EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A Baja California lawyer and a Heber, California, resident are facing charges of transporting and harboring illegal aliens in connection with a May 26 incident evidencing the work of a complex smuggling organization operating along the California-Mexico border, court documents show.
The arrest of Rita Dulce Arcos and Claudia Lizbeth Salazar Gonzalez stems from the illegal entry of a single Mexican citizen, who was observed climbing the border wall by El Centro Border Patrol Sector camera operators in Calexico, California.
The man crouched on the ground within walking distance of the Gran Plaza Outlets shopping center in Calexico while border agents tracked him via surveillance camera. Five minutes later a man believed to be part of a smuggling organization climbed the barrier from Mexico and began “running, jumping and throwing dirt in the air” in view of a marked Border Patrol vehicle patrolling the area, court records show.
The distraction drew the patrol vehicle away from the area, but members of the Border Patrol Anti-Smuggling Unit followed the crouching man as he got up and ran into the Gran Plaza Outlets. Records show the migrant, later identified as Jose de Jesus Manuel Cortez, was met by three presumed smugglers, changed his shirt for a different-colored one and was taken into several different stores as if shopping.
The three smugglers exited the shopping center, hailed a cab and took the migrant to a nearby McDonald’s. There, two smugglers left the area in different directions while the third procured another cab to take Manuel to a stash house in Heber, records show.
A surveillance helicopter followed the cab until it came to a stop, picked up a woman and proceeded to a residence. Manuel and a woman later identified as Rita Dulce Arcos exited the cab and went into a home. Records show a woman driving a Kia Rio with Baja California, Mexico, license plates pulled up into the driveway and waited for Manuel to come out and get in.
As the Kia drove away, agents with the Anti-Smuggling Unit activated emergency lights on their vehicles. A criminal complaint filed on May 28 in U.S. District Court for the District of Southern California shows Manuel admitted to being in the United States illegally and having paid $8,500 to a smuggling organization to get him into the country and transport him to a job in Los Angeles.
The fee included having two Mexican smugglers drive him to the border and help him over the barrier, having one of them create a distraction and being picked up at the shopping center.
Investigators interviewed Salazar, who identified herself as a Mexican lawyer with a valid border-crosser visa and denied knowing that Manuel was undocumented. She said a friend had called her so she could give Arcos a ride, but when she arrived at the home it was a man who came out, according to court documents. The woman made no further statements.
Manuel, however, told the investigators the woman inside the house informed him that the female in the Kia would drive him to Los Angeles; the female in the car allegedly told him in Spanish she would be giving him a ride, the complaint alleges.
Arraignments are pending for Salazar and Arcos. The identities of other alleged smugglers were not disclosed.
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