Smuggling of Brazilians, other migrants growing in South Florida
Posted on Monday, 10.29.12
Smuggling of Brazilians, other migrants growing in South Florida
Records show that an increasing number of Brazilians are being smuggled into South Florida through a route that first takes them through Paris, London and the Bahamas.
By Al Chardy
achardy@elnuevoherald.com
A Brazilian couple was arraigned in federal court in Miami recently, charged with attempting to smuggle undocumented immigrants aboard boats from the Bahamas.
The arraignment Oct. 15 of Fabio Rodrigues Froes and Juliana Rosa Tome Froes, before Magistrate Judge Chris McAliley, where they pleaded not guilty, came less than a month after they were arrested in South Florida in a federal case that has led to the exposure of a little-known dimension to the issue of migrant smuggling.
Court records show that federal investigators from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) believe that the couple was part of a sophisticated and vast smuggling network that brought relatively well-off undocumented Brazilians to South Florida via a convoluted underground system that included flights from Brazil to France, then England and finally the Bahamas where the migrants boarded boats for the final leg of the journey to South Florida. The smuggling trips date back to at least 2009.
While Cuban and Haitian migrant smuggling networks receive the bulk of public attention in South Florida, smugglers who bring undocumented immigrants from other countries are also active but generally keep under the public radar. Besides Cubans and Haitians, Coast Guard vessels also have interdicted immigrants of many other nationalities on boats headed for South Florida, including Chinese, Dominicans, Mexicans and Ecuadorans in recent years.
More:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/10/29/3073277/smuggling-of-brazilians-other.html#storylink=cpy
