By Samantha Kamman, Christian Post Reporter Monday, February 24, 2025Migrants walk by the jungle near Bajo Chiquito village, the first border control of the Darien Province in Panama, on September 22, 2023. The clandestine journey through the Darien Gap usually lasts five or six days, at the mercy of all kinds of bad weather and cartels involved in human trafficking and drug smuggling . | Luis Acosta/AFP via Getty Images
A binational enforcement operation between Mexico and the United States took down a cartel-linked human smuggling operation that reportedly kidnapped migrants attempting to enter the U.S. illegally and then extorted their families for money.
As part of the operation, Mexican authorities executed arrest warrants against Brian Alan Torres Gonzalez and Soledad Morales Nava, a pair of alleged human smugglers.
The Mexican citizens will be prosecuted in Mexico with evidence provided by U.S. authorities, according to a Thursday statement from the U.S. Department of Justice.
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The illegal alien smuggling organization is based in Juarez, Mexico. Authorities say many of the Mexican nationals it employs are current and former members of various Mexico-based cartels.
In addition to adults, the criminal organization is believed to have smuggled children from Central America into El Paso, Texas.
The smuggling organization is accused of kidnapping migrants to extort money from their families, demanding payment before fulfilling the promise to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States.
“On her first day in office, the Attorney General directed the Department of Justice to prioritize efforts to achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and empowered Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA) to increase their contributions to this fight,” Supervisory Official Antoinette T. Bacon of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement.
“Today’s action by Mexican authorities is the latest example of how JTFA provides critical contributions to marshal the investigative and prosecutorial resources of the Department, and its law enforcement partners, to target human smugglers and enhance coordination in transnational law enforcement efforts to better combat these criminal organizations,” Bacon added.
The JTFA, created in 2021, exists to “enhance” U.S. enforcement efforts against various human smuggling and trafficking groups. From its creation in June 2021 through December 2024, the JTFA has led to over 345 arrests of leaders, organizers and significant facilitators of human smuggling.
Other results achieved following the task force’s creation include over 295 convictions in U.S. courts and the sentencing of more than 240 defendants, as well as substantial seizures and forfeitures of assets and contraband, including millions of dollars in cash, real property, vehicles, firearms, ammunition and drugs.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations El Paso also assisted with foreign investigative efforts as part of the recent operation, working with U.S. Border Patrol.
The ICE HSI-Mexico City contributed to the effort by providing coordination between American and Mexican law enforcement agencies. The Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas in El Paso, HRSP and the Office of the Judicial Attaché in Mexico City also provided assistance.
In December, a Mexican national extradited to the United States in 2023, Ofelia Hernandez-Salas, pleaded guilty to leading a human smuggling operation in Mexicali along the U.S.-Mexico border that facilitated the travel of more than 100 migrants into the U.S. from and through several countries spanning the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Prosecutors say migrants were charged as much as tens of thousands of dollars and instructed on how to illegally cross the border into the U.S. using a ladder to climb over the border fence. Hernandez-Salas and associates are also accused of robbing the migrants of money and personal belongings while armed with weapons.
Authorities who have dealt with human smuggling cases have spoken of the abusive treatment migrants typically suffer at the hands of smugglers, as well as the dangerous conditions they’re often exposed to during the journey.
Earlier this year, the police department in Hurley, New Mexico, discovered 11 migrants padlocked in the back of a rented truck close to midnight on New Year’s Eve. Another one of the migrants was seated at the front of the vehicle. The police department in Hurley contacted Border Patrol for assistance with the situation.
The migrants padlocked inside the van reportedly came from various countries, including Guatemala, Mexico, El Salvador and Honduras. The suspect facing human smuggling charges also had a Mexican driver’s license.
In a statement at the time to KTSM, El Paso Sector Border Patrol Chief Anthony Scott Good described the case as “a stark reminder of the lengths smugglers will take to evade detection and endanger lives!”
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
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Publish date : 2025-02-23 16:00:00
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