Cuban woman gets nearly 8 years in prison for human smuggling conspiracy that led to 16 deaths<\/a><\/p>\nAccording to trial evidence, Cabrera-Rodriguez and his co-conspirators ran an alien smuggling organization that charged migrants between $1,500 and $40,000 for transport, occasionally chartering private planes. The group used social media to solicit clients and submitted over 600 fraudulent Electronic System for Travel Authorization visa waiver applications to U.S. Customs and Border Protection using fake addresses and false citizenship claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cLazaro Alain Cabrera-Rodriguez used his travel agency as a front to illegally smuggle Cuban aliens into the United States,\u201d said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department\u2019s Criminal Division. \u201cHis travel agency provided a veneer of legitimacy to evade detection when the defendant falsely completed and filed at least 600 applications for visa waivers… and laundered over $20 million through 57 bank accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Investigators found that between 2021 and 2024, the enterprise moved millions through controlled bank accounts, including over $600,000 sent abroad to purchase flights for illegal entry.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis was not help, and it was not humanitarian; It was a criminal enterprise built on treating people like cargo and using their desperation for financial gain,\u201d said Acting Special Agent in Charge Nicholas Ingegno of Homeland Security Investigations Tampa, in a statement.<\/p>\n
The case, prosecuted under Joint Task Force Alpha as part of Operation Take Back America, resulted in charges against 12 individuals. <\/p>\n
Eight co-defendants have already pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing:
\u2014 Liannys Yaiselys Vega-Perez, 31.
\u2014 Miguel Alejandro Martinez Vasconcelos, 31.
\u2014 Layra Libertad Treto Santos, 30.
\u2014 Emanuel Martinez Gonzalez, 29.
\u2014 Walbis Pozo-Dutel, 31.
\u2014 Luis Emmanuel Escalona-Marrero, 32.
\u2014 Gisleivy Peralta Consuegra, 41.<\/p>\n
Erik Ventura-Castro, 24, pleaded guilty on May 7 and was later sentenced<\/a> to 30 months in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A federal jury in Florida has convicted a Cuban national from Hialeah for his role in a massive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411310,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[225,227,226],"class_list":["post-411309","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-hialeah","tag-hialeah","tag-hialeah-headlines","tag-hialeah-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411309","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=411309"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411309\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411309"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411309"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411309"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}