A human smuggler in southern Arizona was sentenced for transporting and harboring more than 100 individuals after an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations.
"Co-conspirator Sergio Vazquez-Flores, 46, who operated the stash house on behalf of Gonzalez-Lara, will be sentenced on March 15," ICE officials said in a release.
Some individual co-conspirators have already been sentenced. Amalia Gonzalez-Lara was sentenced to 21 months in federal prison to be followed by three years of supervised release for her role in the human-smuggling campaign, ICE said. She pled guilty to a count of conspiring to transport and harbor over 100 illegal aliens for her own personal profit.
The illegal aliens being harbored were initially found on Jan. 12, 2021, ICE said. Gonzalez-Lara took the lead in managing, supervising and coordinating the planning of smuggling operations at a stash house located in Avondale, Ariz. She initially pled guilty on Nov. 18, 2021.
A U.S. District Attorney for Tucson took on the duties of the prosecution. The larger was investigation was carried out by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). HSI is a directorate of ICE and they are both under the banner of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. HSI operates in 220 cities in the U.S. and 53 countries.
