Feds find five Cuban migrants in the back of a hot and windowless van in Opa-locka

An anonymous tip into a Border Patrol station in the Florida Keys led to the discovery of five Cuban migrants sitting in the back of a hot, windowless van about three hours away in Opa-locka, federal agents said.

Agents with Homeland Security Investigations arrested a man Thursday they said was involved in the smuggling operation to bring the people from Cuba to South Florida, and hold them in a “stash house” until each of their families came up with $15,000.

Ismel Martinez-Paso, 46, is being held in the Federal Detention Center in Miami on a human-smuggling conspiracy charge. He’s being represented by a federal public defender, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the case.

Events that led to Martinez-Paso’s arrest began a day earlier when the Marathon Border Patrol station received a call from an anonymous tipster that a 36-foot “go-fast” boat was departing South Florida to Isabela de Sagua, in Cuba to pick up migrants.

Border Patrol agents got another call from the tipster at 9:30 p.m. Wednesday that the person driving the boat had been making similar smuggling runs “every couple of weeks,” and one of his vessels had already been seized by the Coast Guard, according to a criminal complaint filed on Friday in U.S. Southern District Court by Homeland Security Investigations agents.

The caller told agents the people who were being transported would be kept at a “stash house” in Miami until the smugglers were paid their prearranged fee, according to the complaint.

Early Thursday morning, around 7:30 a.m., the caller told the Border Patrol that the smuggling operation had already occurred and that 16 people were delivered to Miami about two hours earlier, the complaint states.

The caller said the smuggler had called his friend, whose family member was among the group of migrants, and told him the person would not be released until the $15,000 was delivered.

Using the phone number of the suspected smuggler, referred to as “co-conspirator-1” in the complaint, federal agents staked out a home in the 13300 block of Northwest 32nd Avenue in Opa-locka later Thursday. A Toyota Camry, registered to Martinez-Paso, and a white GMC van were parked in the driveway, the complaint states.

At around 10:40 a.m., a Ford pickup truck trailering an Edgewater go-fast boat backed into the driveway of a house next to the home agents were staking out, according to the complaint. Minutes later, agents say they saw the van leave the house.

Agents pulled the van over, and Martinez-Paso was driving, according to the complaint. In the passenger seat was a man who agents said is a Cuban citizen. In the back of the van, agents found five people “visibly sweating,” sitting on the floor.

The man in the passenger seat and the people in the back of the van told agents they had arrived from Cuba by boat earlier that day, the complaint states.

Before invoking his right to remain silent, Martinez-Paso told agents he had been asked to drive the boat to Cuba to pick up the migrants, but he declined. Instead, he said he was hired to transport them by van once they arrived, agents said in the complaint.

The incident happened as federal and local law enforcement, especially in the Keys, are dealing with an increase in maritime migration from Cuba and Haiti not seen in several years. Since October, the Coast Guard said it has stopped 4,440 people at sea trying to reach South Florida.

That’s the highest level of Cuban migration since fiscal year 2016, when 5,396 people were stopped along the Florida Straits. Migration attempts would dwindle to a fraction of that number in the following years since the Obama administration in January 2017 ended the U.S. “wet-foot, dry-foot” Cuban migration policy, which was an incentive to those considering fleeing the communist island nation and making the risky journey.

The rule allowed those from Cuba who set foot on U.S. soil above the high-water mark to stay in the country and apply for permanent residency after a year. Those caught at sea were returned to Cuba.

Then-President Barack Obama, in one of his last major foreign policy decisions before leaving office, ended wet-foot, dry-foot in his efforts to soften diplomatic relations with Cuba’s government. Now that it’s over, most people from Cuba trying to enter the United States through South Florida are sent back to their homeland, regardless of whether they’re stopped at sea or caught after they’ve arrived on land.