A 41-year-old Colombian man pleaded guilty in El Paso federal court Monday to a charge that alleged he smuggled hundreds of people who wanted to come to the United States, including 40 who vanished on what was supposed to be a 118-mile boat journey to Nicaragua.
Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, also known as “El Calvo” or “The Bald Man,” said little beyond responding “yes” or “no” to questions from U.S. Magistrate Judge Miguel Torres. He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to encourage and induce an alien to come to, enter, and reside in the United States, placing lives in jeopardy. Linero Pinto faces a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced at a future date by U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Darya Andryushchenko of the U.S. Justice Department’s Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section read a document known as the factual basis for the guilty plea, outlining a smuggling operation based in the tourist island of San Andrés in the Caribbean Sea that ran between August 2022 and November 2023.
Linero Pinto and a co-defendant, Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera Orjuela, bribed “corrupt Colombian navy and immigration officials” so they could evade patrols to take people from San Andres to Nicaragua, then onward through Central America and Mexico to the United States, Andryushchenko said. The route was billed as a safer alternative for migrants to the dangerous jungle crossing of the Darien Gap between Colombia and Panama.
On Oct. 21, 2023, 40 migrants from Venezuela, Colombia and China were placed aboard a boat with a capacity of 25, Andryushchenko said.
“The boat was never seen or heard from again,” the prosecutor said. The weather was rainy and windy when the boat left San Andrés. Personal effects of some of those aboard were later found off the coast of Costa Rica, Andryushchenko said.
She said the Colombian navy infiltrated the smuggling organization and shared intelligence with U.S. investigators. This included WhatsApp messages and recordings of conversations.
On Aug. 24, 2023, three days after the board left San Andrés for Nicaragua, Linero Pinto was recorded talking with a man who said, “Didn’t you see the news?” Andryushchenko said.
Among those Linero Pinto was responsible for placing aboard were a 32-year-old woman, her 13-year-old son and a 3-month-old infant, she said.
“That’s what I have stuck in my head,” Linero Pinto said on a recording.
The defendant – heavyset and balding, with a light beard – stood impassively next to his attorney, Felix Valenzuela, as Andryushchenko read through the factual basis statement.
Linero Pinto and Rivera Orjuela – both Colombian nationals – were indicted in October 2024 by an El Paso grand jury on a single count of conspiracy to encourage and induce an alien to come to, enter, and reside in the United States, placing lives in jeopardy. The sealed indictment was handed up in El Paso because the area is among crossing destinations for the people shipped from San Andrés.
The indictment was unsealed in December 2024, and the men were extradited to the United States by the Colombian government in December 2025. Prosecutors have said they were members of an organization known as La Agencia, or The Agency.
The charge against Rivera Orjuela, also known as “El Patrón” or “The Boss,” remains pending in El Paso federal court.
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