WASHINGTON: A Guatemalan man suspected of running a smuggling ring that brought around 20,000 people into the US has been arrested, US authorities said today.
Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul, alias “Turko”, is accused of leading “one of the largest human smuggling organisations in the US”, the US attorney’s office in Los Angeles said in a statement.
The 51-year-old Guatemalan was arrested and charged Friday with his alleged right-hand man.
The operation “smuggled approximately 20,000 illegal immigrants from Guatemala to destinations nationwide over a five-year span, holding some of them hostage in stash houses”, the statement said.
The pair were charged with “conspiracy to bring aliens” into the US, transporting and harbouring them for profit and resulting in death, and hostage taking.
Two other men have also been charged in connection with the case, including the driver of a car that crashed in Oklahoma in November 2023 while smuggling migrants from New York to Los Angeles, killing seven passengers including a four-year-old child.
Renoj-Matual was “assisted by associates in Guatemala who solicited illegal immigrants to come to the US”, taking payments of between US$15,000 and US$18,000 per person, the US attorney’s office said.
He also worked with Mexican smuggling organisations who transported migrants across the US-Mexico border, holding them in stash houses where they were “picked up by Renoj-Matul’s lieutenants”, it said.
Immigrants were then moved to various destinations across the US for additional fees, the statement added.
Border security is a key priority for President Donald Trump who declared a national emergency at the US frontier with Mexico on his first day in office.
“These smuggling organisations have no regard for human life and their conduct kills,” said acting US attorney Joseph T McNally.
“We must vigorously enforce our immigration laws so that these organisations cannot operate.”
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