A U.S. citizen was arrested right outside a Costco in Chula Vista, California, after allegedly trying to pick up an undocumented migrant who had just been found locked inside the trunk of a car at the San Ysidro port of entry.
The arrest is just one of 114 border-related cases filed this week by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of California.
The charges range from human smuggling for profit to illegal re-entry after deportation and the importation of dangerous drugs.
On May 19, Ashley Aremy Ruiz, a U.S. citizen, was arrested while waiting for an undocumented immigrant at a Costco parking lot in Chula Vista.
That migrant had just been discovered inside a vehicle’s trunk at the San Ysidro port of entry, where a smuggler had tried to drive him across the border.
Ruiz now faces charges, including Attempted Transportation of Undocumented Immigrants and Conspiracy to Transport Immigrants.
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Just days earlier, on May 15, another U.S. citizen, José Alberto García Zamudio, was taken into custody and charged with Importation of Controlled Substances.
According to federal prosecutors, CBP officers found more than 211 kilograms of cocaine hidden inside the gas tank of a commercial passenger bus. Zamudio was behind the wheel at the time. He later admitted he had been promised $13,000 to smuggle the narcotics into the country.
Then there’s the case of Federico Cruz Alverdin, a Mexican national who was apprehended on May 20.
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Border Patrol agents found him hiding in a tree, about 800 meters north of the U.S.-Mexico border and 21 kilometers east of the Tecate port of entry.
Alverdin had just been deported to Mexico on May 1 through Phoenix, Arizona.
Federal law enforcement agencies led these investigations, with critical support from state and local authorities.
