Two foreign nat'ls held for human trafficking

WASHINGTON (CMC):

United States law-enforcement officials say two foreign nationals had been jailed in Texas for smuggling humans into the United States using the Caribbean.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Indian national Kaushik Jayantibhai Thakkar and Brazilian Fabiano Augusto Amorim were each sentenced to 36 months in jail for their roles in smuggling undocumented migrants to the United States for private financial gain.

In addition to their prison terms, Thakkar, 33, and Amorim, 28, will serve two years of supervised release.

Both men pleaded guilty to "one count of conspiracy to bring undocumented migrants into the United States for profit and to one count of unlawfully bringing two undocumented migrants into the United States for profit".

According to court documents, Thakkar and Amorim worked together and with other co-conspirators to smuggle individuals from India into the United States using the Caribbean as well as South and Central America.

The court was told that to support their activities, Thakkar and others recruited individuals in India who were willing to pay up to US$60,000 to be smuggled into the United States.

For their smuggling operations, Thakkar and Amorim and their associates used a network of co-conspirators in South America, Central America, the Caribbean and the United States, including the state of Texas.