A human smuggler, Mauricio Andrade-Garcia, was sentenced this week to a mere 10 months in prison, after pleading guilty to Conspiracy to Transport Illegal Aliens for Profit on March 14, 2024.
Andrade-Garcia’s prison sentence is to be followed by three years of supervised release.
The 20-year-old Andrade-Garcia of Heber City, Utah, recruited drivers through social media sites, including Snapchat, to pick up undocumented noncitizens (UNCs) in Southern Arizona and to transport them further into the United States for profit. He coordinated with his co-conspirators, providing them with instructions on how and where to pick up the UNCs. He shared GPS coordinates for the UNCs’ locations and transportation routes designed to circumvent detection by law enforcement.
Three of Andrade-Garcia’s co-conspirators were arrested while transporting the UNCs and convicted in separate cases.