Prosecutors target smuggling rings
Authorities are intensifying efforts to shut down criminal rings that
for years have smuggled Cubans and others across the Florida Straits.
Posted on Sun, Apr. 13, 2008
BY JAY WEAVER AND ANDRES VIGLUCCI
jweaver@MiamiHerald.com
Opening a window on a shadowy cottage industry that has been tolerated,
however hesitantly, by local immigrant communities, federal prosecutors
have begun cracking down on big-dollar smuggling operations that for
years have hauled Cubans, Haitians and others into South Florida by boat.
Federal authorities, alarmed by a series of migrant deaths at sea and
signs of increasing smuggling operations from Cuba in the past three
years, have begun cultivating informants to penetrate and shut down
loosely organized rings that operate between South Florida and the
Caribbean. They are also taking more suspects before grand juries and
seeking tougher penalties.
The new emphasis by the U.S. attorney's office in Miami, with backing
from agencies such as U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Immigration
and Customs Enforcement and the Coast Guard, comes after years in which
immigrant smuggling across the Florida Straits received at best sporadic
attention, and then typically only in cases involving deaths.
By contrast, a 1-year-old federal task force has tackled a series of
smuggling operations -- including eight cases announced this month --
that involved no calamities. Those recent indictments accuse 18 Cuban
Americans of plotting to sneak more than 200 Cubans into South Florida
by boat in separate operations since 2005.
Prosecutors say they are also on the verge of taking down a major
Miami-based smuggling operation.
U.S. Attorney R. Alexander Acosta said his office sharpened its focus in
fall 2005, after the deaths at sea of a young Cuban boy, two Cuban
grandmothers, two Haitian women and a Jamaican woman were blamed on
smuggling operations gone awry.
''The death of the Cuban boy was the starting point,'' Acosta said.
``You see a 6-year-old boy drown and you look and see what you can do to
change your policies to prevent that from happening again.''
Smuggling is hugely lucrative and relatively sophisticated, agents say.
Each boat trip to Cuba, the most common smuggling operation, involves as
many as 20 ring members, including recruiters who fan out from Hialeah
to Havana in search of customers. The smugglers are equipped with GPS
devices and satellite phones, and support vessels for refueling at sea.
Often, guides in Cuba take passengers to meet the smuggler's incoming
boats on remote barrier islands.
The proliferation of such ventures, investigators and critics say, has
been encouraged in part by the U.S. wet-foot/dry-foot policy. Under the
policy, Cubans intercepted at sea are usually turned back, while those
who reach U.S. land are typically allowed to stay and establish legal
U.S. residency under the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act.
The policy, started after the 1994 rafter crisis, has raised the premium
in ensuring that Cuban migrants -- who previously were brought to the
United States when picked up at sea -- touch American ground.
Cuban smugglers' fees of $7,000 to $10,000 a head are usually payable
only upon successful delivery of a passenger in South Florida, agents
say. Some would-be Cuban immigrants have been intercepted at sea by the
Coast Guard two or three times as smugglers attempt repeatedly to make
good on the guarantee of delivery. Typically, fees are covered by South
Florida family members.
The federal crackdown, which encompasses intensified patrols and
surveillance of the Florida Straits by the Coast Guard and other
agencies, also responds to post-9/11 concerns over uncontrolled, illegal
immigration.
Those concerns have been heightened by uncertainty over Cuba's stability
since an ailing Fidel Castro turned over power to his brother Raúl in
2006 and, more recently, by food riots in Haiti last week. Previous
economic and political troubles in both countries have presaged an exodus.
Authorities have already seen a sharp increase in the number of Cubans
intercepted at sea. It's unclear whether that represents an actual rise
in crossing attempts or more effective interdiction, but Coast Guard
officials consider it a clear sign of more smuggling.
Coast Guard interdictions in the Straits totaled 3,197 last year -- the
highest since the 1994 rafter crisis. This year, the Coast Guard has
intercepted 685 Cubans and 490 Haitians.
The increase has been accompanied by a high number of deaths. In
November, 40 Cubans were reported lost in the Florida Straits after a
smuggler's 32-foot vessel apparently capsized. Officials suspect a
smuggling operation, but the desperate families waiting in South Florida
deny this.
More than 220 Cubans -- including the 40 from November -- are believed
to have been lost or died at sea since January 2001, according to the
Coast Guard.
The safety risks are usually great: Smugglers' vessels are jammed to
maximize profit. They use speedboats -- sometimes stolen from local
marinas -- ranging from 25 to 40 feet that are designed for eight
passengers, but usually carry far more.
Coast Guard Cpt. Scott Buschman, commander of the Key West sector, cited
an intercepted 37-foot boat last year that was carrying 59 Cubans and
two smugglers. ``They operate recklessly at high speeds, with little
regard for the people they're carrying and little regard for law
enforcement safety.''
Acosta's task force of federal, state and local law enforcement agencies
has roughly doubled the pace of smuggling prosecutions -- from 35 cases
with 61 defendants in 2006 to 60 cases with 113 defendants in 2007. This
year, prosecutors have made 16 migrant smuggling cases involving 30
defendants.
The smuggling trips, agents say, are organized by multiple cells in
Miami, Hialeah and Tampa run usually by younger Cubans, many who arrived
since the 1990s.
Often, smugglers and their customers know one another through ties
locally or in Cuba. This, coupled by the reluctance of many in the Cuban
exile community to openly oppose efforts by desperate countrymen to
leave their oppressive homeland, has historically made it hard for
investigators to pursue cases. In particular, family members of those
brought illegally are usually unwilling to talk to investigators or testify.
But agents have started flipping suspects and cultivating informants to
gather inside information.
''There is a loyalty'' in the Cuban community, said Anthony Mangione,
special agent in charge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in
Miami. ``From an investigative standpoint, it's much more difficult to
make a case against a Cuban smuggler who is smuggling Cubans than it is
against someone in the Bahamas who is smuggling Chinese.''
Some Cuban exile leaders say whatever tolerance may have existed has
been eroded by the growing number of deaths. ''We have had too many
horrible stories, too many people who have died, because of the
irresponsibility of these traffickers,'' said activist and radio
talk-show host Ninoska Perez Castellon. ``It's a racket.''
Still, some Cuba experts warn that so long as Cuba's government
maintains its repressive posture and the island's economy is in ruins,
Cuban citizens will continue to take to the seas.
''It's a matter of supply and demand: there is a demand and a supply of
people willing to do it,'' said Damián Fernández, vice provost at
Florida International University and director of its Cuban Research
Institute.
``There is also the politics of love involved here. People want to be
close to their loved ones. It is illegal, and I don't think anyone
really wants it, but this is a way of family reunification.''
Miami Herald staff writer Alfonso Chardy contributed to this report.
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/americas/cuba/story/494030.html
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