Mexican Drug Cartels Now Control the Smuggling of People across the Mexican Border to the USA
A reserve deputy constable in a county on the Texas/Mexico border is accused of helping three illegal aliens sneak into the country in order to pay his gambling debts. The constable, Luis Enrique Guevara, is currently behind bars after being arrested by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).
The arrest happened after Luis Guevara was pulled over by the Robstown Police. The police pulled Guevara over for speeding. When they checked on the 3 people riding in his car, the police learned they were illegal immigrants from Mexico. Shortly after, HSI made the arrest.
Reserve Deputy and Narcotics Investigator
Luis Enrique Guevara has been a reserve deputy with the Cameron County Constables Precint I. He once served as a narcotics investigator for the police department in the nearby city of Los Frenos. When he was first pulled over by the Robstown Police, Constable Guevara flashed his credentials.
The police officer who made the traffic stop said that the three passengers in the car appeared “very nervous”. He began to talk with Guevara, but he soon began to notice inconsistencies in the constable’s story. At that point, the officer called US Border Patrol agents. They soon determined the three passengers were illegal aliens.
Claimed He Had Gambling Debts
Once the HSI investigators had Guevara in custody, their interviews revealed that the constable had a history of gambling debts. Apparently, Guevara is about $25,000 in debt due to his losses in high stakes poker games in Houston. Smuggling people across the border was a quick way for the constable to make money to repay his debts.
Mr. Guevara said in the interview that his brother had a history of working for human smugglers. That brother was the initial contact with the network on the other side of the border who ferry illegal aliens past U.S. Border Patrol checkpoints.
Lost Job Due to Corruption Investigation
Also during the interrogation, which appeared in court documents collected by Breitbart Texas, Luis Guevara had lost his job in Los Fresnos due to investigations into corruption in the city. The mayor of Los Fresnos and several other officials had been investigated for corruption. Since that time, the reserve deputy constable had been unable to get a job in law enforcement.
A search of the public records shows that the city of Los Fresnos and surrounding townships appear to have had corruption or the charges of corruption since the inception of the Internet. Public charges were made in 2000, 2006, 2008, and 2012. In all cases, the charges were made by citizens and not officials, so the people involved might have simply been disgruntled residents, who no doubt exist in all U.S. communities. But most cities don’t have such public accusations made so consistently.
Nazario Solis Case
In 2012, a sheriff’s deputy in another county along the Rio Grand Valley was arrested for corruption. It would seem that the border is a crossroads for graft and corruption.
Several factors combine to make it so. One, the Mexican economy and social setting is damaged, so many people are desperate to leave the country in hopes of better prospects. Two, the United States has tremendous prosperity, especially in comparison to Mexico. Like heat transferring from one surface to another, people are drawn to economic prosperity.
Border Kid Crisis
Three, the human traffickers along the Mexican border are often tied to the Mexican drug cartels and other criminal enterprises. The cartels already have networks for smuggling drugs across the border. Often, the criminals engage in human trafficking to smuggle women into the US, who end up serving as so-called white slaves. And the cartels have the money to bribe officials on both sides of the border, in order to look the other way or even assist in the smuggling operations.
No doubt, the charges against Luis Enrique Guevara are indicative of many smuggling operations along the Rio Grande River. Underground poker rooms are a source of the trouble, as illegal card rooms often allow problem gamblers to run up debts that could not happen in a legal and regulated casino–at least among those without high roller accounts.
