At a press conference in Las Cruces, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico Alex Uballez announced the unsealing of an indictment charging eight members of a transnational criminal group known as the Lopez Human Smuggling Organization.
“We come together across districts, across agencies, across borders, to confront an enemy who exploits our reliance on false distinctions to make their millions,” Uballez said.
According to federal investigators, evidence suggests that the organization, which operates in Guatemala, Mexico, and the United States, generated between $104 million and $416 million in illicit profit from their human smuggling activities between September 2020 and April 2023. The U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control announced sanctions against the organization, including the freezing of financial assets.
Uballez said that the multi-state, multi-agency joint task force will continue its work in identifying and targeting transnational criminal organizations that focus on human smuggling.
“I can promise you we will pursue the prosecution vigorously and we’ll also pursue other avenues within this criminal organization and others to bring justice, to bring indictments, to make seizures, and bring extraditions to the United States,” Uballez said.
Officials say that of the eight indicted individuals, two have been arrested, while the leader of the group, Ronaldo Galindo Lopez-Escobar, remains a fugitive.
