A human smuggling ring led by a woman who goes by the name “Boss Lady” was revealed last year, and they are now facing more changes.
Last September, eight defendants were indicted and charged with human smuggling. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, a federal grand jury in the Southern District of Texas returned a superseding indictment this week charging four defendants in the case with conspiracy to launder money.
“The new charges were filed against Erminia Serrano Piedra, aka Irma, aka Boss Lady, 32, of Elgin, Texas; Oscar Angel Monroy Alcibar, aka Pelon, 40, also of Elgin; Pedro Hairo Abrigo, 34, of Killeen, Texas; and Juan Diego Martinez-Rodriguez, aka Gavilan, 38, of Dale, Texas,” said the DOJ. Other defendants include (ages as of September 2022) Kevin Daniel Nuber aka Captain, 41; Laura Nuber aka Barbie, 40; Lloyd Bexley, 51; Jeremy Dickens, 45; Katie Ann Garcia aka Guera, 39; Oliveria Piedra-Campuzana, 53.
Defendants named in the superseding indictment allegedly “conspired to engage in financial transactions designed to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, and control of ill-gotten proceeds of illicit human smuggling and the unlawful harboring and transportation of undocumented aliens,” through a system that included using straw persons to accept human smuggling proceeds and other methods of concealment.
For example, “defendants allegedly recruited individuals to accept human smuggling proceeds in the form of cash in exchange for checks from the recruited individuals’ business bank accounts,” the DOJ said. Overall, the criminal forfeiture of three properties with values estimated at approximately $2.275 million, $515,000, and $344,000, as well as money judgments amounting to at least $2,945,027.
Per the DOJ, the previous indictment “resulted in the arrests of 14 alleged human smugglers alleged to be members of a human smuggling organization led by Piedra,” that trafficked humans from Mexico, Guatemala, and Colombia. Family members of the smuggled migrants allegedly paid members of the organization to help them travel unlawfully to and within the U.S.
Data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics indicates that human trafficking arrests have been on the rise in recent years. It said the number of persons prosecuted for human trafficking increased 84% from 729 in 2011 to 1,343 in 2020.
“According to the indictment, the human smuggling organization used drivers to pick up migrants near the U.S.-Mexico border and transport them into the interior of the United States, often harboring them at ‘stash houses’ along the way in locations such as Laredo and Austin, Texas,” the DOJ explained. “Drivers for the human smuggling organization allegedly hid migrants in suitcases placed in pickup trucks and crammed migrants in the back of tractor-trailers, covered beds of pickup trucks, repurposed water tankers, and wooden crates strapped to flatbed trailers.”
As noted by the DOJ, these methods put the migrants’ lives in danger. They were often in enclosed spaces without ventilation and driven at high speeds with no safety devices.
“An indictment is merely an allegation,” said the DOJ of the charges. “All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.”
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