Assistant AG warns migrant smuggling morphs into human trafficking
Forty migrants. Two captains. October 21, 2023. The boat left San Andrés and never came back.
Summary
- Fox News reports Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 41, also known as El Calvo, pleaded guilty in federal court in El Paso after extradition from Colombia for a smuggling conspiracy that used bribery and maritime routes.
- Prosecutors said a boat left Colombia's San Andrés Island for Nicaragua on October 21, 2023, carrying about 40 migrants and two captains. It never arrived. No one aboard has been seen or heard from since.
- Assistant Attorney General Tysen Duva, who leads the Justice Department's Criminal Division, told Fox the 40 individuals and two captains were never heard from again, are missing and presumed dead, and that there appear to have been no survivors.
- DOJ said Linero Pinto advised migrants on reaching San Andrés, received them, arranged lodging, and moved them to boats for Nicaragua, with the intended path through Central America and Mexico into the United States illegally. Duva said cartels treat people as commodities: it is all about money.
Commentary
A Gulf dad still tastes salt on a night shift and knows a boat is supposed to mean a harbor, not a grave with no marker. He did not pay the levy so a San Andrés run could sell 42 souls as cargo.
October 21. Forty plus two. El Paso after a Colombian extradition. The honest household already bought the Coast Guard overtime. The cold rain on that dock still hits.
Look every working father who still waits on a lawful petition in the eye and answer this: if a smuggler already sold a boat that never landed, who still owns the next San Andrés file a catch-and-release desk left open?
Comments
Linero Pinto. El Calvo. Oct. 21, 2023. Keep the three.
I stood a watch so a crossing still meant a living name. A vanished boat is not a lane.
40 migrants. 2 captains. El Paso plea. Print the three.
Allied coasts still treat a smuggler as a trafficker, not a travel agent.
Advise. Receive. Lodge. Load the boat. File the four steps DOJ named.
I still smell diesel at 2 a.m. I want the next captain in a cell, not a rumor.
A missing boat is not compassion. It is a warning the water already paid.
A San Andrés run is a second border around every Texas ranch road.
Fox printed Duva and the presumed-dead count. Argue those nouns.
Break the route. Charge the money. A vanished boat is not a souvenir.
