Indictments Rock Niche Bus Industry

Smuggling charges against a Los Angeles bus company this week cast a spotlight on the growing industry of carriers that legally ferry thousands of riders from the Mexican border to immigrant enclaves around the West.

Many of these regional operations, whose buses have become familiar sights on local freeways, sprang from humble, mom-and-pop origins. They tailor their services to immigrants, with discount fares, Spanish-speaking drivers and ticket agents, Mexican movies and the music of crooner Vicente Fernandez.

Dozens of such firms have established a niche among the roughly 4,000 inter-city bus companies nationwide that carry an estimated 774 million passengers a year. An official of Greyhound Lines Inc. said the cross-border bus market is growing by about 20% a year, more than twice the pace of that company’s overall market.

It is a fiercely competitive arena, especially on the U.S. side of the border in San Ysidro, where half a dozen bus companies elbow each other--and smaller van operations--for passengers headed north. Round-trip prices between the border and Los Angeles hover at a little more than $20.

Alleged complicity between smugglers and employees of Golden State Transportation Co. in Los Angeles gave rise to the indictments of 32 people this week in what federal authorities described as the largest immigrant-smuggling case against a transportation firm.

According to the 39-count indictment, the company transported tens of thousands of illegal immigrants who had been smuggled across the border in Arizona and hidden in safe houses until they could be put on buses. The smugglers bought large blocks of bus tickets, while the drivers chose routes around Border Patrol checkpoints and often traveled after midnight to evade detection, according to the indictment.

Though criminal charges involving bus firms are an anomaly, the border focus and a heavily immigrant clientele have long drawn wary looks from authorities and appealed to smugglers looking to sneak people into the country.

A manager of an El Paso-based bus company with operations in Southern California, including San Ysidro, said that a few months ago he refused a flurry of requests from suspected smugglers in Phoenix and Las Vegas to buy blocks of tickets anonymously. In one case, a caller asked to have one of the firm’s buses pick up a group of 35 people on a street corner in Tucson.

“We have been approached by these people many, many, many times in our terminals in Phoenix and in Las Vegas,” said Ricardo Cepeda, a Los Angeles-based regional manager for the company, El Paso-Los Angeles Limousine Express Inc. “We told them we don’t work like that.”

Cepeda said his company does not sell tickets without getting names or assigning seats and does not pick up passengers on street corners. “When they saw we weren’t playing the game, they stopped coming,” he said.

No Other Bus Firms Are Targeted

The Immigration and Naturalization Service characterized this week’s indictments, which included charges against Golden State Transportation founder and Vice President Francisco Gonzalez, as the first step in an investigation. But INS officials said they are not targeting any other bus companies. The firm remained open for business Tuesday as the criminal inquiry continued and the government sought to seize its assets.

Operations in San Ysidro were not part of the criminal charges.

Through its lawyer, Golden State denied the allegations, saying it does not knowingly transport illegal immigrants.

Federal authorities have previously brought smuggling cases against immigrant transport firms--their buses are widely known as camionetas--but the Golden State case is by far the largest.

Such cases are especially hard to prove because of the “common carrier” defense: Accused transport executives routinely say they were just selling tickets and didn’t know the passengers were in the country illegally.

This case is unique in the way officials targeted a management structure that they allege colluded with smugglers.

Golden State, perhaps the largest and most established of the Latino-oriented bus companies, has expanded since the early 1970s from an operation with a single Chevrolet Suburban into a multimillion-dollar enterprise, with offices throughout the West.

Gonzalez came to the United States just as masses of his compatriots were settling in California. He noticed the number of Mexicans who traveled to visit relatives in Mexico and seized on the growing need for cheap, immigrant-friendly transportation between the border and Los Angeles.

“There was a tremendous market,” said Miles L. Kavaller, an Encino lawyer who represents the family. Kavaller, who also represents the Tres Estrellas de Oro bus company and is an expert on the industry, said, “This is a service for people used to traveling by bus.”

The success of Golden State spawned imitators and caught the eye of big companies--specifically, Greyhound, which, like firms in other industries, was seeking a piece of the burgeoning Latino market. Eventually, a deal was worked out in which a Greyhound subsidiary purchased a majority share in Golden State.

Today, Kavaller says, the firm has 50 buses valued at $250,000 each. Sales easily top seven figures, the lawyer said, but he declined to be more specific.

They Offer the Right Destinations

Interviews with Golden State’s passengers this week offered a glimpse into how the firms have built a growing ridership over the years.

“They get to where we need to go a lot faster than Greyhound,” said Cristobal Hernandez, a 28-year-old forklift operator who was among those waiting Tuesday afternoon at Golden State’s East Los Angeles terminal. “I always use this line.”

Hernandez crossed the border earlier in the day from Mexicali and hopped a bus in Calexico. He was waiting to transfer to another bus bound for Oxnard, where he lives. Other companies would have required more stops, he said.

A look around the terminal, the firm’s main hub in the Los Angeles area, suggests another attraction: Riders feel comfortable. Signs are in Spanish, a Mexican restaurant serves authentic food, ranchero music blares from the speakers. A Spanish-language travel service is among the amenities. The place is clean and organized.

“Whenever I go to Mexico, I use this company,” said Refugio Murillo, who was headed home for the holidays with her husband and grown daughter. She was catching a bus to Tijuana and from there to central Mexico. “The price is good, and there’s no problems. They treat us well.”

The buses present a special challenge for the U.S. Border Patrol. Agents stop and inspect them at checkpoints near the San Diego County line on Interstate 5 and Interstate 15, but the checkpoints aren’t always open and not all the buses get searched.

“It’s discretionary,” said Ben Bauman, a Border Patrol spokesman in San Diego. “The majority of the times the agents do stop, board, search and question the occupants as to their immigration status.”

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Times staff writer Stuart Silverstein contributed to this report.