Chilean police made nine arrests and destroyed a gang of people smuggling Haitians to Mexico and the United States, informed the local public ministry and Interpol in a statement this Monday (4).
The Investigative Police (Civil) dismantled the criminal organization that facilitated the departure of Haitians from Chile “with their Chilean families and children, with the hope of settling in the United States”, via an illegal crossing to the city of Arica. . border with Peru.
“The Central North Prosecutor’s Office formalized nine persons for the offense of smuggling migrants, of whom eight were kept in preventive custody,” the note said.
The Interpol office in Lyon, France, indicated that the detainees were four Chileans, two Venezuelans, one Peruvian, one Haitian and one Paraguayan, all identified as part of a migrant smuggling organisation.
So far, 267 Chilean children under the age of 6 – all children of Haitian migrants who may have left Chile – have been found irregularly routed in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Guatemala and Mexico. He was traveling to America. Some minors were in the care of other adults because they were abandoned or their parents died on the way.
“It’s terrifying to think about what these vulnerable children have done, some of them just a few years old,” said Interpol Secretary General Jurgen Stock. Authorities suspect that this smuggling network has enabled about 1,000 Haitians to leave Chile through illegal routes to reach Mexico and the United States.
The Chilean prosecutor’s office said the same organization was also involved in the smuggling of Venezuelan, Haitian and Cuban migrants from Peru to Chile, “escaping border and police controls, with serious risks to the health, physical integrity and lives of migrants.” ”
This gang capture comes amid a growing presence of migrants, especially Venezuelans, who are trying to cross on foot, via secret crossings, from the borders of Bolivia and Peru to Chile, which has led to cities such as Iquique and Santiago. produced in the performance. Pros and cons of migration.
