[NYTr] Gangs smuggling Cubans into US via Mexico route

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

The Washington Post - Aug 1, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/01/AR2007080101617.html

Gangs smuggling Cubans into US via Mexico route

The vast majority of Cubans sneaking off the island now enter the US
through Mexico after US relatives pay thousands of dollars to organized
crime networks that scoop them off Cuba's westernmost tip in souped-up
speedboats.

The Mexico route is more dangerous than a direct, 145km voyage from
Cuba to Florida, but there is less chance the US Coast Guard will
intervene. Nearly 90 percent of all undocumented Cubans who make it to
the US now come overland rather than reaching US shores by boat, US
Customs and Border Protection say. 

 From the Mexican coast, Cubans then travel up to the US border, where
unlike other undocumented migrants, they are welcomed in under US law. 

Mexico, already struggling against organized crime, is paying the price
for the migration shift, especially in Cancun, the nation's glittering
Caribbean getaway. On Monday, investigators there found the body of a
Cuban-American from Miami, Luis Lazaro Lara Morejon, handcuffed and
with duct tape over his eyes. He had been shot 10 times, obliterating
his face. 

Days earlier, authorities had arrested at least eight people on
suspicion of smuggling Cubans to Mexico, including six Cubans with US
residency or citizenship who had just been interviewed by US
authorities. Lara had connections to the suspects, Mexican officials
say. 

"These gangs are well-organized, well-financed and very powerful," said
Senator Carlos Navarrete, who was among a group of Mexican lawmakers who
came to Havana to discuss the issue with Cuban lawmakers in June. "They
are a very serious problem for both governments -- Cuba and Mexico." 

Some 9,296 Cubans arrived in the US from Mexico between Oct. 1 and July
22, more than double the 4,589 who crossed or were picked up by the
Coast Guard in the Florida Straits during the same period.