Mexican police arrested a coyote known as Tamarindo that served as a link to a network of human trafficking, kidnapping and fuel theft, which operates in the Mexican states of Chiapas, Veracruz, Puebla and Nuevo León.
“They intended to transfer 386 migrants, including eight Cubans, to the state of Nuevo León, in the box of a trailer,” he told 14ymedio an agent of the Special Prosecutor for Organized Crime, identified by the pseudonym Falcón. “The undocumented immigrants were taken to a warehouse with the façade of a mechanical workshop and they were kept there until they informed Tamarindo that there was ‘free passage’ through the highway checkpoints.”
Before leaving, the smuggler He ordered his accomplices to take a motorcycle tour of the area. Trucks with migrants were escorted by vans or cars. “If there was any arrest, they immediately notified Tamarindo to remove the migrants that they had in the warehouse or some other place in the state of Puebla,” Falcón details.
Among the 386 people with an irregular stay in Mexico, in addition to Cubans, there are people from El Salvador, Venezuela, Uzbekistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Guatemala, India, Honduras, Ecuador, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Bangladesh. If an illegal does not cover the payment to reach the border with the United States, reveals the agent, “they take him out of the group and put him in rooms where they don’t even give them water. They keep them there until their family sends the money.”
“If there was any arrest, they immediately notified Tamarindo to remove the migrants that they had in the warehouse or some other place in the state of Puebla,” Falcón details.
Research on this network coyotes They date from June 2021, when the kidnapping of three Salvadorans was reported for which they demanded 5,000 dollars. An operation by the Federal Ministerial Police allowed his release on the 27th of that month in Monterrey, Nuevo León. Those rescued provided data on six other detained migrants, including four minors, who were found in a house located in a central neighborhood of the same state.
Three days before the capture of Tamarindo, Migration registered the interception of a caravan of 11 vans on the highway that connects the state of Puebla with the city of Orizaba, in the state of Veracruz. In the vans, 330 migrants were transported, of which 108 were Cubans, which the Government of Mexico described as “ the most accurate blow to migrant smuggling in the current year.”
one of the 19 smugglers detainees “provided evidence for the location of Tamaro, as known by the huachicoleros -people dedicated to fuel theft- to Tamarindo in the town of San Antonio Tlacamilco, in the municipality of Acajete”, reveals Falcón. With these data, orders were requested from a judge to allow entry to two homes to arrest a trafficker of migrants.
The Mexican authorities reported as part of a police deployment in Acajete the capture of “migrant traffickers”: Juan “M”, José “M”, Andrés “R” and Raúl “C” in a warehouse and in a second operation they stopped Yanett “H” and Karely “R”. In addition, “two vehicles, two handguns, a shotgun, documents, cash, 10 telephones, two laptops, five tablets, and various USB sticks” were confiscated.
The authorities are investigating whether there is a relationship between this network and the 33 Cubans arrested early Wednesday morning on a tourist bus in the town of Tecamachalco, 37 kilometers from where Tamarindo and the group of migrants were detained. “These undocumented immigrants were traveling together with 32 Guatemalans and 22 Hondurans.”
The exodus of Cubans continues and, for some, this situation generates concern. The director of Customs and Border Control of the Cayman Islands, Charles Clifford, expressed concern about the arrival of 41 rafters this month.
“A meeting of various agencies was called to discuss recent migrations and strategies to manage the situation effectively and mitigate the associated risks,” he told Efe. The possibility of speeding up, either the processing of asylum applications, which are permitted by international law, or the repatriation process of rejected applicants, which includes an agreement signed with the Cuban government, is being studied.
The Cayman Islands are a British Overseas Territory, located between Cuba and the coast of Honduras, with a population of just over 55,000. According to official data, more than 850,000 dollars have already been spent on managing the reception and care of migrants.
Meanwhile, in Honduras this Wednesday the authorities detained 10 Cubans and a coyote that it intended to pass the migrants to Guatemala, so that they could continue on their way to the United States.
The natives of the Island were handed over to the Honduran National Migration Institute, where they must pay a fine equivalent to 220 dollars to expedite their legal departure from the country.
In recent decades, Honduras has become a transit point for migrants, especially Cubans, who enter the country irregularly through “blind spots” through human traffickers, who do not always take them to the border with Guatemala.
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