The arrests last week are part of a larger effort ICE effort to crack down on businesses that make money by exclusively transporting illegal immigrants in the U.S. interior, ICE officials said. Investigators said many of the companies operating in Houston have established relationships with smugglers and pay them a commission for each illegal immigrant they deliver, usually in the range of about $200 to $300.
Some companies targeted in the ICE operation had been operating in Houston for years under as many as five or six different names, periodically closing up shop and moving after their drivers were arrested and charged with smuggling.
The investigation into the management of Super Express Van Company, which resulted in three arrests last week, heated up in 2007, when a Brazilian illegal immigrant flagged down a Houston police officer, saying his wife was being held in a
house on the city’s southeast side.
The man told police the smugglers had threatened to cut his head off and mail it back to Brazil and put his wife into prostitution in the U.S. if he didn’t come up with his $6,000 smuggling fee.
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