Express-News
Three Afghan Muslim men caught posing as Mexican nationals last month while en route to Europe were part of a human smuggling operation and carried what now are believed to be altered but genuine Mexican passports for which they paid $10,000 each, Indian investigators told the San Antonio Express-News.
An ongoing transcontinental investigation, which now involves Mexican and Indian authorities, began Feb. 11 when a suspicious airport Customs official in Kuwait noticed the three Afghans, traveling under Mexican pseudonyms, couldn't speak Spanish during a layover on their trip from New Delhi, India, to France.
The three Afghan travelers were detained and deported to India, where they remain in custody while Mexican and Indian authorities try to learn about their backgrounds, where they were going and who sold the apparently real government-issue passports. A U.S. source confirmed the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigators also are looking into the matter.
At issue to some U.S. national security experts is whether another of Mexico's foreign embassies might be implicated in selling travel documents to people from countries like Afghanistan where terror organizations are active, a circumstance that potentially could bring terrorists to American borders. It wouldn't be the first time a foreign Mexican embassy was implicated in such an affair.
Posted by tyne at March 24, 2008