Carlos Santana, Alien Smuggling, New York 2024

Carlos Santana, Jorge Vasquez-Ramirez, and eight others are facing federal charges in a sprawling alien smuggling operation that funneled undocumented immigrants from the Mexico-U.S. border into New York City. Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, unsealed an indictment and complaint today accusing the 10 defendants of conspiracy to conceal, harbor, and transport illegal aliens in deliberate disregard of U.S. immigration law.

The operation, active from June 2015 through October 2016, relied on a network of operatives who arranged transportation, rented vehicles, booked hotel stays, and shuttled cash across state lines. Maria del Carmen Vasquez, Juan Jose Jimenez Bravo, Mayte Zuniga Bracho, Enardys Fernandez, Jorge Gonzalez, and Elsa Guadalupe Duran allegedly coordinated movements from Texas into the Southern District of New York. Some defendants attempted to move aliens across the U.S.-Mexico border directly into Texas before advancing them north.

Seven defendants were arrested today—six in Texas, one in Brooklyn. Carlos Santana was taken into custody in Brooklyn and will appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel W. Gorenstein. The six Texas arrests will face initial arraignment in the Southern and Western Districts of Texas. Three defendants, including Luis Batista Casola and Yoendris Batista Matos, remain at large.

In a parallel complaint, Batista Casola and Batista Matos are accused of accepting payment from aliens in exchange for arranging transport from Texas to New York City and other U.S. destinations. Their case, United States v. Luis Batista Casola et al., mirrors the broader conspiracy outlined in United States v. Maria del Carmen Vasquez et al., 16 Cr. 708.

Each defendant faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison—a penalty set by Congress and subject to judicial discretion at sentencing. The charges carry no mandatory minimum, but prosecutors emphasize the organized, profit-driven nature of the scheme. HSI’s New York Field Office, led by Special Agent in Charge Angel M. Melendez, spearheaded the investigation with support from field offices in Laredo, McAllen, San Antonio, and Austin.

Collaboration extended overseas, with U.S. authorities crediting the Procuraduría General de la República and the National Police’s Transnational Criminal Investigative Units in the Dominican Republic and Mexico. The DOJ also thanked Customs and Border Patrol, DHS Joint Task Force – Investigations, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices in Texas. The case is being prosecuted by the Narcotics Unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.