Recent suspected smuggling cases involving deaths:
   August 2001: Miami-Dade County residents Roberto Montero-Dominguez and Osvaldo Fernandez-Marrero are charged with smuggling aliens for profit and attempted
 smuggling resulting in death. Six die -- including Fernandez-Marrero's wife and two young daughters -- when a 27-foot speedboat carrying 26 people flips in rough seas.
 The men are awaiting trial.
   January 2000: The Coast Guard intercepts an overloaded Haitian boat near Key Biscayne. Migrants say as many as six people died on the voyage, the bodies thrown
 overboard. The criminal case fizzles when migrants refuse to cooperate and give conflicting stories.
   October 1999: Two drown when boat with 10 aboard capsizes 15 miles north of Havana. Cuban officials arrest suspected smugglers Sabino Lopez, Luis Rodriguez of
 South Florida. Lopez sentenced to life, Rodriguez 20 years.
   December 1998: 23 Cubans plunge into deep water off Florida. Nine die, five are missing. Boat owner Francisco Gomez, helper Pedro Julio Guevara are charged with
 trying to bring Cubans from Bahamas. Both get 16 months.
   November 1998: A 3-year-old and her parents drown, and 13 people are rescued, when an overloaded motorboat capsizes off Miami Beach. Nicandro and Abel
 Morejon charged 11 Cubans $1,500 each for the trip from Bimini. A federal judge sentences the brothers to more than three years each.
   August 1998: A speedboat traveling from Bahamas slams into sandbar off Jupiter; two Haitians drown. Jury convicts boat captain Addison Hepburn of smuggling aliens,
 holds him responsible for one death. He gets 10 years.
   January 1996: Abel Miranda Fuentes, Jorge Nimer Rolo are sentenced to 16 months for involuntary manslaughter. They admit to driving a boat so fast in May 1995 that
 one of 20 Cubans aboard died from the pounding.

SOURCE: U.S. attorney's office and news reports

                                    © 2001