11 Charged as Immigrant-Smugglers
Mexican prosecutors brought immigrant-smuggling charges Monday against 11 people who allegedly worked for a ring that left 14 Mexican men to die in the Arizona desert last year.
The arrest of the alleged smugglers over the weekend, together with U.S. convictions against three other smugglers, has reportedly dealt a severe blow to the ring.
However, Mexico’s Justice Department said in a statement that the suspected top leaders of the ring had fled a raid in the Mexican border city of Nogales. The fugitives apparently include Ebodio Manilla Cabrera, a Mexican who has been indicted in the case in the United States.
Organized crime and human-trafficking charges were brought against four women and seven men, described by prosecutors as principal members of the ring. The raid also netted a number of Central American migrants.
Smugglers abandoned 25 Mexican migrants in late May 2001 in the Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge near Yuma, Ariz. The bleak terrain where they were left is known as the Devil’s Path.
Fourteen died and 11 others survived in one of the deadliest such attempts in Arizona history.
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