Feds Unseal Fifth Indictment In Jurado Smuggling Ring

By ABC-7 I-Team Investigator Martin Bartlett

EL PASO, Texas – A Federal Judge has unsealed a fifth indictment in connection with the Jurado Human Smuggling Organization which allegedly used houses, including one owned by a U.S. Border Patrol Agent, to smuggle close to a hundred people illegally into the United States from Mexico.

A warrant for the arrest Jorge Eloy Jurado-Nevarrez was issued on April 23.

Typically sealed indictments are unsealed after their subject has been arrested. Calls to federal law enforcement officials concerning the status of Jurado-Nevarrez were not immediately returned.

Border Patrol Agent Jesus Miguel Huizar, Emeterio Sigala-Favela and Luis Carlos Chacon-Rubio, both Mexican nationals, were arrested last week and each charged with one count of human smuggling and one count of money laundering in the case.

Agents busted 46-year-old Rosa Isela Escajeda at her home on Monday.

According to an indictment that home was also used as a stash house.

The highly-sophisticated network of stash-houses and bypassed-checkpoints that allegedly ushered immigrants illegally into the United States through the deserts of Southern Dona Ana and Eastern El Paso Counties. Officials with direct knowledge of the investigation say the Jurado Organization also provided faked documents to some immigrants allowing them to pass through area ports of entry.

“This alien smuggling organization was very well-organized,” said ICE Public Affairs Officer Leticia Zamarripa. “There were players participating in the conspiracy that had a particular role in the network; Ms. Escajeda’s role included transport and harboring illegal aliens in her home.”