Grand Jury Accuses 7 of Links to Illegal Alien Smuggling Ring

A federal grand jury Thursday indicted a Carlsbad motel operator, five Los Angeles men and a Mexican man on charges of running an alien-smuggling ring from a motel that helped whisk about 600 people per month to Santa Ana and Los Angeles.

The manager of the Travel Inn Motel, Bharat Thakkar, 28, of Carlsbad, was charged with conspiring to smuggle aliens and two counts of harboring aliens, Assistant U.S. Atty. George C. Aguilar said. Thakkar was released on $15,000 bail, Aguilar said.

The six others, all of whom are in custody, were indicted on charges that ranged from conspiracy to transporting aliens, Aguilar said.

Each count in the four-count indictment carries up to five years in prison and a maximum $250,000 fine.

Though prosecutors contend the scheme moved hundreds of people monthly, Aguilar said it was not large-scale. “It was a tedious but extensive operation” that involved “a few people in a van here, a few people in a car there,” he said.

Federal agents had been watching the motel for about four months, even raiding it once in mid-May and finding 71 illegal aliens in two motel rooms, Aguilar said. The immigrants were charged $250 to $300 to go to “drop houses” in Santa Ana and Los Angeles, he said.

According to the indictment, Thakkar agreed to rent motel rooms to Leandro Duran-Correa, 45, of Los Angeles, and Rodrigo Pineda-Solorio, 32, of Los Angeles.

Duran-Correa and two other Los Angeles men--Jose Angel Hernandez-Amaya, 35, and Brigido Rios-Castro, 31--transported illegal immigrants from the U.S.-Mexican border, the indictment charged.

Another Los Angeles man, Ricardo Rodriguez-Hernandez, Angel Tenorio-Rojas, 27, of Morelos, Mexico, were charged with taking part in the conspiracy, according to the indictment.