Chinese Being Trafficked Through Tijuana

Yaqui for Borderland Beat from: Zeta

Authorities on both sides of the border have identified a human trafficking cell that operates in northwest Tijuana. Despite being an area linked to the CAF, the leaders of the group are linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, the polleros are mostly people born in Michoacán, old residents of the United States, deported on multiple occasions. Victims pay from $25,000 to $70,000 US dollars to reach Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York or Chicago, Illinois.

Information from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service (ICE) indicates that for Asians, crossing the United States illegally through the border with Baja California, it costs $45,000 to $70, 000 dollars per person .

The figure can be reduced to around $25,000 - $30,000 dollars, if the transfer of migrants is not in charge of the criminal group from Asia, also depending on the crossing point, how dangerous are the conditions of the transfer to the United States and from the city where they are going to leave.

Sidney Aki, director of the San Ysidro Port of Entry for Customs and Border Protection (CBP, for its acronym in English), explained that at that point it is common to find illegal immigrants of Chinese origin inside the cars: "In the trunk, down between the luggage, between the clothes, on the floor board and near the engine ".

In August 2016, a Mexican citizen was captured for attempting to cross a 34-year-old Chinese man inside the gas tank of an customized pick-up truck .

Interviewed by ZETA , Aki reported that in the 2017-2018 fiscal year, alone at the main Tijuana crossing point they detained 164 people from China, and between October 2018 and the third week of March 2019 they "secured " more or less to 170 Chinese people.

In the case of border ports, the Garita de San Ysidro is the most used for this and all types of human trafficking, being the busiest, with 300,000 daily crossings on average.

Profiles of illegal migrants from Asia are men and women between twenty and forty years of age. Their destinations are the big cities in the United States such as Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York and Chicago. Statistics say that 70 % of Chinese illegal migrants are men and 30 % are women.

José Cornelio Barragán, "El Cholo", Jorge Domínguez Verduzco, "El Luis", Jesús Manuel Villalba Ruiz, "El Villa", Sergio González Aguilar, "El Hermano".

Recently, Enrique Acosta Fregoso, candidate for governor for the PRI told ZETA that he has received complaints from citizens of Santo Tomas in the Municipality of Ensenada, where the base of a group of oriental traffickers was located. The ships arrived, docked on the high seas, and lowered the people in small boats to the community on land, where they were hosted and fed and then transported by land to the border.

Consulted on the matter, local authorities denied to have knowledge of such criminal activities, "in that area they lower planes with drug and that is being investigated, would be known of the traffic of people", referred one of the investigators.

In relation to the traffic of Orientals, the authorities of both sides of the border told this Weekly that they have detected and have under investigation, a group in Tijuana that is focusing on the trafficking of people from China, India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Cell of Deported Traffickers:

They classified it as a transnational criminal organization and named it "Los Playas", because they operate in the border strip from the Garita de San Ysidro to Playas de Tijuana, an area traditionally controlled by the Arellano Félix Cartel (CAF), from the Zona Norte to the Cañon de Matadero; and "Los Hermanos Tapia", led by Jonathan Tapia Rojas. They are the " polleros " who pay the CAF piso  to commit a crime in that area.

However, according to the intelligence reports of the local corporations, at least two of the four leaders - "El Cholo" and "El Luis" - are criminally related to the "Los Erres" cell, a link established since times of José Antonio Beltrán Cabrera "El R4", assassinated in 2013, the same year in which the image of the leader of this cell, José Antonio Soto Gastélum ,"El Tigre", was published on a poster of the Most Wanted - along with other leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel  - by the United States Department of Justice. Soto committed crimes before 2008 in Mexicali and Tecate, BC. After the internal struggle of the CAF, it transferred part of its operations to Tijuana, Rosarito and Ensenada.

"The traffickers of "Los Playas" have been operating for several years and the approximate price of their local services is $ 30,000," the source quoted.

According to the report that refers to the activity of this organization, the main members are natives of Michoacán: "They have hawks , guides and coordinators throughout the mesh, at all hours of the day or night" and on both sides of the border, "they try to get confused or absorbed between people in the areas of more traffic, cell phones and radios, report the presence of police in Mexico and the movements of the Border Patrol in the United States. The transporters and drivers also circulate in the northern area of ​​Playas. "

Sometimes Chinese spend several hours hiding in the vegetation before US operators pick them up.

Initially, they identified four ringleaders and four operators, most of them with a history of human trafficking in the United States, with several deportations; while on the Mexican side the record records crimes such as domestic violence and robbery. The main objectives include:

Jesús Cornelio Barragán alias "El Cholo":  He is 56 years old and his first charge for human trafficking was brought  in the United States at age 24 (1989). He was imprisoned for six months. Between 1989 and 2014 he was arrested 16 times, two for car theft, one for owning stolen property and 13 times he was tried and sentenced for illegal entry into the United States, the same he was deported.

On April 10, 2014, he was arrested by the Mexican authorities, accused of trafficking people. In Tijuana, he was investigated for possession of a weapon in 2009, intrafamily violence in 2010 and 2014; robbery to house on April 3 and 16, 2014, and illegal deprivation of liberty in tentative degree on April 6 of the same year.

Jorge Domínguez Verduzco, alias Luis Arturo Domínguez Verduzco "El Luis": At 34, he has been arrested five times by the Border Patrol for illegally crossing into the United States and has been deported. In Mexico he was investigated for damage to property and injuries in 2010, for qualified robbery in 2012, injuries aggravated by reason of kinship and domestic violence in 2013 and simple robbery in 2014. And for possession of a firearm and possession of methamphetamine in 2013.

Sergio González Aguilar "El Hermano": Almost 58, he has been arrested and deported for illegally crossing into the United States. Between 1981 and 2014 he was arrested and tried twice for human trafficking, eight for theft or robbery, and two for driving under the influence of controlled substances. He has a background in Los Angeles, San Diego and Santa Ana, California.

Manuel Villalba E.:  Born on February 19, 1971, according to authorities from Mexico and the United States, he is one of the newest members, and has no background in either of the two countries.

As secondary operators, currently the governments have located to:

Francisco Márquez Magallón, "El Gavilán" :  He is 46 years old and has been deported three times. At age 27 he was captured, tried and sentenced to two years in jail in Santa Ana, California, for possession of controlled substance for sale . On July 14, 2005, he was apprehended in Stockton, California for possession of a controlled substance for sale. In Mexico, he has a capture for crimes against health in the form of drug dealing and psychotropic possession in 2015; He was released immediately.

Agustín García Hernández ,"El Coco":  He is 53 years old and has 17 arrests executed by the Border Patrol for illegal entry into the United States.

Genoveva Campos Delgado:  The only woman identified in the group is 41 years old, in Mexico she was investigated for robbery and in the US she registered 22 captures for illegal entry. In 2013, she was sentenced for violating a court order to prevent domestic violence and in 2017 for car theft. Her most recent deportation took place on August 15 of that year.

Armed Felix "N":   37 years of age, he has no criminal record/ history.

More "Polleros" Trafficking Chinese People:

While the investigation continues on the group of "Los Playas", considered the group of greater impact in the Asian community in Tijuana, members of other cells have been arrested trafficking natural born citizens of Asia.

In March 2018, US government personnel reported the capture of young Tecatense Jocelin Lara, deported for the crime of trafficking with orientals. Her father, Tomás Lara, was designated as a trafficker by authorities of Mexico and the United States, information that was published in the 2176 edition of ZETA . He was arrested for drug trafficking in the United States in 2008 and released in 2014, he presented and was served a petition for a reply in which he claimed to have already paid his fines with the Law and live off the rent of 200 hectares of land to a wind farm .

According to information provided by researchers from both sides of the border, Lara would belong to the same cell as "Los Playas", related to the one headed by José Soto ,"El Tigre", currently located in the Sinaloa Cartel organization chart.

In the case of Ofelia Hernández Salas and Federico Hernández Sánchez "El Pico", the PEP, State Preventive Police, apprehended him on the afternoon of April 8, 2019 in the Border Zone of Mexicali, after a report shouts for help could be heard in a house on Aguas Calientes St.

Five men from India, 19, 25, 27, 29 and 32 years, three of them brothers, all wanted to cross into the United States illegally were rescued.

The man said he was barely eight months in Tijuana from Guanajuato and that he also wanted to cross into the US. Ofelia Hernández, "La Güera" or "La Lupe", asked him to take the Hindus to the Garita de Mexicali, for which she would have charged the five foreigners 400 pesos each.

But Federico Hernandez already has antecedents of the American side: judged for passing  false checks and illegal entry in 2004; possession of drugs and two illegal entries in 2005; vehicle theft in 2011 and deportation in 2012 and 2018.

As for "La Güera", Ofelia Hernandez, 56, who has telephones and addresses in Mexicali, Tijuana and Santa Ana, California, and holds 16 counts in the United States accumulated between 1990 and 2012: six for theft, one drug possession, two for false identification , four for human trafficking - the first in 1995 - and three deportations, the most recent in 2012.

As a criminal partner, the local police registers Diego Apolinar González Machado, with records in several processes for vehicle theft since 2009, including an arrest warrant in force in 2018.