Hialeah man accused of migrant smuggling (Miami Herald)

Hialeah man accused of migrant smuggling
A man has been charged with migrant smuggling after a boat landed in Boynton Beach with eight undocumented migrants.

By ALFONSO CHARDY
achardy@MiamiHerald.com

Federal immigration officials on Tuesday charged a Cuban resident of Hialeah with human smuggling after he told investigators he brought by boat to Boynton Beach from the Bahamas eight undocumented migrants in exchange for $3,000.

Jovel Domínguez Hernández, 27, made his first appearence before U.S. Magistrate Judge James M. Hopkins in West Palm Beach federal court Tuesday morning, only hours after he was arrested on the beach Monday night along with seven migrants from Haiti and one from Sierra Leone. Domínguez is scheduled to return to court Monday for a detention hearing, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Stephanie Slater, a spokeswoman for the Boynton Beach Police Department, said authorities had ''unconfirmed information'' that Monday's boat was ''possibly coming'' from Freeport.

An affidavit filed in court by ICE senior special agent Jay Ingersoll confirmed that the boat that landed in Boynton Beach on Monday night had sailed from the Bahamas, but identified the port as Nassau, where it had been impounded last month.

Information in the affidavit suggested that the boat belonged to a suspected South Florida ring of migrant smugglers, and that Domínguez was known to federal investigators.

Ingersoll said in the affidavit that in December authorities stopped Domínguez in Key West and issued him a written warning related to human smuggling.

Slater said the undocumented migrants in Boynton Beach, who were not identified, were turned over to the Border Patrol and the Cuban captain to federal investigators.

Ingersoll's affidavit said that after Domínguez was placed under arrest, he told investigators that he was offered $2,000 to retrieve the impounded vessel at Nassau.

Once he retrieved the boat, Domínguez was quoted as telling investigators, he was approached by a man who offered him an additional $3,000 to smuggle three people to Boynton Beach.

The group grew to eight people.