Feds target Snapchat smugglers in wave of arrests

The Snapchat post must have seemed too good to be true: up to $20,000 in quick cash, just for “a few hours of driving.”

Authorities say Ramon Moreno-Lopez meant it. He was in the migrant-smuggling business and was looking for drivers to help get the migrants from the border deeper into the U.S., where they would spread out and head to their final destinations.

Prosecutors in Arizona last week announced an indictment against Mr. Moreno-Lopez charging him with alien smuggling, part of a broader takedown that has netted nearly two dozen people using social media to sneak in illegal immigrants.

Authorities pored over cellphone data and social media accounts to sniff out 22 people, including Mr. Moreno-Lopez, whom they have charged with being Snapchat smugglers.

The recruiting ads are particularly successful with minors, who are told they will be released if caught because the feds usually don’t bother making cases against juveniles.

“Many of the posts claim drivers can make large sums of money without the risk of being arrested,” the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona said in announcing the slate of charges.

The U.S. attorney declined to say more about what led to the effort against social media smugglers, but The Washington Times has tracked the issue for several years and found that Arizona seems a particular hotbed for a tool used all along the border.

In 2021, The Times reviewed a sample of 25 criminal smuggling cases filed in Arizona and found that Border Patrol agents noted the use of smartphones and apps in 68% of them.

In about half of the cases, smugglers directed migrants through use of phones, sending pin-drop locations to rendezvous with drivers to be sneaked deeper into the country.

The way smuggling usually runs is someone recruits drivers and coordinates between them and the migrants. They are increasingly relying on social media platforms.

The Times has seen evidence of recruiting on Snapchat, Facebook, Telegram, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Craigslist and WhatsApp.

When it comes to directing the drivers or connecting them with the migrants, WhatsApp is far and away the most prominent choice.

Recruiting ads can reach deep into the country. Border Patrol agents encountered drivers who said they were flown in from out of state specifically to make money by smuggling people.

Authorities said Mr. Moreno-Lopez, posting under the account @econosido, said drivers could make “$3k-$20k in a few hours of driving or sending me a person who can drive.”

“I tell ya what u have to do I guide u the whole process everything is secure I stay on the phone w u the whole time,” said one Snapchat post, peppered with a plethora of emojis and accompanied by a photo of stacks of $100 bills.

Investigators said Mr. Moreno-Lopez is an illegal immigrant from Mexico. He applied for and won a deportation amnesty under the Obama-era DACA program.

He was under DACA protection at the time of his arrest.

Mr. Moreno-Lopez had other strikes against him.

Authorities searched his home and said they found a Glock handgun that had been modified with a “Glock switch,” a device that turns a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun.

Illegal immigrants are generally barred from possessing weapons.

Prosecutors included social media posts of photos that they said showed Mr. Moreno-Lopez with weapons in a court filing asking a magistrate judge to refuse bail. The judge agreed, saying Mr. Moreno-Lopez is too much of a flight risk as an illegal immigrant with ties in Mexico.

An attorney for Mr. Moreno-Lopez declined to comment at this stage of the case.

Even as social media has greased the smugglers’ operations, it has also created new ways for authorities to make cases.

When making arrests Border Patrol agents regularly ask to go through smuggling suspects’ phones and often find evidence in the form of conversations, phone logs and maps with pindrops showing smuggling locations.

Smuggling organizers are wise to that, though, and will order drivers to wipe the contents if they are about to be arrested.

One agent even overheard that conversation go down after making a stop in Texas, where the car’s Bluetooth system was carrying the audio of the ongoing conversation with the coordinator.

“Hurry up and hang up the phone and delete everything!” the agent heard the coordinator say.

The driver first claimed she was acting as a good Samaritan but later admitted she was smuggling to Houston in exchange for a $4,000 payment. She then showed agents her WhatsApp application with pin drops showing drop-off and pickup locations.

Minerva Morales, the driver, told agents it was her third time being caught.

Morales would be sentenced to a year and a day in prison, followed by two years of supervised release.