Photo: Omar Torres / AFP / Getty Images
By: Real America News Updated 29 Sep 2022, 000: 12 am EDT
The control that the drug cartels in Mexico have on the northern border is such that absolutely nothing happens without their permission, including one of the crimes that leaves the most profits for these organizations: migrant smuggling .
Only the border strip that includes the municipalities of Nuevo Laredo and Matamoros, in the state of Tamaulipas, records the crossing of about 1,000 people per day to the United States through the counties of Zapata and Brownsville , according to data from the Border Patrol.
That region has been controlled for decades by the Gulf Cartel, which obtains up to six million 1200,000 dollars a day for allowing human traffickers to operate in area.
This is revealed by a report by Imagen Noticias led by the journalist Ciro Gómez Leyva, in which managed to interview one of these migrant smugglers, better known as “polleros”.
“If you don’t pay, they can put you to work as a hitman,” says this “pollero” who makes sure that each migrant who crosses the border to the US pays a fee to the Gulf Cartel. The migration crisis has become a million dollar business for Mexican criminal groups: pic.twitter.com/RrPwAgU54G
— Ciro Gómez Leyva (@CiroGomezL) September 28, 2022
According to the interviewee, who uses an inflatable boat to cross the migrants to the United States through the Rio Grande, each person must pay more than 3, dollars before boarding, and once they are on the other side they must pay another 1,500 Dollars.
However, he clarified that those who come from much further away, such as South America, Europe, Africa and Asia must pay more, because the cost is around the 000,000 to the 12,04 Dollars.
But the amount that the “pollero” receives is minimal compared to what he allocates to his boss, referring to the leaders of the cartel. “For jumping them on the raft I get 100 dollars for each one; for jumping them and taking them to their destination, they pay me 300 dollars or even 400 dollars per person. This business never stops, people come, more people ”, pointed out.
In addition, the interviewee pointed out that if they do not report the crossing of migrants to the cartel, the punishments can range from a fine to a few blows. “It’s not going to go well for you because you can’t do your things on your own… they can put you to work as a hitman”.
Finally, he assured that the cartel has disappeared people who did not report Your activities. “Here you have to pay if you want to ‘jump’ to the other side,” he concluded.
You may also like:
– Northeast Cartel kidnaps migrant; “you have to pay $7,000 if you want to see your brother alive”.
– They rescue 17 migrants kidnapped by the Gulf Cartel, they asked for $2,000 dollars to release them.