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 News from Around the Americas | March 2007 
Travel Agencies Face Smuggling Charges
 Jacques Billeaud - Associated Press
Phoenix, AZ — Fourteen travel agency owners and employees were indicted on human smuggling and other charges for allegedly selling airline tickets they thought would be used by illegal immigrants, officials say.
While the charges against the employees were connected only to the sale of tickets to undercover officers conducting a sting, Phoenix authorities said Thursday their analysis of records shows that the six travel agencies sold tickets to an estimated 6,800 illegal immigrants since mid-2005.
The undercover officers made it clear they were arranging travel for illegal immigrants and paid cash for dozens of one-way tickets across the nation. The travel agencies offered advice on being discreet at airports, authorities said.
"They were so blatant about it, because they hadn't been touched," said Lt. Vince Piano of the Phoenix Police Department. "They would say, `OK, you need to dress them like this. You need to walk them in through this. Does he have an ID?' "
Bart Graves, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, said the travel agency employees were working independently of one another when they sold the tickets.
The bust marked another example of authorities trying to chip away at businesses that help smugglers transport their immigrant customers.
More than two years ago, nearly two dozen used car lot workers were indicted on charges of faking documents and committing other crimes to help sell vehicles to smugglers, known as "coyotes." Authorities said the vehicles were used to ferry drugs and illegal immigrants from Mexico.
"First the used car dealers, now the travel agencies who make it possible for the coyotes to do their work," said Attorney General Terry Goddard. "These are the critical facilitators, without whom it would be impossible to move large numbers of people around the country."
Phoenix, located 180 miles from the Mexican border, serves as a hub for transporting illegal immigrants across the country.
Smugglers sneak immigrants across the border, bring them to stash houses in Phoenix and make their travel arrangements. If immigrants are to be flown to their final destinations, smugglers buy tickets for their customers and, in many cases, drive them to McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, where security is less strict than closer to the border, investigators said. |
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