Guatemala dismantled a major migrant trafficking network Tuesday, arresting 19 people including four wanted for extradition to the United States, the attorney general’s office of the Central American country said.
The group “systematically engaged in the recruitment, transfer and accommodation of Guatemalan migrants to then smuggle them to the United States,” the entity’s head of anti-trafficking operations Stuardo Campo told reporters.
“It is considered one of the largest and most powerful (groups) operating in” Guatemala, he added.
The operation was carried out in five departments of the country by local police with backing from the US Homeland Security Investigations department.
It was the culmination of an investigation started in April last year after the death of a Guatemalan migrant in San Antonio, Texas — where 53 others were found dead, abandoned in a trailer, in June this year.
Prosecutors say the gang charged people between about $9,000 and $20,000 apiece to bring them to the United States, where thousands of Central Americans head illegally every year in search of a better life.
Four of those captured were wanted for extradition to Texas.