Four people charged with operating ‘one of the largest human smuggling rings in the nation’
Four men are facing federal charges, accused of smuggling thousands of people into the US from Guatemala in what officials call “one of the largest human smuggling rings in the nation.”
Federal agents are still pursuing one of the four men, who they say threatened to kill an investigative agent and his family as officials served search warrants on Friday.
Acting US Attorney for the Central District of California Joseph T. McNally announced the charges at a Monday news conference in Los Angeles. The organization smuggled around 20,000 people into the country from 2019 to 2024, the indictment states.
“The offenses alleged in the indictment show a criminal group that acted with callous disregard for a nation’s immigration laws and no regard for the immigrants that they smuggled,” McNally said. “They held individuals smuggled hostage for months, threatened them and their family members with violence.”
The four defendants are all undocumented immigrants from Guatemala, the indictment states. They face charges of conspiracy to bring aliens to the United States, transport aliens in the United States, and harbor aliens in the United States for private financial gain and resulting in death; transporting aliens in the United States for private financial gain and resulting in death; hostage taking; and criminal forfeiture. Each faces up to life in prison and the possibility of the death penalty if convicted, according to McNally.
CNN is working to identify if the four defendants have obtained legal representation.
The charges come amid President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration, which has seen ICE raids nationwide and an end to asylum applications at the US-Mexico border, among other measures.
The group’s “ringleader,” Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul, and his “right-hand man” Cristobal Mejia-Chaj, were arrested and arraigned on Friday, said McNally. Both pleaded not guilty.
A third defendant, Helmer Obispo-Hernandez, is a “fugitive” and his whereabouts are currently unknown, said McNally. After federal agents served a search warrant at his home, Obispo-Hernandez allegedly called a Homeland Security officer and threatened to kill that agent along with the agent’s family, according to an affidavit.
A fourth defendant, Jose Paxtor-Oxlaj, is in custody in Oklahoma in connection to a “horrific car crash,” McNally said. Charging documents state Paxtor-Oxlaj “caused a vehicle collision” while transporting undocumented immigrants for the group in 2023. The crash resulted in the deaths of seven passengers in Paxtor-Oxlaj’s vehicle, including that of a 4-year-old child, according to McNally.
The group specialized in smuggling immigrants from Guatemala into the US through Mexico, said McNally. Working with the other defendants, charging documents allege, Renoj-Matul “ accepted payment of between $15,000 and $18,000 for each illegal alien to be smuggled into the United States.”
The immigrants were usually initially transported to Arizona.
“The illegal immigrants, then for an additional fee, were transported and moved to various stash houses throughout the United States, including Los Angeles,” McNally said. “Those who did not pay their fees were held hostage, including at a stash house here in the Westlake District of Los Angeles.”
“Human smuggling is a grave and dangerous endeavor that people who are mostly desperate and looking for a better life engage in,” Dwayne Angebrandt, acting deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles, said at the news conference. “The illegal activity not only endangers their lives of those being struggled, but also national security and public safety.”
An estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants lived in the US as of 2022, according to statistics from the Department of Homeland Security. Authorities encountered over 2 million people at the southwest border in 2024, including asylum-seekers.
Under the Biden administration, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported 271,484 immigrants last fiscal year, marking the highest level of deportations since 2014.
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CNN