Aliens on Move Can Use Almost Any Vehicle

Many illegal aliens sneak into the United States on foot. Others come by limousine.

The U.S. Border Patrol says smuggling aliens has become a lucrative business. Entrepreneurs use sports cars and Cadillacs with secret compartments, and trucks laden with caskets.

So far this year, 1,912 vehicles used to smuggle aliens into the country have been seized in the San Diego area, compared to 1,503 confiscated in all of 1985.

“This is never going to be as profitable as narcotics, just simply due to the volume, but it’s a lot safer than narcotics,” said Brian McClatchie, a Border Patrol agent responsible for keeping track of hundreds of cases a month in which smugglers’ vehicles are seized.

A recent case involved a 1985 Lincoln stretch limousine, luxuriously transporting nine undocumented aliens.

‘Sublime’ Smuggling

“This is probably the height of sublime in smuggling,” McClatchie said. “We’ve just never seen anything like this before. They were just watching TV and enjoying themselves in the back seat drinking cold soda pops.

“The smuggler had a little more class than most, I guess you could say.”

The aliens were charged $350 to $450 each for the ride across the border, McClatchie said, adding that the limo was confiscated and converted for use by the Secret Service.

In another case, operators of a casket-manufacturing company used their truck to ferry undocumented aliens.

“They were not in the caskets. They were in between and on top of them and covered with blankets,” McClatchie said. “It was probably one of the more unusual cases we’ve encountered.”

The casket truck, which sits at the Border Patrol’s impound lot on a Navy base in this southern San Diego County city, will be destroyed unless a federal agency claims it, officials said.

Can Use Any Vehicle

Almost any vehicle can be used for smuggling. Secret compartments built into cars and trucks hold from one to a dozen people.

On a tour of the lot, McClatchie pointed out some vehicles so cleverly altered that even a trained eye would have trouble locating the compartment.

“These things we destroy or turn over to a government agency,” he said. “We would be condoning alien smuggling by turning them back to the general public.”

Twenty such vehicles have been destroyed this year, Louis Valderrama of the Border Patrol said.

The patrol decides whether it wants to keep the car or truck for agency use. On the job, McClatchie drives a 1979 Ford LTD that was used by a smuggler.

600 Seized Vehicles

About 600 seized vehicles are parked at the Abre Towing Co. in nearby Chula Vista. Among them is a 1986 Chevrolet Camaro with 500 miles on it.

Abre co-owner Rick Payne says 40% of his business comes from his Border Patrol contract. “We’ve had Lincolns, Cadillacs and a lot of 4-by-4s that are $20,000 vehicles,” he said.

Smugglers use a variety of scams--most often, some form of theft report--to get their vehicles back, authorities say. The Border Patrol is so backlogged with paper work on each case that it cannot always keep up, McClatchie said.