U.S. Busts Ring Smuggling Indians Via
Moscow, Cuba
06:05 p.m Nov 20, 1998 Eastern
By Anthony Boadle
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. immigration
agents broke up a ''flesh cartel'' that smuggled more
than 12,000 illegal immigrants into the United States
from Asia through Russia, Cuba and the Bahamas,
officials announced Friday.
The immigrants, mostly from India, but also from
Pakistan, Afghanistan and Syria, were smuggled into
the country at the request of businesses seeking
cheap labor.
The employers paid $20,000 per immigrant, fees that
were later deducted from wages, officials said.
The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS)
said it had arrested 21 smugglers and was
investigating the U.S. businesses that ''placed
orders'' for the illegal immigrants.
''This is the largest alien smuggling organization ever
dismantled in U.S. history,'' Attorney General Janet
Reno said at a news conference.
INS officials said the organization, based in India,
had smuggled as many as 300 immigrants a month
into the United States by air, land and sea over the
last three years, mostly from the Indian state of
Gujarat.
The immigrants were flown to Moscow and then to
Havana and the Bahamas, from where they were
usually taken by plane or boat to Florida. The trip
could take months, because they were held until the
fees were paid by employers.
INS agents raided a safe house in the Bahamas
Saturday and detained dozens of Indian citizens who
were waiting to make the last leg of the trip to the
United States.
An INS videotape showed piles of airline tickets
used by the Indians to fly to the Caribbean via
Moscow.
From the Bahamas, smugglers flew their human
cargoes to airfields in Florida, ferried them across in
launches to coastal marinas or dropped them near
beaches to swim ashore.
Other routes took the immigrants by commercial
flights to Ecuador and from there to Miami, or to
Mexico and up to the U.S. border by land, and
across the Texas border to Dallas.
The INS Friday announced three indictments in
Dallas, which charged 31 people with smuggling and
conspiracy to smuggle.
INS agents arrested the head of the ring, Nitin
Shettie, 30, also known as Nick Diaz, Saturday in
the Bahamas.
Twenty of his associates were arrested in Florida,
Texas, California and New Jersey.
One ringleader, Navtej Pall Singh Sandu, 40, was
arrested in Puerto Rico. A third, Niranjan Maan
Singh, 58, is being sought in India, the INS said.
INS agents used wiretapping powers authorized by a
tough immigration law passed in 1996 for the first
time in busting the smuggling ring.
INS Commissioner Doris Meissner said authorities in
India, the Bahamas, Ecuador, Canada and the
Dominican Republic helped dismantle the criminal
organization.
Meissner said the Russian government was not
involved in the investigation. She said she did not
know whether the Cuban authorities knew about the
smuggling route through Cuba.
The INS chief said her agents will seek out
''unscrupulous employers'' who used smuggled labor
to ''put them of business.''
INS agents visited 26 workplaces in the Eastern
United States Friday seeking employers who
benefited from the smuggling.
''These smugglings were ordered by unscrupulous
businesses that wanted cheap labor,'' said U.S.
Attorney Paul Coggins from Dallas. ''It is time for
those who traffic in flesh to pay their pound of flesh.''
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. |
