PHOENIX - Human smugglers have created a new system to collect their fees for bringing undocumented immigrants across the border into Arizona, according to authorities.
Rather than having the money wired directly to them, the coyotes now have the cash sent to border cities in northern Mexico and brought to them.
Smugglers adopted the system, known as triangulation, after state investigators began monitoring wire transactions at Western Unions in Arizona.
The state Attorney General's Office said its years-long investigation of wire transactions has led to the seizure of huge sums of laundered money and provided data used to attack criminal organizations.
The Phoenix metropolitan area is considered the hub for human-smuggling operations.
An estimated 3,000 illegal immigrants enter the state daily. They are guided across the border, driven to the Phoenix area and held in drophouses until coyote fees are paid.
The money, about $1,600 per border crosser, is usually sent via wire by friends or relatives who already live in the United States.
In court papers, state Department of Public Safety investigator Daniel Kelly estimates the annual smuggling revenues in Arizona at $1.7 billion.
Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard said state agents have intercepted more than 15,000 suspected coyote wire transfers into the state in the past few years, seizing upward of $17 million.
"We have successfully disrupted at least that part of the money exchange," Goddard said. "They are now morphing into other ways of doing it."
The state Financial Crimes Task Force released records this year documenting the flow of cash into Arizona. Western Union agents in states with the highest illegal-immigrant populations were sending 36 times as much money into Arizona as they were receiving.
In 2003, for example, wires to Arizona from six key Mexican states totaled $113 million. Wires from Arizona to those states amounted to $3 million.
Goddard said wire transactions are screened to avoid interfering with legitimate commerce. However, some advocacy groups for Hispanics and immigrants claim benign transfers are getting snagged.
article from Examiner.com
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