Smugglers who char💛ge migrants thousands to slip into the US from Mexico are increasingly holding them for ransom — as much as $10,000 — once they cross the border, according to federal authorities.
In the past week, the FBI rescued 24 migrant victims of extortion from stash houses “living in deplorable conditions,” Jeffrey Downey, the FBI’s special agent in charge in El Paso, told The Post. The bureau also made two related arrests in the El Paso area.
Since February, the FBI, working with Border Patrol agents, have rescued 88 migrants caught up in extortion rackets and being held captive in “stash houses” near El Paso, Texas: squalid, often abandoned buildings where human traffickers cram dozens of people in “life-threatening” conditions.
During the previous year, the FBI had documented no instances🐭 of such extortion in⭕ the region, said Downey.
“They have already paid upfront to cross the border,” Downey said of the new trend. “And then once they get here, they are assaulted and held in life-threatening situations.”
Photos from the crowded stash houses, provided to The Post by the FBI as well as US Customs and Border Patrol, show groups of migrants, sometimes shirtless and shoeless, sitting and sleeping on the dirty floors or bare mattres🦄ses andও surrounded by trash including empty food containers.
At the♋ stash houses set up by criminal groups, migrants are held for days, often without running water or air conditioning in areas where summer temperatures rise past 100 degrees Fahrenheit, Downey added. In one instance, imprisoned migrants were forced to drink water from a bathtub.
In addition to dehydration and heat stroke, they are often subject to both physical and mental abuse, and the women are threatened with rape if their relatives don’t pay up, Downey said.
Migrants who are victims of extortion in the US arܫe typically🐼 released only after family members pay between $3,000 and $10,000, Downey told The Post Tuesday. This is in addition to the cash — often $10,000 per person — they have already forked over to cartel coyotes to transport them safely through Mexico and across the border.
Downey said his office is increasi൩ngly getting calls from desperate family members.▨
“The FBI gets involved because they are victims of crime regardless of their immigration status,” Downey said.
And while stash houses have been around for the last few years, migrant kidnappings are among the latest terror tactics used by human traffickers — or “coyotes” — who are raking in billions from the flight of desperate migrants to the southern US border, he said.
There were more than 239,000 migrant encounters across the nearly 2,000-mile southern border with Mexico in May — the highest month ಞon record, according to US Customs and Border Protection. The number for fiscal year 2022 has already topped 1.5 million, according to CBP statistics.
Often, immigrants who arrive 🌸illegally are afraid to speak to authorities ev🥀en if they have been the victims of crime, he said.
“We focus on the victims of kidnapping for ransom, and the hardest thing is getting victims to come forward, ” he said. “Our focus is not on their immigration status but on whether they are a victim of a violent crime.”
Last month, 53 migrants being smuggled into the country died in a sealed tracto⛦r-trailer in San Antonio as t𒐪emperatures rose to more than 103 degrees.
“So if the migrants do not get killed by rival drug cartels in northern Mexico, and survive the dangerous desert, mountains or rivers crossing the border, they can look forward to being held for ransom and extortion in a squalid stash house after they have paid their smuggling fee to these ruthless criminal smuggling organizations,” said Landon Hutchens, a spokesman for US Customs and Border Protection, Office of Public Affairs in El Paso.
Dܫowney said the FBI is w👍orking closely with Border Patrol agents, who refer cases of extortion to the agency for investigation. Last year, the Department of Homeland Security estimated that cartels are earning up to just from human smuggling operations.
The smugglers have networks on both sides of the border, and involve both US and Mexican criminals, Dow🥀ney said. Since February, Downey said, the FBI has arrested 15 people involved in extorting migrants for ransom. Due to ongoing investigations, he said he could not reveal the identities of the cartels that are behind the recent wave of extortions.
Downey added that the FBI is urging both migrants a൩nd their family🎃 members to call the FBI (1-800-Call-FBI) and report a crime as soon as they feel they have been the victims of extortion.
“Time is of the essence because if they don’t get killed by the traffickers, they’ll die in the environment they’re in,” he said.
