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Thursday, March 28, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Brutal Smuggling Ring Members Get 10 Years

(CN) - Several members of a brutal human-smuggling ring based in Mexico will serve 10 years apiece in prison, a federal judge in Phoenix ruled.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents busted a drop house in late January where some 21 undocumented migrants were being held hostage in violent and unsanitary conditions, according to court filings.

The victims said that their shoes had been taken and that they had been kept under guard in the house with only a bucket to use as a bathroom.

They were also allegedly regularly threatened with weapons and beaten.

One victim said that he was hung in a closet by his wrists and ankles for two to three hours.

The agents had received a tip from an unknown Spanish-speaking man in California, who claimed his brothers and a cousin were being held in the house and that the smugglers were demanding $10,000 to set them free.

Authorities arrested Uriel Parra-Lerma, 25; Juan Jose Parra-Labrador, 24; Sergio Sarabia-Sarabia, 25; and Felipe Sarabia-Labrador, 43; all of whom were in the country illegally. They each pleaded guilty to conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens.

In his plea agreement, Parra-Lerma admitted to beating the captives and whipping them with a cable cord, and to threatening them with knives and a gun to get them to pay their smuggling fee.

Stating that the defendants had "dehumanized their victims" and attempted to profit from "trafficking in human misery," U.S. District Judge James Teilborg sentenced Parra-Lerma, Parra-Labrador and Sarabia-Sarabia each to 10 years in federal prison, the maximum allowed for the charge.

Teilborg sentenced Sarabia-Labrador to nine years behind bars.

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