Blood and Money

Four people lay bleeding on the floor of a Phoenix restaurant, gunned down by a human smuggler strung out on methamphetamines, marijuana and booze.

One of the victims later died.

As the gunman made his escape, a witness copied down his license plate number.

That scrap of information led police and federal agents to a Phoenix drop house and helped them build a criminal case against Anastacio Franco-Cabrera, the man they say is at the top of one of the state's most violent human smuggling gangs.

Rosalio Franco-Perez was a driver and drop house operator in the Franco smuggling organization, according to police reports and court records. On the day of the shooting, he and a group of friends were eating at Don Jose's Taqueria on West Camelback Road when they began bickering with strangers at a nearby table.

Franco-Perez went to his car, grabbed his rifle and returned to spray the crowd with bullets. When the shooting stopped, Miguel Mazariegos was mortally wounded with gunshot wounds to his chest and leg. Three others were also hit, but survived.

Human smugglers like the Francos have built sophisticated criminal enterprises generating an estimated $2.5 billion annually through their Arizona operations alone, according to the Arizona Financial Crimes Task Force, a collaboration of federal, state and local police and prosecutors targeting the financial resources of human smugglers.

In recent years, highly structured organizations have squeezed out most of the small-time operators, said Armando Garcia, of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

Working in league with Mexican drug cartels, human smuggling kingpins have set up networks of drivers, warehouse operators, distribution specialists and enforcers to move their loads from northern Sonora through the Valley and to their final destinations throughout the United States, said Garcia, acting assistant special agent in charge at the Phoenix office of investigations at ICE.

The smugglers, or "coyotes," call the immigrants "pollos" - chickens - human cargo without value beyond what it can bring on the open market.

"For a while, I think there was a sense that the coyotes were sort of freedom fighters, that they were one step removed from the humane borders people who provide water and transportation out of the goodness of their hearts," said Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, whose agency has gone after the money generated by human smuggling rings.

 Police and federal immigration agents on the American side of the border acknowledge they don't know much about the inner workings of the human smuggling organizations, particularly about their upper echelons in Mexico.

They don't know how many smuggling gangs are operating in Mexico.

They don't know how many are working in Arizona.

For the most part, they don't know who is at the top.

Though hundreds of people employed in the human smuggling industry have been prosecuted in Arizona - including more than 100 members of the Franco organization - the defendants are typically low-level drivers and drop house guards, the hired help who are usually not part of the core organization and know little or nothing about their bosses or how they operate.

What is known about the structure of human smuggling gangs has been gleaned from the few cases in which law enforcement officials have penetrated the upper echelons of the organization. Recent court cases also depict the tactics sometimes used by smugglers to force immigrants to pay their smuggling fees, tactics that range from threats and beatings to sexual assault and sometimes murder.

A TOUGH ROAD

The human smuggling trail through Arizona begins in places like Altar and nearby Caborca, small Mexican towns about 130 miles southwest of Nogales. Recruiters hired by Mexican traffickers openly troll the bus stops and train stations in northern Sonora, looking for migrants willing to pay the price to be smuggled into the United States. The fee averages about $2,500 per migrant, depending on how far into the United States they want the smugglers to take them.

Those who agree to pay the smugglers' price are put into a network of guides who will sneak them across the border, drivers who will take them to the Valley and later to their final destinations, and drop house operators who will hold them captive until their fees are paid. 

Along the way, the immigrants sometimes fall victim to acts of violence at the hands of the smugglers they look to for survival. Murder, pistol-whipping, sexual assault, kidnapping and extortion are all considered acceptable business practices to those who profit from trafficking in human beings, said Lt. Tim Chung of the Arizona Department of Public Safety.

Chung is part of a multiagency task force with officers from DPS, the Phoenix Police Department and ICE that only investigates violent crimes associated with human smuggling. Since the unit began active operations in December, it has investigated more than 35 drop houses where crimes that include extortion, assault and homicide have occurred.

 Federal immigration agents responded to 163 drop houses in the Valley last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. Of those, 127 were in Phoenix and the West Valley. Another 25 drop houses were in Mesa, eight in Chandler, two in Apache Junction and one in Tempe. 

Even when things go smoothly, human smugglers use threats to keep their loads in line, or ensure smuggling fees are paid on time, Chung said. When things go bad, migrants are frequently singled out for beatings, and sometimes death, as a message to the others that the same fate awaits them if they become unruly or refuse to pay, he said.

"The potential for violence is just astronomical," Chung said. "Women are being sexually assaulted. Men are being pistol-whipped. That happens every day here in Phoenix.

"The human smugglers are treating these people, their human cargo, as livestock."

MEXICAN KINGPINS

Human smuggling rings are organized along the same lines as traditional Mexican drug cartels. The top bosses are based in Mexico, where they operate openly, relatively safe from American police and prosecutors, Garcia said.

The relationship between the human smugglers and the drug cartels is not certain, according to Garcia and other police.

The drug lords are probably not the ones operating the human smuggling networks, said Phoenix police Lt. Vince Piano, who has headed investigations targeting drug and human smugglers.

However, illegal immigrant smugglers likely pay some percentage of their earnings as tribute to the drug cartels in return for being allowed to operate openly in Mexico, said Piano, an assessment shared by Garcia. Human smugglers would need permission to use smuggling routes controlled by drug traffickers, Piano said.

The drug cartels are also likely to be involved in maintaining order, deciding which human smugglers will be allowed to operate in particular towns in Mexico, even on particular plazas and street corners where they can recruit clients, Garcia said.

Many immigrant smugglers likely got their starts in the drug trade, where they gained expertise in moving illegal products across the border, Garcia said.

FAMILY BUSINESS

The Franco organization is a tightly run family business that controls its territory through violence, according to federal court records.

Even family members who get crossways with the organization are not immune, Garcia said.

"The Francos are very violent," he said. "They have no qualms about shooting their own if they think they are stealing from each other. Several times, they have shot each other up, even family members."

Anastacio Franco-Cabrera gained control of the family business when his nephew was gunned down at a Phoenix restaurant in 2002, according to Garcia. Though federal authorities have brought charges against more than 100 people linked to the Franco smuggling organization, Franco-Cabrera is still in business, and is sometimes seen in towns like Altar checking on his operations, Garcia said.

Franco-Cabrera's sons, Rigoberto and Daniel Franco-Aragon, were in charge of the day-to-day operations on the Arizona side of the border, according to court records. They hired the drivers who moved the immigrants up from Mexico, and drop house guards who protected the loads and made sure no one escaped.

Rigoberto, the older son, made his rounds at drop houses where immigrants were being held, keeping track of who had paid their fees and those still owing money to the smugglers.

Daniel often accompanied his older brother, giving orders as to the treatment of the immigrants and helping to collect payments. When Daniel showed up at a drop house, he'd have a pistol stuffed into the waistband of his pants, according to court records. He was 16 years old at the time.

After gunning down four people at the Phoenix restaurant, Rosalio Franco-Perez and his fellow smugglers sped away. A witness wrote down their license plate number, which police tracked to a drop house run by the Franco organization.

When police raided the house, they found 33 illegal immigrants and a few smugglers inside. They also found two rifles, including the one Franco-Perez had used in the restaurant shooting.

The immigrants said they were being held against their will because they had not paid their smuggling fees, and that they had repeatedly been threatened by their captors.

Guards at that house, and others arrested in subsequent drop house raids, told investigators that Anastacio Franco-Cabrera was the head of the smuggling organization.

Rosalio Franco-Perez pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in Maricopa County Superior Court and was sentenced to life in prison.

Federal indictments were also obtained against Franco-Cabrera and his sons. Daniel Franco-Aragon was arrested in Phoenix in 2005. He pleaded guilty to immigrant smuggling charges and the use of a firearm to commit a violent crime, and last year was sentenced to 10 years in prison.his job to arrange drivers and vehicles that would pick the migrants up in southern Arizona and drive them to Valley drop houses, according to the charges. His cut of the $2,500 fee paid by each immigrant was about $650, according to court documents.

Once the immigrants paid their fees, they were either released or moved on to their final destinations in other states.point being made when there's 20 more individuals sitting there."

This is part one of a three part series.