Federal authorities have arrested two Guatemalan men conducting a human smuggling operation in California.
Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul and Cristobal Mejia-Chaj may face the death penalty if convicted.
The human smuggling operation is believed to be one of the largest in the United States, with more than 20,000 illegal immigrants across five years. Some of the migrants were held hostage in stash houses if they did not pay fees as high as $15,000 to $18,000, a press release from the Justice Department explains. The release notes that one of the stash houses was located in the Westlake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
According to the indictment, the Renoj-Matul organization has operated for at least a dozen years.
The indictment further claims that Renoj-Matul and Mejia-Chaj threatened to kill two of the hostages unless others paid for their release.
“These smuggling organizations have no regard for human life and their conduct kills,” Acting United States Attorney Joseph T. McNally said in a statement. “Their members pose a danger to the public and law enforcement. We must vigorously enforce our immigration laws so that these organizations cannot operate. The indictment and arrests here have dismantled one of the country’s largest and most dangerous smuggling organizations. This work saves lives, and the members of the organization will now face significant consequences.”
Fourteen others were recently charged for conducting a similar human smuggling operation. The defendants were “responsible for transporting the aliens within the United States and concealing them in ‘stash houses’ along the way” to the southern border. In their efforts to smuggle the illegal immigrants, “defendants allegedly evaded law enforcement by traveling at high rates of speed on the road and instructing aliens how to flee U.S. Border Patrol and evade checkpoints.”
