tcpalm.com
FORT PIERCE, Florida -- Think of it as the Greyhound bus of the human smuggling trade.
Two people who work for a van service that transports illegal immigrants across the country were arrested early Wednesday after their vehicle was stopped on Okeechobee Road. The driver Jimmy Efrain Morales-Santos, 25, and Hermenegilda Garcia-Hernandez, 36, a woman who collected money from the immigrants on the trip, were charged in federal court with transporting aliens for private gain, according to court records released Thursday.
They are scheduled to appear for a detention hearing in federal court today.
It is a common practice of smuggling organizations to take illegal immigrants from large cities, such as Houston, to other places in the country using large transport vans, according to a complaint affidavit filed in the case.
"These vans are commonly owned and operated by the smuggling organizations," the affidavit states. "These vans are usually loaded with an unusual number of illegal aliens in order to maximize their smuggling profits."
Posted by tyne at March 7, 2008