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From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Sat Apr 16 2011 - 11:24:57 EDT
Colombian authorities capture 13 human trafficking suspects .
Friday, 15 April 2011 09:25 Marguerite Cawley
Colombian immigration authorities have captured 13 people suspected to be
part of a network that traffics immigrants throughout Colombia, *newspaper
El Espectador reported Thursday*.
Director of DAS Felipe Muņoz said that the organization took at least 150
migrants from Nepal, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Somalia and India* *across the
border with Ecuador using motorcycles and public vehicles, taking people one
by one in order not to arouse suspicion.
According to Muņoz, the immigrants were carried from the border to the
Colombian metropolises of *Medellin*, *Cali* and *Bogota* in small buses,
and "often the foreigners had to travel in the cargo holds of the vehicles
in order to pass unseen by the rest of the passengers." Muņoz added that the
organization created false migration documents in order to make it appear as
though the immigrants had crossed the border legally.
Authorities established that the immigrants ended up living in hotels and
houses in Medellin, from where they were flown to San Andres, a Colombian
island off the Nicaraguan coast, and then transported on to Central America,
with the United States as a final destination.
For this journey, the network allegedly charged the immigrants between
$4,000-$5,000, according to authorities.
Among those arrested during operation "Travesia Africana," was a former DAS
employee who became a member of the trafficking organization
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