people are working are many and varied, agents say.
Because of its tourism and agricultural sectors, Palm Beach County is a "perfect storm" of human trafficking, said Nestor Yglesias, ICE spokesman.
"We have seen a huge increase in human trafficking in Palm Beach," Yglesias said.
Pino and Yglesias said there were no state-by-state numbers available from for human trafficking investigations to quantify the rise in South Florida.
There are, however, national numbers.
In 2010, there were 651 human trafficking investigations, 151 indictments and 144 convictions.
In 2011, there was a marked increase on all fronts: 722 human trafficking investigations, 444 indictments and 271 convictions.
Those numbers come from ICE, which initiated the investigations that lead to the indictments and convictions.
Locally, Pino and Yglecias point to other indicators besides statistics. They say authorities are receiving more investigative leads from both average citizens and local law enforcement officers.
For instance, it was an anonymous tip in March 2010 that led to the arrest of Veronica Martinez, who was sentenced to 87 months in prison after smuggling two Mexican women into the country and forcing them to work at a Palm Beach County bar to pay off their smuggling debt.
In November 2010, two Boca Raton residents pleaded guilty forcing 39 Filipino workers to work in local country clubs. A year later, in November 2011, a Miami Gardens woman was sentenced to eight years after trying to smuggle 31 foreign workers into the U.S. by boat
That same month, three Mexicans got 15 years each after forcing Mexican women to work as prostitutes. More recently, in August 2012, four migrant workers who entered the country illegally launched a civil suit against a Cape Coral staffing company and three of its workers, all of Belle Glade, for allegedly abusing and threatening them while they worked in the fields. They also said they lived in squalid conditions and were paid a fraction of what they had been promised.
In April 2012, one of the three Belle Glade farm managers pleaded guilty to criminal charges.
Pino, who heads up an investigative team that probes human trafficking cases from Fort Pierce to Key West, said Mexican drug cartels traffic farm workers and prostitutes in the western parts of Palm Beach County. Closer to the beaches, workers are trafficked for hotels, restaurants, and as servants in the homes of wealthy residents, he said.
In Broward, especially the central part of the county, there are the massage parlors run by Asian organized crime groups, he said.
In Miami-Dade, Pino said Israeli and Russian criminal groups traffic high-end prostitutes in South Beach. Then there are the brothels in suburban homes, he said, where Mexican women and girls are forced into prostitution and sold to make money for the cartels.Often the girls will be kept on high dosages of antibiotics to stop their menstrual cycles and keep them working. But Pino also talked about something a little less criminally apparent, like nail salons.
MEXICO CITY (AP) - Miguel Angel Trevino Morales, the notoriously brutal leader of the feared Zetas drug cartel, was captured before dawn Monday in the first major blow against an organized crime leader by a Mexican administration struggling to drive down persistently high levels of violence, officials announced.
Trevino Morales, 40, was captured by Mexican Marines who intercepted a pickup truck with $2 million in cash on a dirt road in the countryside outside the border city of Nuevo Laredo, which has long served as the Zetas' base of operations. The truck was halted by a Marine helicopter and Trevino Morales was taken into custody along with a bodyguard and an accountant and eight guns, government spokesman Eduardo Sanchez told reporters.
Sanchez said the Marines had been watching rural roads between the Texas border states of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon and Tamaulipas for signs of Trevino Morales, who is charged with murder, torture, kidnapping and other crimes.
The Zetas leader and his alleged accomplices were flown to Mexico City, where they are expected to eventually be tried in a closed system that usually takes years to prosecute cases, particularly high-profile ones. Trevino Morales, known as "Z-40," is uniformly described as one of the two most powerful cartel heads in Mexico, the leader of a corps of special forces defectors who went to work for drug traffickers, splintered off into their own cartel in 2010 and metastasized across Mexico, expanding from drug dealing into extortion, kidnapping and human trafficking.
Along the way, the Zetas authored some of the worst atrocities of Mexico's drug war, leaving hundreds of bodies beheaded on roadsides or hanging from bridges, earning a reputation as perhaps the most terrifying of the country's numerous ruthless cartels. On Trevino Morales' watch, 72 Central and South American migrants were slaughtered by the Zetas in the northern town of San Fernando in 2010, authorities said. By the following year, federal officials announced finding 193 bodies buried in San Fernando, most belonging to migrants kidnapped off buses and killed by the Zetas for various reasons, including their refusal to work as drug mules.
Trevino Morales is charged with ordering the kidnapping and killing of the 265 migrants, Sanchez said.
President Enrique Pena Nieto came into office promising to drive down levels of homicide, extortion and kidnapping but has struggled to make a credible dent in crime figures. And his pledge to focus on citizen safety over other crimes has sparked worries among U.S. authorities that he would ease back on predecessor Felipe Calderon's U.S.-backed strategy aimed above all at decapitating drug cartels.
The arrest of Trevino, a man widely blamed for both massive northbound drug trafficking and the deaths of untold scores of Mexicans and Central American migrants, will almost certainly earn praise from Pena Nieto's U.S. and Mexican critics alike.
Trevino Morales' capture adds to the long list of Zetas' leaders who have been arrested or killed in recent years, including Zeta head Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, whose fatal shooting by authorities last year left Trevino Morales in charge.
"There continues to be the perception that capturing this type of individual has a strategic value and the logic persists that it's preferable to fragment criminal groups and reduce them in size. On this point there isn't much change," said Alejandro Hope, a former member of Mexico's domestic intelligence service.
The debilitation of the Zetas has been widely seen as strengthening the country's most-wanted man, Sinaloa cartel head Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, who has overseen a vicious turf war with the Zetas from hideouts believed to lie in rugged western Mexico.
"El Chapo is greatly strengthened because he will now have access to the crown jewel of narco-trafficking, Nuevo Laredo," said George Grayson, an expert on the Zetas and professor of government at the College of William & Mary.
Trevino Morales is expected to be succeeded by his brother, Omar, a former low-ranking turf boss seen as far weaker than his older brother. Miguel Angel Trevino Morales began his career as a teenage gofer for the Los Tejas gang, which controlled most crime in his hometown across the border from Laredo, Texas. He soon graduated from washing cars and running errands to running drugs across the border, and was recruited into the Matamoros-based Gulf cartel. Trevino Morales' brother, sister and mother lived in Dallas but he had many relatives around Nuevo Laredo and, while moving frequently to avoid authorities, he was believed to often return to his hometown, the U.S. official said.
Trevino Morales joined the Zetas, a group of Mexican special forces deserters who defected to work as hit men and bodyguards for the Gulf cartel in the late 1990s.
Stories about the brutality of "El Cuarenta," or "40" as Trevino Morales became known, quickly become well-known among his men, his rivals and Nuevo Laredo citizens terrified of incurring his anger.
One technique favored by Trevino Morales was the "guiso," or stew, in which enemies would be placed in 55-gallon drums and burned alive, said a U.S. law-enforcement official in Mexico City, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic. Others who crossed the commander would be beaten with wooden planks, the official said.
Around 2005, Trevino Morales was promoted to boss of the Nuevo Laredo territory, or "plaza" and given responsibility for fighting off the Sinaloa cartel's attempt to seize control of its drug-smuggling routes, according to U.S. and Mexican officials. He orchestrated a series of killings on the U.S. side of the border, several by a group of young U.S. citizens who gunned down their victims on the streets of the American city.
In 2006, the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas defeated the Sinaloa cartel in Nuevo Laredo, a victory that emboldened them as they began spreading south to towns and cities that had never before seen extensive organized crime. They set up criminal networks to control transit routes for drugs, migrants, extortion, kidnapping, contraband of pirated DVDs and CDs and countless other criminal activities, intimidating local residents and committing gruesome murders as an example to the uncooperative.
According to the U.S. official, Trevino Morales was in charge of Nuevo Leon, Piedras Negras and other areas until March 2007, when he was sent to the city of Veracruz following the death of a leading Zeta in a gunbattle there.
That same year, Trevino Morales and Lazcano began pushing for independence from the Gulf cartel after cartel head Osielo Cardenas Guillen's extradition to the U.S.
The Zetas split from the Gulf cartel and by 2008 had operations in 28 major Mexican cities, according to an analysis by Grupo Savant, a Washington-based security think tank.
In February 2008, Lazcano sent Trevino Morales to Guatemala, where he was responsible for eliminating local competitors and establish Zetas control of smuggling routes. Trevino Morales was then named by Lazcano as national commander of the Zetas across Mexico despite his lack of military background, earning him the resentment of some of the original ex-military members of the Zetas, the official said.
The promotion involved Trevino Morales in virtually every decision by the Zetas, the official said.
Trevino rose to the top of the Zetas last year after leader Lazcano died in a shootout with Mexican marines in Coahuila state.
Trevino Morales was indicted on drug trafficking and weapons charges in New York in 2009 and Washington in 2010, and the U.S. government issued a $5 million reward for information leading to his arrest.
According to the indictments, Trevino Morales coordinated the shipment of hundreds of pounds of cocaine and marijuana each week from Mexico into the U.S., much of which had passed through Guatemala. He also moved bulk shipments of dollar bills back into Mexico, the documents say.
Human Trafficking - Exploitation of Illegal Aliens
Human Trafficking - Exploitation of Illegal Aliens
The large and persistent influx of illegal aliens contributes to an environment of vulnerability and abuse. Wherever the law does not hold people accountable, crime will flourish. The federal government’s failure to address the illegal alien dilemma creates and perpetuates an environment in which exploitation runs rampant.
It is estimated that 14,500 to 17,500 foreign nationals are trafficked into the United States each year.1 Trafficking is the recruitment and transportation of persons within or across boundaries by force, fraud, or deception for the purpose of exploiting them economically. Victims are lured with false promises of good jobs and better lives, and then forced to work under brutal and inhuman conditions. Victims of trafficking are exploited for purposes of commercial sex, including prostitution, stripping, pornography and live-sex shows. However, trafficking also takes place as labor exploitation, such as domestic servitude, sweatshop factories, or agricultural work. After drug dealing, human trafficking is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second largest criminal industry in the world today, and it is the fastest growing.
While anyone can become a victim of trafficking, illegal aliens are highly vulnerable to being trafficked due to a combination of factors, including lack of legal status and protections, limited language skills and employment options, poverty and immigration-related debts, and social isolation. They are often victimized by traffickers from a similar ethnic or national background, on whom they may be dependent for employment or support in the foreign country.
The information below, taken from news sources, demonstrates the prevalence of human trafficking in the United States and the precarious nature many illegal aliens face. This is not the opportunity that our nation’s immigrants are seeking but symptoms of a flawed system of immigration enforcement. Human trafficking violates our nation’s promise that every person in the United States is guaranteed basic human rights. A critical strategy in ending human trafficking is better enforcement of our immigration laws and greater federal-local cooperation in law enforcement.
August 2008 — In Kansas City, three owners of massage parlors pled guilty to human trafficking. Ling Xu, Zhong Yan Liu, and Cheng Tang recruited Chinese women to work as prostitutes at their businesses. The victims worked from 9AM to 11PM seven days a week and stayed inside the parlor. In addition to human trafficking, the defendants also pled guilty to money laundering and identity theft. They agreed to forfeit more than $500,000 earned from the prostitution ring.
June 2008 — In Houston, 120 victims were rescued from a sex trafficking ring. Victims were approached in Central America and promised waitressing jobs in the U.S. After being smuggled in, the women were forced to work as bargirls 6 and 7 nights a week. De Walter Corea was convicted for his role in the scheme and sentenced to 180 months in prison and, jointly with his co-defendants, required to pay $1,715,588 in restitution to the victims. (Houston Chronicle, June 29, 2008).
May 2008 — In Miami, 14- year-old Simone Celestin, testified she worked fifteen hours a day, did not attend school, and frequently was threatened and beaten. Based on her testimony, a federal jury convicted Maude Paulin and her ex-husband, Saintfort Paulin, of human trafficking and smuggling charges. In 1999, they arranged for Celestin to be brought illegally from Haiti, and until 2005, she was forced to work as a domestic servant in their home. Maude Paulin was sentenced to 87 months in prison followed by 3 years of supervised release and ordered, jointly with her co-defendant, to pay $162,765 in restitution to the victim. Saintfort Paulin was sentenced to 18 months of probation, including six months in home confinement, and was ordered to pay a $500 fine. (CNN, May 20, 2008)
May 2008 — In Los, Angeles, 12 victims were freed from a sex trafficking ring, 5 of whom were minors. According to court records, the victims were approached in Guatemala and promised high-paying U.S. jobs. After being smuggled in, the women were told they had to work as prostitutes to pay off their smuggling debts. When the women protested, they were told they had no choice. Pablo Bonifacio pled guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking and transporting illegal aliens. (Department of Justice, May 08, 2008)
May 2008 — In Tucson 38 men were found at a “drop house” where smuggled illegal aliens were held. The aliens were held as hostages until more money could be extorted from the victims’ families. Jose Manuel Enriquez-Hernandez, the operator of the house, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit criminal hostage taking. (DHS/ICE Press Release May 9, 2008)
May 2008 — A 14- year-old Mexican girl, who was recruited to work in a Miami restaurant, was forced to work as prostitute. She had been smuggled into the United States after paying $2,000. She was just one of the many victims in an elaborate sex trafficking ring. Juan Luis Cadena-Sosa, a Mexican national and a rings organizer, pled guilty to involuntary servitude, conspiracy to recruit, harbor, and transport known illegal aliens for purposes of prostitution, and extortion of extended credit collections. (Department of Justice, May 07, 2008).
May 2008 — In San Antonio’s first human trafficking case, two Mexican teenagers were recruited to engage in prostitution. Timothy Michael Gereb, a convicted sex offender, pled guilty and received 10 years imprisonment for his role in the crime.
March 2008 — In Hyattsville, a 14- year-old Mexican girl worked as a prostitute from August 2005 to June 2006. Javier Miguel Ramirez pled guilty to sex trafficking of the girl. He transported the girl to residences in Maryland and Virginia to engage in sex. She was instructed to meet with 25 clients or more per day, and provided most of the money that she made to Ramirez. (Department of Justice, March 10, 2008)
February 2008 — In Phoenix, at least 15 illegal aliens were held hostage after being smuggled in the country illegally. Mancinas-Flores was found guilty and was sentenced to life in prison, and in addition, he received concurrent 10-year terms for two charges of harboring aliens and a seven-year consecutive term for the use of a firearm during the hostage taking. (DHS/ICE Press Release February 12, 2008)
January 2008 — In Los Angeles, Nina Ruiz, a Filipino maid, was forced to eat three-day-old food, sleep on a dog basket, and work 18- hour days. After having her passport taken, she was threatened to be reported to immigration officers. Elizabeth Jackson, of Tacoma Washington, pled guilty to forced labor. A federal judge sentenced her to three years prison. (DHS/ICE Press Release January 28, 2008)
January 2008 — In San Diego, at least three Mexican illegal aliens were forced to work as day labors after being smuggled into the county. If they refused, they were threatened with arrest. Gloria Eugenia Leon-Aldana pled guilty to bringing in illegal aliens for financial gain and forced labor, for her role in the ring. (Department of Justice, January 12, 2008).
January 2008 — In New Jersey, several Honduran women to worked as sex slaves and were beaten and threatened with deportation if they tried to escape. The women were smuggled into the country and forced to work up to seven nights a week at bars to pay the debt. Noris Elvira Rosales-Martinez, Jose Dimas Magana, and Ana Luz Rosales-Martinez, pled guilty to human trafficking and they received the maximum sentences for their crimes. (Jersey Journal, January 05, 2008)
December 2007 — In New York, Indonesians Nona and Samirah, testified they were forced to work long hours. For misdeeds, they were beaten with brooms and umbrellas, scalded with hot water, and slashed with knifes. Misdeeds included sleeping late or eating food from the trash. Mahender Sabhanani and Varsha Sabhanani, were convicted of forced labor, peonage, document servitude, and harboring aliens. (DHS/ICE Press Release December 19, 2007)
December 2007 — In Atlanta, several Brazilians were lured into a scheme to encourage illegal immigrants to file untruthful visa applications. Emma Gerald, Ruy Brasil Silva, Douglas Ross, and Hudson Araujo, were convicted on charges of conspiracy, money laundering and making false statements related to a fraud scheme targeting illegal aliens. Gerald faces a maximum sentence of 45 years in prison and a fine of up to $1.25 million. Silva faces a maximum of 15 years in federal prison and a fine of up to $500,000. Ross and Araujo each face a maximum sentence of five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000. (DHS/ICE Press Release December 13, 2007)
November 2007 — Harrison Norris Jr., known in the wrestling world as "Hardbody Harrison," was convicted of charges of sex trafficking and slavery in Georgia. Norris kidnapped some of his victims and lured others to come live with him by promising to train them as professional wrestlers. Once he got the women to his home, he forced them to work as prostitutes at Hispanic nightclubs, apartments, hotels, in North Carolina and Northern Georgia. Norris faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.(Department of Justice, November 23, 2007)
November 2007 — In Los Angeles, four Filipino workers were forced to work 18- hour days with no overtime pay. Robert and Angelita Farrell were found guilty of abusing Filipino workers who worked at their Comfort Inn and Suites hotel in South Dakota. (DHS/ICE Press Release November 08, 2007)
October 2007 — Vanessa Cristina Guedes Lopes, a Brazilian, was sentenced to 20 months in prison for running a prostitution ring employing illegal aliens in Burlington, Massachusetts. (DHS/ICE Press Release October 17, 2007)
August 2007 — In Detroit, 22- year-old “Katya” (an alias) of Ukraine testified before a congressional panel. She was lured from her home with a promise of a student visa. Instead, she was forced to dance at a strip club for twelve hour days, six day weeks. Michail Aronov was sentenced to 90 months in prison and required to pay $1 million in restitution. Aleksandr Maksimenko was sentenced to 14-years in prison, and $1.5 million dollars in restitution. (DHS/ICE Press Releases June 26, 2007 and August 16, 2007)
June 2007 — Olga Mondragon, a Salvadoran, pled guilty to forced labor conspiracy, conspiracy to and smuggling Central American women into the United States for financial gain, and harboring illegal aliens. She held the women and girls in her Houston bar in servitude until their smuggling debts were paid. She faces a maximum punishment of five years in prison for the forced labor conspiracy conviction, a maximum of 20 years in prison for each of 8 forced labor counts of conviction, up to 10 years for the conspiracy to smuggle illegal aliens for financial gain and harboring illegal alien convictions, and no less than 3 and no more than 10 years in prison for each of two counts of conviction for smuggling illegal aliens for financial gain. Each of the eight counts of conviction carries a maximum fine of $250,000. (Department of Justice, June 18, 2007)
January 2007 — Mexicans Jacobo Dominguez Vazquez, Jose Luis Chavez, and Braulio Aniceto Velez were convicted of prostituting a 13- year-old girl in Cheyenne. A sentence date has not been set, but they face life in prison and deportation upon sentence completion. (DHS/ICE Press Release January 19, 2007)
January 2007 — Fernando Reyes-Santillan was convicted pf trafficking teenage girl for prostitution at a brothel in Memphis, Tennessee. While a sentence date has not been set, he faces up to forty years in prison. (DHS/ICE Press Release January 10, 2007)
Endnote:
Trafficking in Persons Report, 2007. U.S. Department of State.
Pleasant, dusty, romantic Ciudad
Juarez across from El Paso, Texas, offers us secrets we would rather not know.
The "undocumented migrants" of that community have 
