Woman charged with smuggling people into the U.S. from China

A Nevada woman was arrested Wednesday for her alleged role in a multi-year scheme to commit visa fraud, money laundering, and smuggling Chinese nationals into the United States.

Haiyan Liao, 43, of Las Vegas, is charged in an indictment obtained in the Eastern District of New York and unsealed Wednesday (Jan. 13) in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada. 

She is charged with conspiracy to commit visa fraud and bringing foreign nationals into the U.S. for financial gain, and money laundering conspiracy.

“The United States benefits from the rich diversity of culture and experience which results from lawful immigration into our country,” said David P. Burns, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. 

“This defendant, however, is charged with submitting false applications for visitor visas to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou and engaging in money laundering as part of a multi-year (human) smuggling business that brought Chinese nationals into the United States illegally.”

“The defendant provided fake documents and coached her accomplices regarding how to lie during visa interviews and customs checks,.” said Acting U.S. Attorney Seth D. DuCharme of the Eastern District of New York. 

According to the indictment, Liao, with others, fraudulently obtained visitor visas by submitting applications containing false statements to the U.S. Consulate in Guangzhou, China as part of a scheme to traffic people from China to the U.S. 

For the people whose  applications were approved, Liao would facilitate their travel to the U.S., including accompanying them on commercial flights to Queens and Brooklyn, New York. The aliens and their families paid thousands of dollars in exchange for the visitor visas and travel to the U.S. 

Undocumented Chinese nationals using luxury yachts to enter Florida

Luxury yachts like this 70-foot Hatteras yacht are being used for human smuggling into Florida.

Dozens of people from China were caught trying to come into the US by luxury yachts operating out of the Caribbean. Operators of the yachts were charging their clients thousands of dollars and then set them ashore in Florida. 

CBS reports that Saturday, authorities caught 12 people seen running from a small boat that came ashore Friday in Palm Beach. Of those caught and detained Friday, ICE said nine were Chinese nationals, two were Cuban and one Bahamian.

The Miami Herald last week reported on some recent instances when the Coast Guard stopped two yachts approaching the South Florida shore, leading to the arrests of three men accused of transporting a total of 26 Chinese passengers and one Bahamian, court records show. 

The human smuggling operations were not related, however.

Rocco Oppedisano, a 51-year-old Italian national, is scheduled for arraignment in Miami federal court Wednesday on charges of conspiring to transport 14 Chinese and one Bahamian taken into the United States for financial gain. The vessel he was using was a 63-foot Sunseeker yacht named INXS FINALLY.

In the other instance 14 Chinese and one Bahamian without the proper visas were found aboard  a 70-foot Hatteras yacht about 20 miles east of South Florida on July 23. In that instance the captain and crewman were arrested along with the the Chinese and Bahamian.

Authorities say that historically Haitians and Cubans made up most of those trying to illegally come ashore in South Florida, but it seems the number of Chinese arrivals is on the rise.

CBS noted that Chinese companies have dramatically increased their investment and presence in the Bahamas in recent years. That could account for at least some of the surge in Chinese nationals trying to enter the US illegally.

Brazil arrests Bangladeshi leader of human smuggling ring

An international human smuggling ring -- from Bangladesh via South America to Mexico with the United States as its end destination -- was busted with the arrest of its leader in Brazil.

Thursday (Oct. 31) extensive coordination and cooperation efforts between United States and Brazilian law enforcement authorities culminated in the Brazil Federal Police (DPF) conducting a significant enforcement operation to disrupt and dismantle a transnational alien smuggling organization, including the arrest on Brazilian charges of an alleged alien smuggler who has also been indicted in the United States.

The alien smugglers targeted in this operation are alleged to be responsible for the illicit smuggling of scores of individuals from South Asia and elsewhere, into Brazil, and ultimately to the United States.

Saifullah Al-Mamun aka Saiful Al-Mamun, 32, was arrested in Brazil. Al-Mamun is charged in a superseding indictment unsealed Thursday in the US District Court for the Southern District of Texas – Laredo Division, charging him with eight conspiracy and alien smuggling counts.

The enforcement operation included the execution of multiple search warrants and the additional arrests of seven Brazil-based human smugglers on Brazilian charges: Saifullah Al-Mamun, 32; Saiful Islam, 32; Tamoor Khalid, 31; Nazrul Islam, 41; Mohammad Ifran Chaudhary, 39; Mohammad Nizam Uddin, 28; and Md Bulbul Hossain, 36.

According to the indictment, Al-Mamun is alleged to have housed the aliens in São Paulo, Brazil and arranged for their travel through a network of smugglers operating out of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico to the United States. In return for smuggling the aliens into the US, Al-Mumun and his two co-conspirators, are alleged to have arranged to be paid in Mexico, Central America, South America, Bangladesh, and elsewhere.

“Today’s indictment shows our commitment to prosecute here in the United States those alien smugglers who put our country’s public safety at risk by attempting to thwart our system of legal immigration,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. 

Two of the co-conspirators, both of whom are Bangladeshi nationals, were arrested in August.

Milon Miah, who was living in Tapachula, Mexico, was arrested Aug. 31 on arrival at George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, to face charges in the superseding indictment for his role in the scheme to smuggle aliens into the US.

Moktar Hossain, 31, formerly residing in Monterrey, Mexico, pleaded guilty on Aug. 27 for his role in the scheme to smuggle aliens to the US for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain.

“Transnational human smuggling organizations threaten the security of the United States,” said Special Agent in Charge Scott Brown of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Phoenix.

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Bangladeshi national pleads guilty to smuggling people into US at Mexico border

A Bangladeshi national who lived in Monterrey, Mexico, pleaded guilty for his role in a scheme to smuggle people to the United States for the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain.

With the plea on Tuesday (Aug. 27), Moktar Hossain, 31, admitted that from March 2017 to August 2018, he  brought Bangladeshi nationals into the US at the Texas border in exchange for payment. 

Hossain operated out of Monterrey, Mexico, where he housed aliens before sending them on the last leg of the journey to the US. Hossain paid drivers to transport the Bangladesh natives to the  border, and gave them instructions how to cross the Rio Grande River.

“Human smuggling is a national security threat,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “Today’s plea makes clear that defendants who smuggle illegal aliens across the United States border for profit should expect to face the consequences in a United States courtroom.”

The guilty plea was accepted by U.S. District Judge Diana Saldana. Sentencing has not yet been scheduled.

Hossain's arrest spotlights the increasing number of would-be border crossers coming from other parts of the world. Gurpreet Kaur, a 7-year old girl from India died from heat exhaustion earlier this year attempting to trek through the harsh desert environment.

This case is being investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI)-Laredo, with assistance from HSI offices in Monterrey, Houston, Calexico, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Marshals Service. 

The investigation is being conducted under the Extraterritorial Criminal Travel Strike Force (ECT) program, a joint partnership between the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and HSI. The ECT program focuses on human smuggling networks that may present particular national security or public safety risks, or present grave humanitarian concerns.

This case is being prosecuted by Trial Attorneys James Hepburn and Erin Cox of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section with assistance from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.

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Man sentenced to five years for role in human smuggling operation

Photo is representational.

A man who led a complex, transnational operation smuggling hundreds of people from India into the U.S. was sentenced to five years in prison.

Yadvinder Singh Sandhu, a 62-year old Indian citizen was sentenced Tuesday (April 23) for his leadership role in the human smuggling conspiracy, which claimed at least one life and endangered many others. After serving five years in prison, he will also have three years of supervised release.

On Jan. 18, 2019, Sandhu pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and 15 counts of smuggling aliens to the United States for profit before U.S. Magistrate Judge Silvia Carreño-Coll of the District of Puerto Rico. District Judge Carmen C. Cerezo accepted the guilty plea and sentenced the defendant. 

Sandhu was charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico on March 15, 2017. Sandhu has also used the names “Yadvinder Singh Bhamba,” “Bhupinder Kumar,” “Rajinder Singh,” “Robert Howard Scott” and “Atkins Lawson Howard.”

According to Sandhu’s plea agreement, since 2013, Sandhu had led a human smuggling conspiracy operating out of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, India and elsewhere. Sandhu admitted he personally assisted around 400 aliens to unlawfully enter the United States between 2013 and 2015 as part of the conspiracy. He also oversaw and directed co-conspirators operating out of the Caribbean.

Sandhu and other members of the conspiracy made flight arrangements for undocumented immigrants to travel from India through other countries – including Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Iran, Panama, Venezuela, Belize and Haiti – to the Dominican Republic. 

The Dominican Republic was used as a staging area, where aliens were housed before being transported to the U.S. The organization brought groups of aliens from the Dominican Republic to Puerto Rico or Florida by boat. Once the clients reached Puerto Rico or Florida, they were picked up by other members of the operation and taken to stash houses until flights could be arranged to California, New York, or elsewhere in the U.S. carrying with them fake IDs.

The boat trips organized by smuggling operation to transport aliens from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. were perilous. Boat captains used old, damaged, cracked, unlicensed, overcrowded and unsafe boats to make the journey. In at least one instance, an alien died in a boat on his way to the United States, according to court documents.

At times, the smugglers would take passports from the aliens during their journeys, physically assault them and threaten their families to collect money. Aliens paid between $30,000 and $85,000 to be smuggled from India to the U.S. to cover expenses for travel, housing, basic necessities, fake documents and other services.

There were additional charges of $1,500 to $3,000 for those who landed in Haiti to go to the Dominican Republic.

Those who could not pay faced threats to themselves and their families in India, had their passports taken from them or were physically harmed.

As part of the conspiracy, Sandhu directed associates to unlawfully smuggle so-called clients to Puerto Rico. Sandhu personally met the Indian nationals in various countries along their journeys, including in Dubai, Thailand, Iran, and the Dominican Republic, and he communicated with them throughout their journeys, which began approximately in January 2016. 

In some instances, Sandhu created and provided to authorities in those countries false employment documents on behalf of the aliens to obtain foreign visas. Sandhu also instructed aliens traveling through foreign airports how to find, and in some instances, pay cash to, corrupt immigration officials, passport control officers, or airport employees in order to bypass regular immigration and passport control procedures.

The incident that tripped up the smugglers involved 15 Indian citizens who had just arrived in the Dominican Republic in July of 2016 after making the long-multi-country route.

On July 25, 2016, Sandhu alerted his underlings in Puerto Rico to be ready to receive 15 aliens. On July 27, 2016, 15 Indian nationals were transported from the DR to Puerto Rico in a 22-foot wooden vessel designed to avoid detection. Although the size of the boat should have limited the number of occupants to eight people, it carried 15 so-called clients, plus the captain and crew members who members of the conspiracy.

The human cargo was supposed to be met in Puerto Rico by another smuggler, but they were arrested instead. Interrogation of the so-called clients and crew led authorities to Sandhu, who was arrested in the Dominican Republic in August 2017, and shortly thereafter extradited to Puerto Rico. 

The investigation was conducted under the Extraterritorial Criminal Travel Strike Force (ECT) program, a joint partnership between the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Homeland Security Investigations. The ECT program focuses on human smuggling networks that may present particular national security or public safety risks, or present grave humanitarian concerns. 

Responding to a question, Nicole Navas, a DOJ spokesperson clarified that the case "involves human smuggling, not human trafficking."

Though an Indian national, Bhamba is no stranger to the US or the prison system there. He illegally entered the US when he was 20 or 21 years old, going in from Canada.

He lived in New York for 10 years, then California for another two before moving to New Jersey.

Around 1992, he began smuggling people to the US. After being caught for transporting 12 Indians to Florida state, he was convicted in 1999 and jailed for a year before being deported back to India.

In 2000, he returned to the US, calling himself Rajinder Kumar and tried to acquire a US visa. By 2013, he was back to human smuggling.