“The defendants exploited vulnerable migrants by leading a scheme to illegally transport them across the U.S. border, using dangerous methods that risked the migrants’ lives in order to evade detection,” said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Brent S. Wible, head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

“Confining individuals, including minors, in coffin-like spaces with no room to move or breathe, reveals this organization’s complete disregard for human life,” said U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani for the Southern District of Texas.

The smuggled individuals were citizens of Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia and elsewhere and they or their families paid members of the gang to help them travel illegally to and within the United States. Serrano Piedra’s role included directing the operations of the gang, recruiting members, ordering payments to be made related to the organisation’s operation and instructing members of the gang look out for law enforcement. Monroy Alcibar coordinated the smuggling of undocumented individuals and movement of financial proceeds for the gang.

The gang used drivers to pick up undocumented individuals near the U.S.-Mexico border and transport them further into the interior of the United States, often harbouring them at “stash houses” along the way in locations such as Laredo and Austin, Texas. Drivers for the gang used various dangerous methods to transport undocumented individuals, including hiding them in suitcases placed in pickup trucks, cramming them in the back of tractor-trailers, covered beds of pickup trucks, repurposed water tankers and wooden crates strapped to flatbed trailers.

The methods used by the gang to transport undocumented individuals placed their lives in danger, as they were frequently held in contained spaces with little ventilation, which became overheated and made it difficult to breathe, and they were driven at high speeds with no vehicle restraints in the back of trucks and tankers. Members of this gang commonly referred to the undocumented individuals as “boxes,” “packages,” or “pieces.” Typically, the fee paid to the organisation was approximately USD8,000, with USD3,000 paid up front to smugglers in Mexico and the remainder paid once the undocumented individuals entered the United States.

Further, Serrano Piedra and Monroy Alcibar have admitted in court documents that they conspired to engage in financial transactions designed to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership and control of ill-gotten proceeds of illicit human smuggling and the illegal harbouring and transport of undocumented individuals. The leaders of the organisation recruited and utilised straw persons to accept human smuggling proceeds in the straw persons’ bank accounts and then transferred these proceeds to the leaders under the pretence of work payments.

The defendants also established businesses and opened business accounts in order to transfer the human smuggling proceeds. In addition, the defendants recruited individuals in the construction industry who accepted human smuggling proceeds in the form of cash in exchange for cheques from the recruited individuals’ business bank accounts.

Serrano Piedra and Monroy Alcibar, both leaders of the gang, have admitted in court documents that they made significant money from their involvement in human smuggling. Moreover, Serrano Piedra admitted she was going to continue doing this for her lifetime and was not planning to retire.

In addition to the terms in prison, the court entered orders of criminal forfeiture of two properties belonging to one or both of these defendants, which were purchased with the illicit proceeds of human smuggling, recently estimated to have the value of approximately USD2,275,000 and USD515,000.

Including Serrano Piedra and Monroy Alcibar, 14 conspirators have been sentenced for their various roles in the gang, including some for laundering illicit proceeds. The sentences ranged up to 135 months in prison, with orders for surrender of proceeds totalling over USD2.3 million and forfeiture of interests in real property, including residences located in Bastrop and Elgin, Texas. One other conspirator still awaits sentencing.