Two alleged leaders of a criminal organization suspected of smuggling 20,000 people without permanent legal residency into the US from Guatemala have been arrested in Los Angeles, federal prosecutors said on Monday.
Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul, known as “Turko”, and his lieutenant, Cristobal Mejia-Chaj, were taken into custody Friday and have pleaded not guilty to multiple charges related to smuggling migrants across the border over five years, the US attorney’s office said. A federal judge ordered the men, who themselves are in the country illegally, jailed without bond until their trial in April.
The indictment names Renoj-Matul as the head of a vast human smuggling ring operating for at least a dozen years that primarily transports people to the US from Guatemala.
The criminal network was responsible for the deaths of seven immigrants without legal status – including a four-year-old child – who were killed in a November 2023 vehicle crash in Oklahoma, prosecutors said.
A driver who has been in custody in Oklahoma since that crash, Jose Paxtor-Oxlaj, was also charged in the California indictment, according to the court documents. Another man, Helmer Obispo-Hernandez, a lieutenant in the organization and a supervisor of a team of drivers, faces charges as well. He is believed to be in Guatemala, officials said.
Attorneys for the four men could not be located on Monday for comment.
Renoj-Matual was assisted by associates in Guatemala who solicited people who each paid between $15,000 and $18,000 to be smuggled to the US through Mexico, prosecutors said.
For an additional fee, the migrants were transported and moved to various destinations in the United States, including Los Angeles and Phoenix. Some of the migrants who were not able to pay the fees were held hostage in a stash house near downtown Los Angeles, according to prosecutors.
“These smuggling organizations have no regard for human life and their conduct kills,” acting US attorney Joseph T McNally said in a statement. “The indictment and arrests here have dismantled one of the country’s largest and most dangerous smuggling organizations.”
If convicted of all charges, the defendants could face a statutory maximum sentence of death or life imprisonment.
