Human trafficking ring smashed

2006-05-02 08:15

Newark - Federal agents rounded up 66 people in a series of raids that officials said smashed a suspected human trafficking ring that smuggled Mexicans into the United States, and may have forced the women to work as prostitutes.

Officers with the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raided 15 locations in Union City, New Jersey; West New York and New York City early on Monday after New Jersey State Police pulled over two vehicles containing at least 10 women who worked in brothels in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC, said Kyle Hutchins, special agent in charge of the bureau's Newark office.

"How many were doing it willingly, we don't know," he said. "We believe some of them had been trafficked."

Agents were trying to interview as many of the women as possible on Monday afternoon, a process Hutchins said would be time-consuming.

The operation was at least the fourth major immigrant smuggling ring operating in New Jersey in recent years.

Many charges Prosecutions involving Russian strippers forced to work in go-go bars, and young Honduran women forced to work as hostesses in Union City bars are ongoing in federal court.

Hutchins said authorities were trying to determine whether the latest suspected ring was connected to either of the previous smuggling rings.

None of the alleged prostitution involving the Mexican women took place in New Jersey, authorities said. Rather, when their weekly or monthly shifts in Washington-area brothels was finished, the women would be transported to northern New Jersey and New York by van, Hutchins said.

Thirty-six women and 30 men were taken into custody; all but two were being held on immigration charges for being in the US illegally, Hutchins said.

Two brothers, Jose Luis Notario Guzman, 50, and Jose Ignacio Notario Guzman, 46, were held Monday without bail. The older brother is in the US legally; his younger brother is not, the US Attorney's office said.

Jose Luis Notario Guzman faces three charges: conspiracy to harbour illegal aliens, operating an unlicensed money transfer business and bulk cash smuggling.

It said authorities began investigating after they noticed vehicles with out-of-state plates dropping women at an apartment on Sunday nights and Monday mornings.

Authorities traced the license plates and determined they had been used to transport prostitutes to and from brothels in New York City, Maryland and other areas, the complaint said.

- AP