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Star Member Nevilledog (32,867 posts)Inside a Massive Human Smuggling Ring Led by US Marineshttps://www.vice.com/en/article/bvn5z3/camp-pendleton-marines-migrant-human-smugglingByron Law knew what he was doing was illegal. But the money was too good to pass up. On the morning of July 3, 2019, the 20-year-old and his friend headed out for another run in Law’s black BMW, eager to make some extra cash before the long holiday weekend. With any luck, they’d be finished by lunch.Law pulled onto a dirt patch on the side of the highway about seven miles north of the U.S.–Mexico border. Somewhere in the vast expanse of sand, shrubs, and granite rock, two men and a woman emerged from their hiding spot, ran down the hill, and hopped into the backseat of Law’s car. They each carried a backpack. Their shoes were covered in grass and dirt.For the hundreds of migrants crossing into the U.S. without permission each day, the border itself is just the beginning: Next are a hundred miles of checkpoints on roads and highways that stretch well into the interior of Texas, Arizona, and California. To reach their destination, migrants rely on smugglers hiding them along the way, inside of dump trucks, tractor trailers, even coffins, to evade detection.But Law and his friend weren’t just any smugglers. They were U.S. Marines, sworn to uphold the values and laws of the U.S.Law was one of more than a dozen Marines in the 1st Marine Division at Camp Pendleton who started smuggling migrants into the U.S. in the spring and summer of 2019—even while thousands of their fellow Marines were deployed to the border to shore up security. At their peak, according to court records, they were going on multiple runs a week, coordinating among themselves to see who was free to go, and making excuses to get out of training exercises in order to make a few hundred dollars.*snip*
