The Snapchat post must have seemed too good to be true: Up to $20,000 in quick cash, just for “a few hours of driving.”
But authorities say Ramon Moreno-Lopez meant it. He was in the migrant-smuggling business and he was looking for drivers to help get the migrants from the border deeper into the country, where they would spread out and head to their final destinations.
Prosecutors in Arizona last week announced an indictment against Mr. Moreno-Lopez charging him with alien smuggling, part of a broader takedown that has netted nearly two dozen people involved with using social media to sneak in illegal immigrants.
Authorities pored over cellphone data and social media accounts to sniff out 22 people, including Mr. Moreno-Lopez, whom they have charged with being Snapchat smugglers.
The recruiting ads are particularly successful with minors, who are told that even if they’re caught they’ll be released because the feds usually don’t bother making cases against juveniles.
“Many of the posts claim drivers can make large sums of money without the risk of being arrested,” the U.S. attorney’s office in Arizona said in announcing the slate of charges.
The U.S. attorney declined to say more about what led to the effort against social-media smugglers, but The Washington Times has tracked the issue for several years and found that while it’s a tool all along the border, Arizona seems a particular hotbed.
The Times in 2021 reviewed a sample of 25 criminal smuggling cases filed in Arizona and found Border Patrol agents noted the use of smartphones and apps in 68% of them.
In about half of the cases, smugglers directed migrants through use of phones, sending pin-drop locations for them to rendezvous with a driver to be sneaked deeper into the country.
The way smuggling usually runs is someone recruits drivers and coordinates between them and the migrants. And they are increasingly relying on social-media platforms.
The Times has seen evidence of recruiting on Snapchat, Facebook, Telegram, Reddit, YouTube, TikTok, Craigslist and WhatsApp.
When it comes to directing the drivers or connecting them with the migrants, WhatsApp is far and away the most prominent choice.
Recruiting ads can reach deep into the country, with Border Patrol agents encountering drivers who said they were flown in from out of state specifically to make money by smuggling people.
Authorities said Mr. Moreno-Lopez, posting under the account @econosido, said drivers could make “$3k-$20k in a few hours of driving or sending me a person who can drive.”
“I tell ya what u have to do I guide u the whole process everything is secure I stay on the phone w u the whole time,” said one Snapchat post, peppered with a plethora of emojis and accompanied by a photo of stacks of $100 bills.
Investigators said Mr. Moreno-Lopez is himself an illegal immigrant from Mexico, albeit one who applied for and won a deportation amnesty under the Obama-era DACA program.
He was under DACA protection at the time of his arrest.
Mr. Moreno-Lopez had other strikes against him.
Authorities said that when they searched his home they found a Glock handgun that had been modified with a “Glock switch,” which is a device that turns a semiautomatic weapon into a machine gun.
Illegal immigrants are generally legally barred from possessing a weapon.
Prosecutors included social media posts of photos they said showed Mr. Moreno-Lopez with weapons in a court filing asking a magistrate judge to refuse bail. The judge agreed, saying as an illegal immigrant who still has ties in Mexico, Mr. Moreno-Lopez is too much of a flight risk.
A lawyer for Mr. Moreno-Lopez declined to comment at this stage of the case.
Even as social media has greased the smugglers’ operations, it has also created new ways for authorities to make cases.
When making arrests Border Patrol agents regularly ask to go through smuggling suspects’ phones and often find evidence in the form of conversations, phone logs and maps with pindrops showing smuggling locations.
Smuggling organizers are wise to that, though, and will order drivers to wipe the contents if they are about to be arrested.
One agent even overheard that conversation go down after making a stop in Texas where the car’s Bluetooth system was carrying the audio of the ongoing conversation with the coordinator.
“Hurry up and hang up the phone and delete everything!” the agent heard the coordinator say.
The driver first claimed she was acting as a Good Samaritan but later admitted she was smuggling to Houston in exchange for a $4,000 payment. She then showed agents her WhatsApp application with pin drops showing drop-off and pick-up locations.
Minerva Morales, the driver, told agents this was her third time being caught.
Morales would be sentenced to a year and a day in prison, followed by two years of supervised release.