SMUGGLING RING CRACKED

  • Share
  • Read Later
: Clinton administration officials are crediting international cooperation with the breakup of an alien smuggling ring and the arrest of one of its leaders. Earlier this month, forty-year-old Gloria Canales of Costa Rica was arrested in Ecuador on charges of smuggling, bribery, falsification of documents and homicide, said an official with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Officials said that the Canales ring smuggled at least 10,000 people a year into the U.S. through Central America, many of them Chinese and Indians, for fees of up to $6,000 apiece. In February,the State and Justice Departments set up a cooperative plan with intelliegence "assets" in Rome, Mexico City, Bangkok and other locations to crack the ring. Canales was deported to Honduras on December 12. U.S. officials requested that Canales be sent to Honduras because it is the only Central American country in which smuggling humans is a crime.