Drug smugglers using kids to try to sneak past border

Drug smugglers enlist all manners of trickery — including most recently hiding a stash on a toddler en route to Houston — to try to sneak past U.S.Mexico border inspectors.

A couple was arrested late last week for allegedly hiding 7 pounds of methamphetamine on their 19-month-old, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Orlando Ramirez and Cynthia Uresti were stopped Thursday after they walked across an international bridge that connects Brownsville with Matamoros, Mexico. The drugs were “hidden on” Uresti and the child, who were reportedly on their way to Houston, according to an affidavit filed in connection with the arrest.

The couple remained in custody and is due in court Tuesday in Brownsville for a preliminary hearing before a magistrate judge.

The arrests were the latest in a string of instances in which smugglers are accused of using children to try to outwit U.S. authorities. Border Patrol agents last week in Southern California arrested a woman for allegedly smuggling bundles of cocaine while traveling with two children, a 2-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl.

“The kids are the cover for the dope to reduce any suspicion,” said Special Agent Wendell Campbell of the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Houston Division, which reaches to the border. “It is definitely happening — cartels and independent traffickers are leveraging children to help them mask loads coming into the United States.”

Three bundles were stashed inside the front passenger seat, where the boy was sitting, accord-

ing to federal authorities. Eight packages were hidden in the back seat where the girl was sitting.

In late July, also in California, a woman was arrested on suspicion of carrying 20 bundles of methamphetamine and heroin hidden in a vehicle she was driving with her 11-year-old daughter.

Eulalio Elizondo was sentenced earlier this year at the federal courthouse in Houston to 14 years in prison for a scheme in which he allegedly tricked his own brother and brother’s family into driving from Mexico to Houston in a car secretly carrying 15 pounds of methamphetamine.

Elizondo admitted to the trafficking and said his brother and family, which include two young children, did not know about the drugs.

George Diaz, an assistant history professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, said women who are smuggling drugs while traveling with children are counting on drawing less attention from border officers because they don’t look suspicious.

“Smugglers try to be inconspicuous; that is how they succeed,” said Diaz, who recently published the book “Border Contraband,” a history of smuggling. “They want to fly under the radar.”

He stressed that far more smugglers are believed to get past agents than the number who are caught.

“We only have records of those who are apprehended,” he said. “The best smugglers are never caught, so that means you could be absolutely excellent and there would be no record of you at all.”

In El Paso, Claudia Hernandez was sentenced in December to nearly three years after being arrested for having three bundles of cocaine hidden in a car she was driving. Hernandez had two children with her, including her son. When she was first stopped, she said she was taking him to Texas to buy sneakers.

“It is very sad to see innocent children entangled in this shameful attempt to smuggle illicit narcotics,” said Thomas Blanks, a California-based Border Patrol agent.