Basin
Three alleged coyoters were arrested early this Wednesday in a joint operation between the Azuay Prosecutor’s Office and the Police.
The suspects are implicated in the deaths of two migrants and the disappearance of another.
The raids were carried out in the Industrial Park sector and the rural parishes of Baños and El Valle. In these places evidence was found such as a revolver, cell phones and deposit slips for values between $500 and $1,800.
The investigation that led to the arrest of the three people, who have been identified as José Fernando PM, Fredy Erasmo MS and Alva Piedad D. Ch., took six months.
During the investigations, it became known about his alleged participation in the transfer of people from Ecuador to Mexico and then to the United States by clandestine steps.
The prosecutor of the specialized human trafficking unit, Luis Fernando Hidalgo, said that one of the victims of this group is a 21-year-old man, whose whereabouts were unknown since last September.
The father of the victim, tired of the explanations and empty justifications of the alleged coyote, filed a complaint with the Prosecutor’s Office until finally one of the three captured was located.
In this case, the authority explained that the young man from Cuenca died from “exposure to high temperatures”, presumably while crossing the Arizona desert.
To this his colleague, Fernando Sánchez, added that so far in 2022 there are five open cases for this alleged crime of human trafficking, which have been pursued for several years.
For example, he mentioned that one of the detainees in the latest raids had been wanted since 2014.
For his part, the prosecutor of Azuay, Leonardo Amoroso, mentioned that many times due to pressure, threats or agreements between the victims and the coyoteros, many complaints are withdrawn and the cases go unpunished. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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