In the early morning, police and federal agents covered through helicopters that flew over a gigantic ranch nestled in the mountains of northern Guatemala, not from the border with Mexico, raided.
Unlike the ranch’s poor neighbors, the domestic government discovered stables, a swimming pool, style vehicles, guns, and a still-drunk Felipe Diego Alonso, the alleged leader of a smuggling ring that transported migrants from northern Guatemala to the United States.
The raid component of several raids carried out on Tuesday in 4 Guatemalan provinces opposed a network of migrant smugglers, for whom the government says it has documented $2 million in profits since 2019.
Alonzo and 3 others arrested Tuesday were the target of U. S. prosecutors, wanted in connection with the death of a Guatemalan migrant in Texas last year. In total, the government arrested 19 alleged members of the smuggling network.
The arrests came a month after 53 migrants, including 21 Guatemalans, died in a failed smuggling attempt as they were abandoned in a suffocating caravan in San Antonio, Texas. There is no indication that those arrested Tuesday were involved in the San Antonio tragedy. .
The extradition of smugglers of suspected migrants as “coyotes” has been rare and is believed to be the first cases in Guatemala of smugglers allegedly prosecuted for the death of a migrant in the United States.
Prosecuting migrant smugglers in Guatemala has proved incredibly complicated as migrants are almost never willing to identify or testify against their smugglers. In some cases, they hope to have some other chance of migrating to the United States with the smuggler and in others, they are afraid of smugglers or their ties to organized crime.
Alonzo, who was groggy in blue jeans and a white golf shirt, said he was an onion farmer who also sold land and cars.
Some of the detainees were flown to Guatemala City for their first appearances.
The arrests come at a time of heightened tension between Guatemalan President Alejandro Giammattei and Washington.
The Biden administration has been blunt in its denunciation of the perception of recidivism in corruption trials. The U. S. government The U. S. Attorney General sanctioned Guatemala’s Attorney General Consuelo Porras, alleging that she was an impediment to anti-corruption paintings and that she was now prosecuting judges and prosecutors who had painted in corruption cases.
It was the Attorney General’s Office, supported through the National Police, which carried out the raids in the vicinity of the northern town of Huehuetenango in the early hours of Tuesday.
“It’s a concerted organization committed to attracting migrants with the offer to send them to Mexico and then to the United States,” said Stuardo Campo, Guatemala’s migrant smuggling prosecutor.
He said the U. S. Department of Homeland Security said. supported the operation. Guatemala’s government has documented 11 operations through the smuggling network to move migrants since last October, but Campo said how many migrants were smuggled.
The other four people arrested at the request of the U. S. government are believed to have been arrested. U. S. agencies are linked to the death of Marta Raymundo Corio, who was found dead near Odessa, Texas, after being smuggled into Mexico in early 2021.
Campo said the woman died in a warehouse in Texas due to lack of food and water and that her relatives sought help from the government in the face of what happened.
When Alonzo was taken away on Tuesday, he told the government to take care of his animals. Speaking Kanjobal, an indigenous language, he said, “I would like them to eat more than I do. “
Main titles by e-mail, the mornings of the week
Receive top Union-Tribune headlines in your inbox Monday through Friday mornings, primary, local, sports, commercial, entertainment and opinion news.
You may get promotional content from the San Diego Union-Tribune.
Privacy PolicyTerms of UseSubscribe to our newsletters
To follow