Another Guatemalan smuggling ring busted, this time in Ohio

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

Another Guatemalan human smuggling ring has been busted, this time in Ohio.

In this case, three Guatemalan nationals, all illegally in the country, were indicted in connection to an international smuggling ring of unaccompanied alien children (UACs) and defrauding the government.

UACs are minors trafficked to the U.S. border and smuggled into the U.S. under the guise of reuniting with family. In reality, many have been trafficked through a complex network run by transnational criminal organizations. Once UACs arrive in the U.S., federal law requires that their oversight and care be administered by the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families.

The Cleveland, Ohio, smuggling conspiracy occurred between December 2020 and October 2023, prosecutors allege, facilitated through the submission of multiple fraudulent sponsorship applications to ORR to illegally gain custody of UACs. Multiple UAC sponsorship applications were submitted using aliases’ birth certificates and Guatemalan consular ID cards and falsely claiming to be UACs’ close relatives to obtain custody, according to the charges. Successful applications result in sponsors receiving funds from the federal government. Those facilitating the scheme received taxpayer money, according to the charges.

Charges include conspiring to defraud the United States, harboring aliens, and encouraging and inducing illegal foreign nationals to illegally enter the U.S., making false, fictitious, or fraudulent statements, and aggravated identity theft. If convicted, they face up to decades in prison.

“We will not tolerate criminals that use deceptive and fraudulent practices to deliberately abuse our immigration programs for their financial gain,” U.S. Attorney David Toepfer for the Northern District of Ohio said. “If your business plan is to smuggle others into our country for a profit – especially children – you will come face to face with a federal judge for violating our country’s laws. We owe a debt of gratitude to the federal investigators who brought this dark truth to light taking place right here in Northern Ohio. We will aggressively prosecute these alleged crimes and bring those responsible for such actions to justice.”

In another Ohio case, a Guatemalan national pleaded guilty to arranging for a 14-year-old girl to be smuggled into the U.S. using a coyote, instructing her to use his sister’s name and birth certificate so he could falsely claim on his ORR application he was her brother. ORR didn’t vet the information and his application was approved. After he received custody, he sexually assaulted her. He was prosecuted and convicted of sexual battery and is serving two consecutive 4-year sentences in Ohio. He also pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges, making false statements on his application and aggravated identity theft.

Under the Biden administration, ORR often placed UACs with unvetted sponsors, background checks weren’t performed, UACs were released to alleged gang members, human traffickers, non-family members and sent to non-residential addresses, federal inspector general audits and a Florida grand jury found, The Center Square reported.

On Thursday, Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said the DOJ had identified more than 475,000 UACs smuggled into the U.S. during the Biden administration. The Trump administration has found 176,000 of them; 300,000 remain unaccounted for; there are more than 15,500 illegal sponsor cases being prosecuted, The Center Square reported.

For decades, Guatemalan human smuggling operations have profited hundreds of millions of dollars from illegally transporting people into the United States. Once in the U.S., they facilitate human trafficking, a crime of exploitation for profit. Human smuggling and trafficking are two separate but linked crimes.

In 2024, the U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico prosecuted one of the largest Guatemalan human smuggling cases in U.S. history at the time against eight leaders of the Guatemala-based Lopez Human Smuggling Organization. Members were arrested in California, Arizona and Florida in a coordinated, multistate enforcement operation.

The organization reportedly generated between $104 million and $416 million in illicit proceeds from human smuggling operations between September 2020 and April 2023, The Center Square reported. By 2025, nine of the 10 Lopez crime family members had pleaded guilty and received light sentences. One family member remains a fugitive.

By 2024, nearly one million Guatemalans had illegally entered the U.S. primarily through the southwest border during the Biden administration, The Center Square exclusively reported. Midwestern states like Nebraska were grappling with increased border crimes: Guatemalans were being prosecuted for identity theft, stealing from Americans to work in meat processing plants, The Center Square reported.

By 2025, thousands of foreign nationals were being prosecuted in Tennessee for a range of border crimes, including nearly 600 Guatemalans arrested in just a three-month period.

In California and Arizona, four Guatemalan human smuggling ringleaders were indicted on multiple counts for orchestrating what law enforcement said was one of the largest human smuggling organizations in America.

Their operation reportedly smuggled roughly 20,000 Guatemalans into the U.S. over a period of five years. Overall, the smuggling operation was active for roughly 12 years nationwide, The Center Square reported.

In February, another Guatemalan smuggling ring was busted in Idaho. In this case, smuggled and trafficked UACs were subjected to forced physical labor, The Center Square reported.