Arrests for human smuggling in the Rio Grande Valley between the United States and Mexico increased by 65 percent as more people attempt to enter the US. In March 2013, US Border Patrol agents arrested 16,000 people who were attempting to enter the country.
Between October 2012 to March 2013, authorities found around 70 bodies that were buried in the valley, over twice the amount of dead bodies found in the previous time frame the year before.
In comparison to the increase of arrest at the Rio Grande Valley, arrests of migrants at the Tuscon, Arizona area decreased by 3 percent last year.
The migrants attempting to enter the United States are not simply from Mexico. Human smuggling groups are sending people originating from Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.
There were 94,532 arrests made by the US Border Patrol in 2012 of migrants who were not from Mexico. Nearly half of these non-Mexican migrants were arrested in the Rio Grande Valley.
Source: Zac Fine, “Crossing the Rio Grande… with the help of a U.S. immigration officer as force targets upsurge in Mexicans trying to get over border,” Daily Mail, May 21, 2013.
Police in the US city of Portland, Oregon stated that the sex industry in the city has become a tourist attraction. The area of Northeast 82nd Avenue is full of prostitutes with police stating that some of the prostitutes being 14 years old.
A man was arrested in a undercover sting and admitted to paying girls $130 for sexual services.
Source: Abbey Gibb, “Police: Child sex trafficking is Portland’s dirty secret,” KGW.com, May 20, 2013.
The United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested over 950 people for human trafficking crimes in 2012. The agency also rescued around 300 human trafficking victims and assisted in over 380 successful convictions of human traffickers. Back in 2010, the agency assisted in 144 human trafficking convictions.
Source: AFP, “US seeking to stamp out ‘evil’ of human trafficking,” Google News, May 17, 2013.
Police in Brazil broke up a human smuggling ring in the federal capital of Brasilia. 80 people from Bangladesh paid smugglers up to $10,000 per person to be illegally smuggled into Brazil.
Authorities in Brazil report an increase in human smuggling activities. With Brazil being South America’s largest economy, many migrants for other countries are illegally entering the country though smuggling routes through Peru and Bolivia.
(More fees charged by human smugglers here.)
Source: Shobhan Saxena, “Brazil launches biggest military operation to check drugs, human trafficking,” Times of India, May 18, 2013.
Italian mafia organization ‘Ndrangheta is believed to control up to 80 percent of Europe’s cocaine imports.
Source: Tristan Dessert, “In the footsteps of the ‘Ndrangheta, the most powerful branch of Italian mafia,” Franc 24, May17, 2013.
M67 grenades that were supplied to Central America during the cold war has ended up in the hands of Mexican drug cartels. Agents with the United States Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearm and Explosives (ATF) have traced grenades from the United States that were originally sent to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua. Between 1980 and 1993, around 260,000 M67 grenades were sent from the United States to El Salvador.
Many of these grenades are now being sold on the black market in Mexico. According to author Ioan Grillo, the grenades are being sold to the drug cartels for $100 to $500 per grenade.
Source: Ioan Grillo, El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency, Bloomsbury Press: New York, 2012, page 217.
Teenagers in the Mexican City of Ciuadad Juarez are paid about $85 (1,000 Mexican Pesos) by drug cartels to carry out assassinations and murders on their behalf.
There have also been reports of minors in Mexico being paid up to $1,000 for working two weeks for the cartels.
(See more contract killing prices.)
Source: Ioan Grillo, El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency, Bloomsbury Press: New York, 2012, page 165.
A professional hitman working in Colombia was interviewed by journalist Ioan Grillo in his book, El Narco. The contract killer said that he is paid a base salary of $600 a month by an organized crime group. When the assassin is assigned a hit, he is paid between $2,000 to $4,000 to carry out the murder.
The assassin works in a squad where one team is on a bike and another driving in a car. On the bike, there is a drive and the shooter riding behind. The target is stopped by the car braking in front of it, while the bike pulls up next to it to carry out the hit. The shooter then immediately passes the gun to the driver of the car, where it is hidden in a secret compartment.
Source: Ioan Grillo, El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency, Bloomsbury Press: New York, 2012, page 158-159.
The Labor Ministry in Brazil reported that 2,849 victims of human trafficking were rescued within the country in 2012.
The highest number of victims were rescued in the state of Para, where 563 people were rescued. 150 of those in Para were labor trafficking victims working for an iron producer.
Source: Miriam Wells, “Brazil Frees Nearly 3,000 Slaves,” Insight Crime, May 14, 2013.
According to a federal agents, a prison gang was operating a racket within the Baltimore City Detention Center in the state of Maryland. Documents filed in federal court by the FBI stated that one gram bags of marijuana were being sold in the jail for $50. Pain killers were being sold for $30 a pill to inmates.
In addition to the contraband drugs, female corrections officers were having sex with the inmates. According to the FBI, four correction officers became pregnant from one inmate.
In an article in the Washington Post, the article says that the names of 14 female guards were written on a wall and that each woman was charging $150 to have sex with an inmate.
(See additional illegal prostitution prices.)
Source: Theresa Vargas, Ann E. Marimow and Annys Shin, “Baltimore jail case depicts a corrupt culture driven by drugs, money and sex,” Washington Post, May 4, 2013.
