El Paso college students arrested in bust Now hiring: Drug cartels recruit on social media
A pair of El Paso college students are in deep trouble after being arrested at the border on drug smuggling charges after replying to a job ad on social media.
The job scheme is a long-standing tactic of Mexican drug cartels to recruit “mules” among border commuters to carry drugs over the international bridges, U.S. law enforcement officials said.
The students claimed they had been hired to transport money from Juárez, Chihuahua, to El Paso, but instead a concealed load of fentanyl was found in their car on March 26 at El Paso’s Bridge of the Americas border crossing, court officials said at an online teleconference detention hearing.
The young man and woman were both arrested by the El Paso County sheriff’s office on state charges of manufacture/delivery of a controlled substance.
Under Texas’ tougher new fentanyl laws enacted last year, anyone caught with more than 400 grams could face a 15-year minimum prison sentence.
Since last summer, there has been a rise in similar arrests at the border of drivers claiming they didn’t know there were drugs concealed in their vehicles after answering postings about job offers on Facebook, a U.S. Homeland Security Investigations spokesperson in El Paso said.
College students arrested in border drug case
The man and woman are Juárez residents with student visas who regularly cross the border to attend school in El Paso, public defense attorney Maya Quevedo said at their bond hearings.
The man is a graduate of the Autonomous University of Ciudad Juárez, known as UACJ, and a doctoral student at the University of Texas at El Paso. The woman attends UACJ and is learning English at El Paso Community College, Quevedo said.
The students – who don’t have criminal records – embarked in a perilous situation that was “impossible to stop” once it went into motion, Quevedo said.
The El Paso Times is not publishing the students’ names because their defense says they were duped.
Shady job offer, fentanyl bust at Bridge of the Americas
The bespectacled students told officers that they had replied to an ad on Facebook for a job offer to transport money to El Paso, according to a retelling of the case by prosecutors and defense attorneys at the hearing.
They met with a man at a Denny’s restaurant in Juárez and left the keys in their car, which was then supposedly taken to a car dealership to install a GPS device for “security reasons.” The car was later returned to the restaurant parking lot.
The recruiter made copies of their identification cards and told them that he had many people working for him, which the defense attorney surmised could be veiled threat meaning the newly hired couriers were being watched. The man escorted them to near the border and instructed the students to drive to a location in El Paso.
The woman allegedly told officers that she had concerns but that she needed the money, so she decided to go through with the job, court officials said.
It was not disclosed how much the students were paid, but typically drivers in border smuggling attempts get paid a few hundred to a couple of thousand dollars.
During a border inspection at the Bridge of the Americas, an X-ray scan detected anomalies in the car’s back doors. Over a pound of fentanyl was found, and the students were arrested. The exact amount of fentanyl wasn’t disclosed.
The arrests were made by the El Paso County sheriff ’s office, which will often handle border bust arrests when the amount of drugs is small. The students’ case is pending in court.
Drug cartels are always looking for students, businesspeople and other frequent border crossers to transport drugs hidden among the long lines of daily binational traffic, a Homeland Security Investigations spokesperson in El Paso said.
Drug-traffickers will advertise for jobs such as money couriers for businesses such as “casas de cambio,” money exchange houses, the spokesperson said. The ads seek persons who can legally enter the United States.
The drivers who have been arrested include U.S. citizens, legal U.S. residents and Mexican citizens with visas. The drugs include fentanyl, heroin, methamphetamines, marijuana and cocaine.
Homeland Security Investigations: ‘Willful blindness’ is not defense
Decades ago, the ads would be in the classified sections of Juárez newspapers but are now mostly on Facebook and other social media, the Homeland Security Department said.
The recruiter will send a direct message to the job seeker and will set up a job interview. The Homeland Security Department warns that legitimate businesses do not interview people in parking lots nor take possession of the job-seeker’s vehicle, which should be a major red flag. The vehicle is taken to conceal drugs in it.
The Homeland Security Department advises job seekers to research the name and address of the company and obtain the employer’s information.
The allure of “easy money” can lead to “willful blindness” to signs of illegal activity, which is not a defense in court, the spokesperson warned.
What happens if you get caught smuggling drugs at border?
Punishment can vary greatly depending on the amount and types of drugs that a person is arrested with at the U.S. border.
Beside the consequences in the criminal justice system of becoming involved in drug trafficking, a smuggling arrest can severely affect immigration and border-crossing privileges.
Mexican citizens can lose their border-crossing cards even if they are not criminally charged. If convicted, legal U.S. residents can be stripped of their residency status and be deported, officials said.
There have been cases where a teenager is arrested with drugs in the border express lane and the teen’s whole family loses express-lane privileges, a Homeland Security Department spokesperson said.
Regardless of citizenship, the Homeland Security Department keeps records of persons associated with drug smuggling attempts, which could result in increased scrutiny and intensified inspections when entering the U.S. in the future.