The Justice Department announced Tuesday that authorities in Brazil arrested three human smugglers who were funneling “scores of individuals from East Africa and the Middle East” into the United States via Brazil.
The Brazil Federal Police raided the “transnational criminal organization” and arrested three “Brazil-based human smugglers on Brazilian charges.” The men include Somalian national Abdifatah Hussein Amed, Abdessalem martini, an Algerian, and Mohsen Khademi Manesh, an Iranian national, according to an official statement.
Major bust of special interest alien migrants announced in Brazil. Smugglers were Somali, Algerian, and Iranian moving migrants from those parts of the world to the U.S. southern border. This counts of as a significant counterterrorism-border security coup. pic.twitter.com/dCiLoLulgK
— Todd Bensman (@BensmanTodd) August 20, 2019
“We commend today’s efforts by our Brazilian counterparts to take decisive action under their recently enacted human smuggling laws against criminal networks that threaten the national security of Brazil, the United States and other nations,” Assistant Attorney General Brian Benczkowski said. “Such collaborative efforts with our foreign law enforcement partners show our collective resolve to hold international human smugglers to account to the fullest extent of the law.”
The investigation was coordinated through the Extraterritorial Criminal Travel Strike Force, which serves the Justice Department, Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions, and ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations. – READ MORE