Two American teenagers were arrested in Arizona on Friday for allegedly smuggling migrants across the US-Mexico border, the Cochise County Sheriff’s office said in a Facebook post.
The Cochise County Sheriff’s office reported that five undocumented migrants were allegedly discovered in the vehicle of Eli LaClaire, 19, and Landon Vert, 18. They were booked on human smuggling charges while the migrants were turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol, according to the post.
Cartels are reportedly using social media platforms like WhatsApp and TikTok to recruit young Americans, including teenagers, for smuggling activities, according to the New York Post. Authorities say that people from various states, including Georgia, New York, Washington State, Virginia, and Florida, have been drawn into these operations. (RELATED: Human Trafficker Says Cartels Harvest Children’s Organs And Stuff Drugs In Their Corpses: REPORT)
The recruitment strategy reportedly focuses on the promise of easy money, with cartels offering up to $3,000 per individual, Cochise Country Sheriff’s office representative Carol Kapas told the outlet. “We have arrested people, one male subject in particular, who made half a million dollars on smuggling before he was caught, according to him,” she noted.
Kapas added that hundreds of Americans, as young as 13, have been caught since October 2021 in alleged smuggling activities linked to cartel recruitment, the NY Post reported. The cartels reportedly charge migrants $10,000, offering them up to three attempts to cross the border.
Officials are concerned that cartels are targeting underage Americans as they are less likely to face full prosecution in some border states. To address the issue, Arizona law enforcement initiated Operation Safe Streets in March 2022, which aims to make prosecution of juveniles easier for smuggling crimes, the New York Post reported.