Greiby Melissa Barcelo-Velasquez, the owner of a Colombian travel agency, has been indicted on allegations of smuggling more than 100 people illegally into Arizona, as reported by 12news.com. The U.S. Attorney's Office of Arizona claims that Barcelo-Velasquez coordinated the transnational operation which deceived Colombian travelers with a vacation ruse to get them to the U.S.-Mexico border. After arriving in Mexico, individuals were allegedly taken to stash houses near the border before being escorted across into the United States.
The indictment outlines that people paid Barcelo-Velasquez’s travel agency a fee for what they believed was a vacation trip, only to find themselves owing more money at the Cancun International Airport before being funneled through a network of stash houses. The smuggled individuals were sometimes guided by armed personnel to cross the border illegally, the U.S. Attorney's Office disclosed. Barcelo-Velasquez, if convicted, faces severe penalties including years in federal prison and potentially a $250,000 fine.
In a related case, Maria Mendoza-Mendoza, known as "La Guera," pleaded guilty to Conspiracy to Transport Illegal Aliens for Profit, as confirmed by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Arizona. The admission came after she was accused of leading a smuggling ring that ushered over 100 migrants from Honduras into the U.S. Her operation did not just smuggle individuals but allegedly involved firearms and imposed dangerous conditions on migrants, with the added threat of violence or abandonment for those whose families could not afford the fee.
Joint Task Force Alpha, which targets dangerous human smuggling and trafficking groups, was instrumental in bringing about Mendoza-Mendoza's prosecution. The case sheds light on the grave underworld of human smuggling, where lives are bartered for profit and the law is subverted by those preying on the desperate. Mendoza-Mendoza faces up to a maximum of 10 years in prison for her crimes.
