Soldiers suspected of alien smuggling
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070611/ap_on_re_us/soldiers_immigrant_smuggling;_ylt=ApBGGKkaJVQeo1O.yjFnMRVvzwcF
LAREDO, Texas - Three National Guardsmen assigned to the Texas-Mexico border were accused of running an immigrant smuggling ring after 24 immigrants were found inside a van that one of them was driving, a U.S. attorney said Monday.
The three, arrested late Thursday and Friday, were arraigned Monday on a federal charge of conspiring to transport illegal immigrants.
Pfc. Jose Rodrigo Torres, 26, and Sgt. Julio Cesar Pacheco, 25, both of Laredo, and Sgt. Clarence Hodge Jr., 36, of Fort Worth, were arrested near Laredo.
A Border Patrol agent found 24 illegal immigrants inside a van Torres was driving along Interstate 35 near Cotulla, Texas, about 68 miles north of the border, prosecutors said. Torres was in uniform at the time of his arrest Thursday.
The van was leased by the National Guard, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Prosecutors accused Hodge of helping Torres pass through a Border Patrol checkpoint on the highway by making it look like the two were conducting Guard business.
2007-06-12
05:58:53
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