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Sunday, February 5, 2012

Where are the Racial Profiling Nazi's on this...

Hey, good enough for law enforcement, it's good enough for law breakers right?
Immigrant-smuggling ring used black drivers to avoid racial profiling

LOS ANGELES — (MCT) In the calculus of cross-border human smuggling, Maria Lopez-Diaz allegedly concluded that black instead of brown equals green.

The 60-year-old Compton, Calif., woman, prosecutors say, tried to cash in on racial profiling by operating a human smuggling ring that hired mostly African-American drivers who didn't speak a word of Spanish to ferry small groups of immigrants from Mexico to Los Angeles.

In the end, the venture failed. Authorities announced charges Thursday against Lopez-Diaz and four others, including conspiracy and transporting and harboring illegal immigrants. Lopez-Diaz, two family members and a driver were arrested by agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol...

..."It's absolutely true that most of the people involved in transporting human smuggling networks are Hispanics, by virtue of the fact that most customers are Hispanics," said ICE Special Agent in Charge Claude Arnold. "This organization thought, 'What if we recruited those who attract less attention from law enforcement?' Obviously they were wrong."

The group, allegedly headed by Lopez-Diaz and two family members, recruited drivers who were down on their luck — jobless, homeless or drug-addicted — who were lured by the few hundred dollars' payoff and kept in the dark about the extent of the enterprise, prosecutors said. Had they been able to communicate with their passengers, they would have learned the ringleaders charged the immigrants up to $4,000 a person for the ride north, authorities said.

"There were two layers of exploitation here, one of the aliens in the trunks coming up to Los Angeles, and then of the drivers they used," said U.S. Assistant Attorney Rupa Goswami, the federal prosecutor in the case.

The investigation began when Border Patrol officials noticed an unusual pattern in early 2010. They found African-Americans, mostly from Compton, carrying up to six immigrants in the trunks and hidden compartments of their cars. Their vehicles were elaborately modified, including compartments under the hood or under the back seats, as well as special shock absorbers to conceal the heavy load.

The group is estimated to have smuggled several dozen immigrants a month into Los Angeles, immigration authorities said.

Juan Eduardo Baltazar, 35, Lopez-Diaz's son-in-law, was allegedly responsible for preparing the vehicles and installing the compartments. Her daughter-in-law, 23-year-old Karen Esteban-Morales, is accused of coordinating the pickup of the immigrants. Lopez-Diaz and her two family members are themselves in the U.S. illegally, according to authorities, and face deportation if they are convicted....
And to answer my own first question, there is no money in it so the race industry will not go after it. The market hasn't developed yet for them to sue illegal smugglers and Jessee Jackson et all is not really concerned about black unemployment.

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