Traffickers joining forces to boost power and profits

BY ALFONSO CHARDY

 Miami is emerging as a hub for the smuggling of illegal
 immigrants from around the world as migrant-trafficking
 gangs join forces with other international criminals
 including arms and drug traffickers to increase their
 power and profits, federal officials say.

 Locally, migrant smugglers have cooperated with passport forgers and thieves to
 smuggle people through Miami International Airport and are believed to be
 collaborating with some adult industry executives to bring in foreign prostitutes,
 nude dancers and porn movie actors.

 At the same time, migrant traffickers are diversifying -- smuggling people one day
 and drugs the next, officials say.

 These new alliances, according to the National Intelligence Council, are quickly
 becoming a national security risk. A 70-page Global Trends 2015 report, prepared
 by the Council for the Director of Central Intelligence, says migrant trafficking
 organizations teamed with other smugglers eventually will enable gangs to cut
 costs and co-opt governments or businesses.

 ``They will corrupt leaders of unstable, economically fragile or failing states,
 insinuate themselves into troubled banks and businesses, and cooperate with
 insurgent political movements to control substantial geographic areas,'' the report
 said. ``Their income will come from narcotics trafficking, alien smuggling,
 trafficking in women and children, smuggling toxic materials, hazardous wastes,
 illicit arms, military technologies, and other contraband, financial fraud and
 racketeering.''

 ESTIMATED PROFITS

 The report estimated illicit profits from worldwide smuggling operations at about
 $329 billion a year including about $7 billion from migrant trafficking alone.

 How much South Florida smugglers contribute to the financial power of criminal
 gangs is unclear. But local immigration officials say it's likely in the millions of
 dollars.

 Patricia Mancha, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization
 Service in Miami, said that in a recent law enforcement operation, INS
 investigators discovered that illegal Chinese immigrants paid as much as $60,000
 each for a ``package deal'' that included valid Japanese passports and air
 transportation from China to Miami International Airport. The passport alone,
 Mancha said, cost between $5,000 and $10,000.

 The Chinese allegedly posed as Japanese tourists because visitors from Japan do
 not need U.S. visas. After they cleared airport inspection, the smugglers collected
 the passports and replaced the pictures for the next illegal group.

 ``They used the passports over and over again,'' Mancha said.

 While the smuggling of Cuban and Haitian migrants is more common in South
 Florida, federal immigration officials said Miami is also a transit point for illegal
 immigrants from all over the world.

 `IDEAL LOCATION'

 ``One of the things that makes Miami an ideal location for these organizations is
 the large immigrant population here already, making it easier for illegal aliens to
 assimilate into these communities,'' Mancha said.

 Mark Briesemeister, supervisory special agent for the INS' investigations
 anti-smuggling unit, and Bill West, chief of the special investigations section, said
 criminal gangs based in the Caribbean are increasingly more savvy at smuggling
 both drugs and humans to the United States -- sometimes together and
 sometimes on separate trips.

 And growing regional strife around the world may lead to increased arms
 smuggling, the officials said.

 RECENT EXAMPLES

 Other recent examples of widespread and organized smuggling operations
 include:

   The discovery in September in Colombia of a partially built 100-foot-long
 submarine ostensibly designed by Russians to smuggle cocaine abroad.

   The arrest last May in Fort Lauderdale of two men on charges they sought to
 smuggle into the country 90 30-pound cylinders of the strictly regulated
 ozone-depleting refrigerant known as Freon.

   The indictment last summer in Miami federal court of a former Panamanian
 congressional candidate and friend of Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso on
 charges of conspiring to smuggle heroin and the popular club drug ecstasy to the
 United States.

   The use of surplus U.S. military vessels to smuggle cocaine from Central
 America allegedly by some staff members of a Georgia-based charity.

 The growth and success of similar types of combined operations pose a
 significant risk, according to the intelligence report, assembled by officers from
 the CIA and other U.S. agencies.

 ``The report is an exercise at what the world may look like in a number of areas
 from disease to the economy to terrorism to criminal activity in 15 years, and
 immigration is one wide swath of the picture,'' said Tom Crispell, a CIA
 spokesman.

 CUBAN MIGRANTS

 Just this month, for example, the U.S. Coast Guard intercepted two speedboats
 in the Florida Straits whose crew members were suspected of smuggling illegal
 Cuban migrants into the Keys.

 According to the Coast Guard, the crew of the cutter Metompkin stopped the
 boats 15 miles south of the Marquesas and discovered three U.S. resident aliens
 and two Cuban migrants aboard. The Cuban migrants were sent back to Cuba
 and the suspected migrant smugglers were turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol.

 And on Monday, one of two men convicted last year of smuggling a group of
 Haitians by way of Fisher Island was sentenced to 60 months for his part in the
 operation, which left one woman dead, the U.S. attorney's office said.

 On Aug. 15, Marcus Stuart and co-defendant Renardo Rolle were arrested
 following the apprehension of 18 Haitians near the Port of Miami. Nearby, police
 officers found what was believed to be the smugglers' boat -- aboard it was the
 body of a young Haitian woman who died during the voyage.

 RESHAPING NATIONS

 The intelligence report also says that the illegal immigration is fueling a worldwide
 movement of people that will gradually reshape the character of entire nations.

 ``Legal and illegal migrants now account for more than 15 percent of the
 population in more than 50 countries,'' according to the report. ``These numbers
 will grow substantially and will increase social and political tension and perhaps
 alter national identities even as they contribute to demographic and economic
 dynamism.''

 Herald staff writer Luisa Yanez contributed to this report.