Latest Smuggling Stories

MIAMI (Reuters) - A Cuban migrant died on Saturday from possible head injuries after the U.S. Coast Guard chased a speedboat suspected of smuggling 31 people into the United States and fired into its engines to stop the vessel, U.S. officials said. The Coast Guard said the death of a woman on the boat was not as a result of the shooting, which occurred after a high-speed chase about dawn that began 39 miles south of Key West and ended 4 miles south of Boca Chica in Florida. Two Coast...

By Orla RyanMADINA, Ghana (Reuters) - Twelve-year-old Emmanuel Nkorbo does not know how much money his mother got for him.He knows she was promised money if she gave him up, delivering him into the hands of traffickers, who trade people for profit."It is a long time since I saw her," he said in the local language twi, his bright eyes betraying little emotion."It is difficult to tell what I remember, but when I meet her I will know it is her," he said.In the years since...

By Stephanie Ditta LONDON (Reuters) - Britain is to create a dedicated police-led task force to combat the sex-trafficking of women, the UK Human Trafficking Center. The announcement came at the conclusion of a four-month long police operation that resulted in the rescue of more than 80 women, some as young as 14, believed to have been trafficked mainly from Eastern Europe, Africa and the Far East. Home Office minister Vernon Coaker announced the task force at a news conference in...

By Jon Hurdle PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - A Filipino man has admitted to smuggling about 25 illegal aliens into the United States on stolen third-country passports for which they paid as much as $15,000 each, prosecutors said on Monday. Roehl Rivera, 41, of Cabanatuan City, Philippines, smuggled the aliens between May 2005 and January 2006 on Continental Airlines flights from Hong Kong to Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, according to a statement from Christopher...

By Tim GaynorOTAY MESA, California -- Dug by hand with the help of rogue mining engineers to link warehouses on either side of the U.S.-Mexico border, it was the longest, deepest and boldest drug smuggling tunnel found to date.But before the Mexican gang had even punched through a concrete floor to emerge opposite a washroom in a distribution depot in Otay Mesa, California, a crack law enforcement team with expertise honed in the hunt for Osama bin Laden was on their trail.Little known...

By Noel Randewich MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Possessing marijuana, cocaine and even heroin will no longer be a crime in Mexico if the drugs are carried in small amounts for personal use, under legislation passed by Congress. The measure given final passage by senators in a late night session on Thursday allows police to focus on their battle against major drug dealers, the government says, and President Vicente Fox is expected to sign it into law. "This law provides more judicial tools...

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An accused leader of an international human smuggling operation was extradited to New York on Friday and charged with illegally bringing hundreds of people into the United States over a five-year period, federal authorities said. Nafi Elezi, a 42-year-old Macedonian charged with conspiracy, alien smuggling and passport forgery and fraud for smuggling people into the United States between January 2000 and December 2004, pleaded not guilty in Manhattan federal...

By Anthony Boadle HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban prosecutors asked for 25-year jail sentences for three Mexican fishermen charged with smuggling people out of Cuba by boat to Mexico, diplomatic sources said. The harsh sentences were sought by the island's Communist authorities as they move to crack down on the increasing number of smugglers ferrying Cuban migrants to Mexico, where they try to cross into the United States. The Mexicans, who were arrested on a boat stranded off Cuba in May...

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) - U.S. and Canadian police have broken up a criminal ring that smuggled dozens of Indian and Pakistani nationals into the United States at a cost of up to $35,000 each, officials said on Wednesday. Police said 14 people have been indicted by a U.S. grand jury in Seattle in connection with the Vancouver-based scheme that transported people over the border between British Columbia and Washington state. Four people waiting to be transported to the...

By Christine Kearney NEW YORK (Reuters) - A woman who helped finance immigrant smuggling schemes including the "Golden Venture" freighter was sentenced to 35 years in prison on Thursday for running a multimillion-dollar ring using violent Chinese street gangs. Cheng Chui Ping, 57, ran an enterprise that crammed immigrants into planes, cars and trucks with fake floors and ships with dungeon-like conditions where one bathroom served hundreds of people, trial evidence showed. The rickety...