
Social Media, Human Smugglers Landing Texas Drivers In Jail
Human smugglers and cartels are using social media to trick Texas drivers, usually younger ones, into cat and mouse games with the cops that can end disastrously.
TikTok, Instagram and Snapchat are among the more popular ways that human smugglers are luring Texans into jobs that pay well but that carry a serious risk.
Sometimes, personal contact is made as in the case of a San Antonio man who, in the interest of making a few $$ and impressing a pretty lady, may now rot in jail for 10 years.
Human smuggling makes billions annually and thanks to social media, and a great deal of naivety on the part of youthful Texans, the smugglers have figured out a way to minimize the risk to themselves and get their "cargo" delivered on the (relative) cheap.
These days, Uber, Lyft and similar services are very common. Ordinary, everyday people driving other ordinary people around to make money. That's the game human smugglers are now playing.
They post ads, or directly approach people as in the example above, and offer pretty good money to go pick up someone on this side of the border and drop them off somewhere else, also on this side of the border. Maybe help drive a moving truck, this ploy has different scenarios.
Easy money but those people may not be who you think they are. They could be criminals, they could be human smuggling victims. Either way, if stopped, (whether the driver was in on it or duped into it), he/she is going down.
Texas' human smuggling law has been in the books for a quarter century, but over the last decade the state Legislature has repeatedly broadened it and made the punishment more extreme. People convicted under federal human smuggling law face on average about 15 months in prison. Last year, state lawmakers imposed a mandatory 10-year minimum sentence on anyone convicted under the Texas law. - texastribune
While some question the law as written, it's the law and Texas isn't playing. If you or someone you know got one of these dream offers, do your homework and/or reach out directly to the cops.
As the old saying goes, if something seems too good to be true, it usually isn't.
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Gallery Credit: Mikael Donnovan
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