EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A federal grand jury has leveled felony conspiracy charges against a Red Rock, Arizona, couple who told authorities their only crime was getting paid to ferry miners from a town near the Mexican border to their worksite.
The “miners” turned out to be migrants the couple picked up on a stretch of highway known as a busy smuggling corridor, documents filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona show.
Wednesday’s indictment stems from an Aug. 5 incident involving Border Patrol agents tracking a black 2021 Hyundai Sonata that drove past on State Road 86 with two occupants and returned an hour later with four.
The agents followed the Sonata and allegedly saw two people in the back seat suddenly trying to hide. They put on their emergency lights and ordered the driver to pull over.
Records show driver Aracely Joey Rosas told agents the uncle of a former department store coworker had hired her to transport workers from Sells, Arizona, to a mine in the Tucson area. The pay was between $700 and $1,800 and she and her boyfriend were struggling to provide for their 5-month-old baby, so Rosas said they took the job.
Passenger Nate Dugas gave the agents a similar account, though he said he suspected the miners were really migrants when they got into the car, did not speak English and wanted to lay low in the back seat.
Dugas said his girlfriend called their employer, but he told them to just keep driving to Tucson.
The migrants in the car gave agents a different story.
Gerardo Arredondo Vasquez said he is a citizen of Mexico who agreed to pay smugglers $8,000 to take him from Altar, Sonora, to Los Angeles. He said a guide for a smuggling organization took him and another man across the border into Arizona and told them to wait for a vehicle that would take him to Tucson.
Aristeo Perez Pacheco said he was going to pay $7,500 for smugglers to take him from Sasabe, Sonora, to a job in Phoenix.
Arredondo told border agents a black vehicle driven by a female approached their hiding spot and let them in. The vehicle stopped at a gas station minutes later after Arredondo asked the driver and her passenger for water, court records show.
Wednesday’s indictment charges Dugas and Rosas with one count of conspiracy and two counts of transporting illegal aliens for profit. The government also wants Dugas to forfeit a Glock 9mm gun and two loaded magazines found inside the Sonata during his arrest.
Their arraignment is scheduled for Sept. 26 in a federal courtroom in Tucson.
Read: Read More