A Costa Rican woman, Mercedes Morera Roche, 49, pleaded guilty Monday in the United States to charges of conspiring to smuggle more than 25 undocumented immigrants into the U.S. from Cuba. Roche was extradited to the U.S. from Panama on Aug. 21, 2014 to face the charges.
Costa Rican police continued rounding up undocumented migrants this week with the detention on Wednesday of four Eritreans and four Somalis who were traveling toward the Peñas Blancas border crossing with Nicaragua.
Following the detention last Friday of nine undocumented migrants on the central Pacific coast, Costa Rica's National Police carried out an additional operation Monday in the community of Paso Canoas, along the country's border with Panama. There, police detained 27 additional undocumented migrants, all from Nepal.
Officers from the National Police Friday morning arrested nine undocumented men and the driver that transported them inside an SUV near the Central Pacific town of Jacó, the Public Security Ministry (MSP) reported.
The United States has arrested 192 suspected migrant smugglers in a crackdown on Mexico's border with Texas in under a month, authorities said Tuesday.
MCALLEN, Texas – Behind the beige brick facade and the barbed wire of the Border Patrol station here, crowds of Central American women and children are sleeping on concrete floors in 90 degree heat.
In 24 simultaneous raids early Saturday morning in the northwestern province of Guanacaste, Judicial Investigation Police took down a well-coordinated international human smuggling ring that operated in both Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Police had known about the criminal network for 10 years.
