Two charged with human smuggling (WPTV-FL)

Two charged with human smuggling
Posted: 10:48 AM
Alexia Campbell, Sun Sentinel

Federal agents have arrested a Miami man and woman on human smuggling charges for trying to bring 31 undocumented immigrants to South Florida on a 40-foot fishing boat this week, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Jesus Saavedra-Reyes, 52, and Sandra Anderson, 50, were intercepted in their boat east of Boynton Beach on Monday by U.S. Coast Guard crews, according to a federal complaint.

With them on Le Superior were 19 undocumented immigrants from Haiti, six from Brazil, four from Jamaica and two from Sri Lanka.

Coast Guard crews returned the Haitians to Haiti and the rest were interviewed and processed for deportation in West Palm Beach and Miami. Seven of them had been deported before, according to ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents.

The immigrants interviewed identified Saavedra-Reyes as the boat captain and Anderson as the boat owner. They told agents they expected to stay at Anderson's Miami home until they each paid the $5,000 smuggling fee.

Both Saavedra-Reyes and Anderson denied being involved in a human smuggling ring, the complaint said.

Saavedra-Reyes and Anderson were arrested Tuesday night and appeared Wednesday in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach. A federal judge ordered them held in pre-trial detention.

Both face a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison, $250,000 in fines and three years of supervised release.

The number of undocumented immigrants intercepted at sea en route to the United States has decreased in the past three years, according to the U.S. Coast Guard. Statistics show 2,088 people were intercepted in fiscal year 2010, compared with 4,802 in fiscal year 2008.

As recently as August, 22 immigrants, mostly from Haiti, made it to shore in Boca Raton and Manalapan. Boca Raton police and Border Patrol officials detained 16 people, including three children, near the South Inlet Park.

A second group of six people, apparently including at least one Sri Lankan national, was detained in Manalapan. All were processed for deportation.

One of the more dramatic human smuggling cases also was off the Palm Beach County coast. In May 2009, a boat carrying about 30 Haitian immigrants capsized off Boynton Beach, killing 10 people, including a pregnant woman.

The two boat captains — Jean Monique Nelson, 32, and Jimmy Metellus, 33 — were charged with alien smuggling resulting in death and were each sentenced to more than 10 years in federal prison.

According to the federal complaint, the two had met up in Haiti and agreed to captain a boat from the Bahamas to the United States with Haitian immigrants, who paid up to $4,000 for passage.

After some engine trouble, the boat capsized about 18 miles off Boynton Beach. There, the Haitians stayed in the water for 11 hours until a good Samaritan saw them.

Among the dead brought ashore was an 18-month-old child. Prosecutors also counted a pregnant woman's fetus among the dead, saying it was viable outside the womb.