Mexican-based human smuggling rings have been busted in multiple states. One involved smuggling hundreds of people from Central America, Africa and the Middle East into Arizona; another involved holding hostage foreign nationals in a ransom scheme where they were killed. Another involved a $200 million forced labor scheme on U.S. farms.

California-Mexico hostage taking and murder

In California, San Diego resident Isaac Jimenez pleaded guilty to a transnational human smuggling conspiracy in which foreign nationals were held hostage in Mexico, families paid “tens of thousands of dollars in vain” in ransom payments only for their loved ones to “never to be seen again.”

“In at least two cases, the victims – a father of four U.S. citizen children and a young woman from Tijuana – disappeared after their families made multiple ransom payments to secure their freedom,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of California announced.

In one case in September 2024, he “personally collected $15,000 in ransom payments from the U.S. citizen wife of the father of four who was being held against his will in Mexico by the smuggling organization,” and transported and delivered the money to coconspirators in Mexico. After ransom demands were met, more demands were made. Once the family couldn’t pay any more, communication was cut off, and the man is believed to have been killed, according to the complaint.

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