Human trafficking's profits spur horrors 

Vicious organizations move thousands of immigrants through Valley every day 

Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Jul. 23, 2006 12:00 AM 

In the world of human smuggling, metro Phoenix has emerged as an enormous
staging area where illegal immigrants are held hostage in apartments, motel
rooms or rental homes until relatives pay their fees.

State investigators say it is a $2 billion-a-year, black-market business
that drives illegal immigration, spreading corruption and violence through
the Valley. 

On any given day in the Valley, agents say, thousands of undocumented
immigrants are stuffed into drophouses as "coyotes" collect the cash,
arrange for transportation and fend off other smugglers who would steal
migrant clients for ransom. 

There are so many coyotes, estimated at more than 1,000, so many immigrants
secreted in drop- houses, that money-transfer stores handle hundreds of
millions of dollars a year in smuggling transactions. Friends or family
already established in other states wire the payments to Phoenix. 

During a federal court hearing last year, Special Agent Angel Rascon-Rubio
of the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement described metro Phoenix
as "the hub" of immigrant smuggling. "I would say that 90 percent of the
transactions dealing with the sale of human cargo, those smuggled across the
(Arizona) border, occur right here." 

The city is ideal for drop- houses because it's close to the Mexican line
yet far enough so there is virtually no Border Patrol enforcement. Valley
freeways provide nationwide access. And large Hispanic neighborhoods offer
cover for immigrants and smugglers.

"We are supporting an army of coyotes - an army of greedy, amoral, young,
Mexican males," said Cameron "Kip" Holmes, chief counsel with the Arizona
Attorney General's Financial Remedies Section. "They've become a subculture
unto themselves: extremely violent, extremely dangerous, all manner of bad
behavior."

Even immigrant rights advocates despise coyotes as pariahs who victimize
countrymen and infect Latino neighborhoods with violence and graft.

"They are the most vicious criminal element; corruption at its lowest
level," said Eliaz Bermudez, chief executive with Inmigrantes Sin Fronteras
(Immigrants without Borders). "We in the Hispanic communities suffer the
brunt of all these activities."

The border is so dangerous and heavily patrolled that using smugglers seems
like a necessary evil for those trying to bring loved ones into the United
States, Bermudez said. But "paying the coyotes is like paying a drug dealer
for your kids."


The Arizona funnel 


Until the past decade, crossing the border was so easy that smugglers were
hardly necessary. Fellow immigrants helped one another through the gauntlet
for, at most, a few hundred bucks.

Then federal authorities began cracking down: first in California and Texas,
funneling illegal migration to Arizona. In the late 1990s, enforcement
shifted here.

Hard-core criminals entered the business as prices climbed and smuggling
became more lucrative. Smuggling rings started using sophisticated
surveillance and communications. A Library of Congress report on Criminal
and Terrorist Activity in Mexico says smugglers carry on "a technological
arms race" with the Border Patrol and ICE. As a result, fees have doubled in
just a few years. 

The typical pollo, or chicken, as the immigrants are called, now pays $1,200
to $2,500 to be guided across the border, driven to Phoenix and shipped to a
destination in the United States. 

Mom-and-pop operations were scared off or eliminated.

"They've been killed," Holmes said. "That's largely what's been found (as
corpses) in the desert: old-style coyotes. ... This industry is still
relatively new and in the formative stages. That's why we see more violence,
and the more ruthless ones come to the top."

Immigrants often are quoted one price by smuggling recruiters at the border,
only to have the amount doubled by the time they reach Phoenix, said
Rascon-Rubio, the ICE agent. Their only option is to pay, he added: "They
owe a bill. That's what this machine ... is all about, achieving payday."

The multimillion-dollar industry supports an array of small-time smuggling
rings and sophisticated organizations with scores of members.

Tim Mason, an Arizona Department of Public Safety detective who has worked
more than 200 coyote investigations, estimates that 1,000-plus coyotes work
in Phoenix today, supported by untold legions of shady business associates.
Virtually all of the smugglers are Mexican nationals without legal
residency, rather than U.S. citizens or immigrants with visas. 

Each ring member takes on specific duties. There are recruiters, guides,
drivers, drophouse managers, cooks, guards, document specialists and money
collectors. The coyotes typically operate in family networks, directed by a
boss south of the border, which is where most of the money goes.

In short, Mason says, they are organized-crime syndicates: "It's an illegal
enterprise, a scheme. ... It's not your poor immigrant being smuggled by
another poor immigrant. It's an organization with significant structure and
assets."

Many smugglers treat their clients decently to encourage referrals, but
there is no pity for those who can't come up with fee money.

"They are beaten," Rascon-Rubio said. "The women are assaulted. Children are
separated from their parents. And, at times, the ultimate price is paid."

Even the gentler smugglers are routinely armed with assault rifles, shotguns
or pistols. Firepower serves to intimidate clients who might try to escape.
It also defends against so-called bajadores, bandits who kidnap immigrants
to collect the ransom for themselves. Kidnap 20 pollos, collect a $1,600
smuggling fee for each one, and you get $32,000. 


Money trail 


Last year, ICE estimated that 1 million illegal immigrants came through
Arizona, with most of them stopping off at Valley stash houses. State
prosecutors put the number at 3,000 to 4,000 daily, with nearly all relying
on coyotes.

The entire operation hinges on a payment system, a way to get smuggling fees
to the coyotes from pollos' relatives or friends.

Since early 2001, Western Union and MoneyGram stores have been required to
provide the state Attorney General's Office with transaction data on money
senders and receivers. Investigators were stunned to discover Arizona had
become a magnet for cash wired from popular destinations for illegal
immigrants.

In 2005, for example, customers in Delaware sent 60 times as much money to
Arizona than vice versa. South Carolina wired 38 times as much cash this
way. New Jersey clients sent 31 times as much as they received.

In January of this year, wire transfers to Arizona from a dozen key states
totaled $50.2 million, compared with $1.5 million sent from Arizona to those
states. Holmes said the lion's share of that money is for smuggling fees.

Agents use data analysis to identify smuggling organizations and block
suspicious fund transfers. During a one-year period ending in March, they
froze 12,417 transactions, seizing $23 million. The Attorney General's
Office also seized a dozen wire-transfer businesses for criminal complicity.

Western Union alone has 1,230 outlets in Arizona. The company has rigid
standards and a team of specialists in Arizona who do nothing but train,
monitor and review compliance by agents, said Sherry Johnson, media
relations manager.

"Western Union has made it very clear that it will not tolerate illicit use
of our services," she said.

Nevertheless, the Attorney General's Office says 95 percent of coyote
business is done in wire-transfer stores. A DPS audit last year of the
busiest Western Unions showed more than half of the cash recipients in
personal transactions used fraudulent Social Security cards as IDs.

Mason refers to the money-sending aspect of smuggling as "the head of the
monster." 

"If nobody gets paid," he asks, "is anybody going to smuggle a UDA
(undocumented alien)?" 


Ripple effect 


The new big business of human smuggling, with millions of dollars at stake
and law enforcement circling, sets up more corruption.

Landlords charge double or triple the normal rent to human smugglers,
accepting false IDs and keeping records off the books.

Department of Motor Vehicle workers supply fraudulent IDs.

Businesses launder cash.

Auto dealers and travel agents help with transportation.

Border inspectors are paid to look away.

Money-transfer clerks are supposed to verify IDs and follow financial
disclosure laws. But under-the-table payoffs are commonplace. During one
investigation, investigators set up a phony wire-transfer shop and had
coyotes streaming in to collect their illicit fees. In another probe,
undercover operatives acting as smugglers paid clerks to violate financial
reporting laws.

"When we were doing Western Union stings, we never had a bribe turned down,"
Holmes said. "The employees told us, 'We pay our rent and car loans out of
bribes. The wages are spending money.' So, in effect, they're working for
coyotes."

Bribery, known in Mexico as la mordida (the bite), is decaying business and
government ethics, Holmes said.

"Arizona is on the brink," he said. "We are in a very perilous situation
because of the importation of bribery tolerance from everywhere south of our
line. ... Bribery is rampant. It's a cultural thing."

In one probe, travel agents were taking extra cash to supply airline tickets
for pollos flying out of McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, where
the Border Patrol has had no presence. 

But most immigrants are hauled to Phoenix and across the country in cars,
trucks and vans. The "load vehicles" represent another side industry. Holmes
said monthly sales for a single auto dealership jumped almost $450,000 soon
after the owner began selling vans to smugglers.

"It's unbelievable the amount of money you can make if you get popular with
coyotes," he said.


The Collazzo gang 


Consider the Collazzo Alien Smuggling Organization, about 70 members strong.

Authorities say the ring took in more than $18 million in smuggling fees
during a six-month wiretap investigation that also uncovered drug
trafficking, counterfeiting and fraudulent schemes.

Investigators learned about the gang from an informer who discovered a
profitable scam involving used-car dealers along Van Buren Street in
Phoenix.

Investigators began buying vehicles as part of a sting, posing as smugglers.
Dealerships would charge premium prices, collecting full cash payment, and
not declare the income. They filed fraudulent titles indicating that
purchases were made on credit, with the dealer holding liens. If Border
Patrol agents intercepted a van full of pollos, the dealer could claim
ownership to prevent a government seizure. The van would be retrieved and
returned to the smugglers.

Sellers also built secret compartments into vehicles for transporting cash
or drugs, and they allowed coyotes to store the vans on their sales lots.

In the Collazo case of 2004, authorities seized 11 used-car lots and 359
vehicles. Gang members raked in such huge profits that they wanted to set up
phony businesses to launder cash.

According to court records, Ruben Garcia-Boldo, a loan officer, helped
undercover operatives obtain false driver's licenses, immigration cards,
Social Security numbers and student IDs so they could establish bank
accounts, create businesses and buy homes.

Garcia-Boldo, 45, also developed plans for a company known as ABC Towing
Masters, which would launder $80,000 per month. He proposed to get a 20
percent share. He even offered to set up a marriage to a legal resident for
the informer, who pretended to be undocumented. 

Garcia-Boldo, of Mexico City, admitted his role in the operation and pleaded
guilty to a money-laundering conspiracy.


Shootouts 


Along with corruption, the coyotes specialize in violence.

A few years ago, Valley detectives began noticing corpses of smugglers
dumped along roads and in the desert.

Phoenix police blamed a 45 percent rise in homicides during 2003, as well as
a 41 percent increase in home invasions, on coyotes and bajadores. 

Criminal gangs got into a public shootout on Interstate 10 in 2003, leaving
four dead and five wounded. Another bloodletting occurred in the rural
community of Red Rock, north of Tucson. According to an ICE intelligence
report, smugglers and their pollos were ambushed by bajadores and held
hostage at a nearby livestock pond. The coyotes retaliated with bullets,
killing two men.

In response, federal authorities launched Operation ICE Storm in October
2003, doubling the number of Valley agents and teaming them with local
police. In 18 months, task force members made 374 arrests, captured 8,200
immigrants and confiscated hundreds of guns and vehicles along with $7.4
million in cash.

The campaign was touted nationally. Phoenix police said murders declined 30
percent during the operation, which resulted in 162 indictments.


'Policia!' 


But the smuggling remains so prolific that law enforcement isn't able to
keep up. On any given day, Mason says, coyotes can be spotted entering
money-transfer shops all over the Valley. 

On June 16 at 11 a.m., the DPS detective proves the point. 

After parking outside a Food City store and MoneyGram outlet at Broadway
Road and Country Club Drive in Mesa, Mason does a radio check to make sure
the stakeout team is in place, then waits for smugglers to buy supplies from
the market, or to collect smuggling fees at the wire-transfer shop. 

Within minutes, two young Hispanic men enter Food City and load up on
groceries. Mason says the tortillas, eggs and sodas are likely supplies for
a house full of pollos.

The van heads down Broadway and pulls into the backyard at a tract-style
home near Stapley Drive. Windows are covered; garbage cans overflow. More
telltale signs. Mason sings a chorus line from the Cops reality show on TV:
"Bad boys, bad boys. Whatcha gonna do?" 

Two agents knock on the door, calling out policia, while others cover front
and back. Blinds rustle. Eyes appear at windows. Suddenly, doors fly open
and people tear out, jumping fences, cutting in front of cars.

All but five or six are captured. They sit in the front yard in scruffy
clothes and plastic handcuffs, eyes down. A woman cries, clinging to her
friend. Detectives frisk migrants and interview suspected coyotes.

In the house, there is no furniture. More than 20 bags of garbage are
stacked in the pantry, oozing stench. Candles form a shrine on the kitchen
counter beside hand-scrawled lists of names and misspelled destinations:
"Marilu - New Yerse (Jersey)." "Humberto - Milguoquy (Milwaukee)." 

As pollos are loaded aboard ICE vans, a call comes in: Detectives at the
MoneyGram followed another target to an apartment just off Main Street. Four
suspected smugglers surrendered quietly. Five immigrants locked themselves
in a bathroom and had to be coaxed out. They sit on the floor while agents
search the place, finding guns and cocaine.

In just a few hours, two drop- houses have been busted.

Mason drives off, mentioning that a Western Union in the next block is
particularly popular with smugglers. As he slows in front of the business, a
well-groomed Hispanic man leads several haggard immigrants into the store,
fumbling with their paperwork.

"Would you look at that," Mason says, shaking his head.



Reach the reporter at dennis.wagner@arizonarepublic.com

or (602) 444-8874.