Feds: Home invaders may have been called in by caretaker (The Monitor)

Feds: Home invaders may have been called in by caretaker
May 03, 2010 8:15 PM
Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor

ALAMO — When sheriff’s deputies first arrived at a mobile home north of the city Saturday afternoon, they thought they had a possible home invasion case on their hands.

But by the end of the night, federal investigators concluded the home’s caretaker may have called in the attackers himself.

Jose Ines Palmillas Cervantes’ neighbors called authorities to the house near the corner of Farm-to-Market Road 907 and Michigan Street, after eight to 10 masked gunmen burst into the residence just after 2 p.m. But when deputies arrived they found none of the attackers and five undocumented immigrants hiding inside.

The migrants — from countries including Guatemala, Mexico and Colombia — told U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that Palmillas, 27, had smuggled them into the United States days earlier but was keeping them at the trailer home against their will in an attempt to extort more money from their families, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case.

When the group banded together and refused to pay the additional smuggling fees, Palmillas hired a group of men to break into the stash house, beat them and make it look like a home invasion, the immigrants purportedly told ICE agents.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño said Monday that his investigators came to a different conclusion after surveying Saturday’s scene. They determined that the break-in came at the hands of a rival smuggling group hoping to steal Palmillas’ immigrants for their own organization.

None of the home invaders have yet been located.

Deputies arrested Palmillas fleeing from the house Saturday afternoon, the sheriff said. He remains in federal custody on immigrant smuggling charges.