US Breaks up International Child-smuggling Ring

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Tuesday, August 13, 2002

US Breaks up International Child-smuggling Ring

The Immigration and Naturalization Service on Monday announced it had broken up an international ring that smuggled hundreds of children from Central America into the United States.

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The Immigration and Naturalization Service on Monday announced it had broken up an international ring that smuggled hundreds of children from Central America into the United States.

Officials say the ring of smugglers had been operating for years, bringing hundreds of children from countries including Guatemala and El Salvador to the United States. The smugglers charged about $5,000 per child, mostly to be reunited with their parents.

"This joint international investigation has dismantled an organization that specialized in the smuggling of children into the United States," said Warren Lewis, director of the Washington district office of the INS.

He said the investigation included INS officers in El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Washington, Houston and Los Angeles as well as Salvadoran and Guatemalan law enforcement.

On Friday INS agents arrested three alleged members of an El Salvadoran smuggling operation in the Houston area, bringing the number of defendants in U.S. custody and indicted on charges of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling charges to five.

Accused ring leader Berta Campos was arrested in Los Angeles in July -- a month after Guillermo Antonio Paniagua was arrested in Houston. The three people arrested on Friday were identified as Ana Karina Cruz Rivas, Juan Orlando Servellon de Leon and Andrea Giron.

In April Guatemalan authorities arrested 12 smugglers after intercepting seven public transport buses that were carrying 53 children aged two to 17, the INS said. INS agents then began investigating the smuggling ring after learning that children were being transported from El Salvador to the United States.

"The smuggling of children over hundreds of miles in the hands of unscrupulous smugglers is extremely dangerous and will not be tolerated," said INS Executive Associate Commissioner for Field Operations Johnny Williams.

"Breaking up this criminal organization is a credit to the dedication of law enforcement to ending the illegal smuggling of children for profit."

The five people who were arrested in the United States were indicted by a grand jury in the U.S. District Court in Washington on charges of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling.

Source: Agencies via CD

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