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Thread ID: 11073 | Posts: 1 | Started: 2003-11-14
2003-11-14 09:18 | User Profile
MEXICO CITY (AP) - A former Mexican consul to Lebanon has been arrested on charges of helping a smuggling ring move Arab migrants into the United States from Mexico, federal agents said Thursday. Imelda Ortiz, detained late Wednesday in Mexico City, is the fourth alleged member of the ring captured in three days.
Reforma newspaper quoted a federal investigator as saying that agents did not have any knowledge of links between the alleged smuggling ring and terrorists. Attorney General spokeswoman Elizabeth Juarez said she could neither confirm nor deny the report.
Mexican authorities have worked closely with their U.S. counterparts to tighten border security in the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Since then, there has been no evidence of any terrorists successfully entering the United States from Mexico.
Ortiz, a 25-year foreign service employee, was fired in May after 150 Mexican passports were stolen and two others were found to have been issued irregularly at a Mexico City consular office, the Foreign Relations Department said.
A criminal complaint was filed against her in that case, which is still pending and unrelated to her detention as an alleged collaborator of the smuggling ring, the department said.
In 2002, Ortiz became head of the Mexico City consular office where the passports were discovered missing. She served in the passport section in another Mexico City office from December 2001 to July 2002, and from May 1998 to October 2001 was head of the consular section in Lebanon.
On Monday and Tuesday, federal agents arrested alleged ring leader Salim Boughader Mucharrafille along with alleged collaborators Melissa Ataja Valdez and Orlando Alfaro, in the border city of Tijuana.
Boughader Mucharrafille made contact with interested migrants, accompanied them to the U.S. border, arranged the crossings, and negotiated payment for the service, the Attorney General's office said in a news release.
Boughader Mucharrafille, whom authorities identified as being of "Arab origin," was sentenced to a year in prison in the United States last year after being convicted of smuggling 200 illegal Lebanese migrants across the border, the authorities said.
Alfaro was deported by the United States for being there illegally, then arrested by Mexican agents after he crossed the border.
[url]http://www.modbee.com/state_wire/story/7731782p-8633732c.html[/url]