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Bandits attack migrants' car
3 gunmen open fire on vehicle in Chandler, kidnap driver
Sarah Muench
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 22, 2007 12:00 AM
Violence against groups of migrants by unknown armed bandits reached the Valley on Wednesday with a freeway attack in Chandler, the fourth similar incident in a month.
Three gunmen attacked a car carrying undocumented immigrants and kidnapped driver José Guzmán, who is believed to be a Mexican in his early 20s.
Guzmán, driving a car with five passengers, pulled off westbound Interstate 10 early Wednesday to get gas near Maricopa when two pickup trucks began to follow them, Chandler police said.
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Guzmán continued westbound on I-10 to the eastbound Santan Freeway in Chandler and the trucks followed, forcing the vehicle onto the shoulder of the road shortly after they entered the Santan.
The occupants of the trucks opened fire with handguns, and at least one round hit the car, police said.
Police believe the attackers forced Guzmán into one of the trucks. Another attempted to kidnap the passengers by stealing the car but was unsuccessful and fled. The passengers were unharmed.
Sgt. Rick Griner, a Chandler police spokesman, said the passengers are in custody with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement because they are undocumented.
The passengers, whose names have not been released, were interviewed and are cooperating but apprehensive because of their immigration status, Griner said.
"Their emotions are up," he said.
Griner said Guzmán and the passengers were on their way to California, but police have no description of Guzmán or the attackers and don't know the motive.
Gustavo Soto, a U.S. Border Patrol spokesman in Tucson, said migrants who attempt to cross into the United States illegally increasingly face a new risk: cross fire from drug lords and human smugglers struggling for the control of the trafficking routes.
Several recent incidents have heightened authorities' concerns for the level of violence that the groups of traffickers are using to gain control of the routes, Soto said.
• On Feb. 8, four gunmen opened fire on a pickup truck carrying undocumented immigrants, killing a 15-year-old girl and two men at 7:30 a.m. just north of Tucson.
• About 12 hours earlier, on Feb. 7, 18 undocumented immigrants were robbed at gunpoint by four heavily armed men wearing ski masks near the border at Sasabe.
• On Jan. 27, four gunmen wearing military fatigues and berets, carrying assault rifles, shot and killed an Eloy man, who was driving a truck carrying undocumented immigrants near an Eloy farm field. The attackers, three Anglo men who spoke English and one Hispanic man who spoke English and broken Spanish, also shot 19-year-old Andrés de Jesús, of Oaxaca, Mexico.
In the Jan. 27 incident, detectives said the attackers could have been vigilantes, rival smugglers or criminals trying to steal drugs, although no drugs were found in the truck.
"Border bandits," criminals who operate in the desert and attack migrants, have also been escalating their attacks, he said.
Soto said the increase of violence is a result of traffickers' trying to maintain smuggling routes.
"It's a reflection of the frustration that (traffickers) feel since we intensified patrol in these areas and increased confiscation of their cargo of human beings and drugs," Soto said.
Anyone with information about this week's case should call Chandler police at (480) 782-4130 or any other incidents at Silent Witness at 1-800-343-TIPS.
Gunmen kidnap 5 in vehicle near I-10
Incident similar to recent attacks
Andrew Johnson
The Arizona Republic
Feb. 26, 2007 12:00 AM
Five people were kidnapped early Sunday when three armed men hijacked the van they were traveling in with two other people at a stoplight at South 50th Street and East Ray Road in Ahwatukee.
Phoenix police are investigating the incident, which has similarities to recent attacks in the southeast Valley and southern Arizona. In some of those incidents, undocumented immigrants have been kidnapped or killed after being forced off the road by their attackers.
The most recent attack occurred around 12:20 a.m. Sunday, according to public information officer Sgt. Andy Hill.
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Police say Moises Garcia-Martinez, 27, and Emiliano Cruz, 25, were driving in a white 1998 Dodge Caravan from Eloy to Wickenburg on Interstate 10 after picking up five other adults.
The Caravan exited I-10 at Ray Road and headed west. When it reached the stoplight at 50th Street, a black four-door Mercury Grand Marquis pulled in front of them and three Hispanic men with handguns got out and approached the van.
The kidnappers told Garcia-Martinez and Cruz to get in the back of the van. Then one of the armed men got in and drove away, and the Grand Marquis followed.
Garcia-Martinez and Cruz were able to get out of the van just before the driver turned back onto I-10. The van, which contained five victims and one of the kidnappers, was last seen heading west on I-10 with the Grand Marquis behind it.
While Garcia-Martinez and Cruz told police that they were not involved in a human-smuggling ring, Hill said authorities are investigating that possibility. Hill said at this point there is no indication the cases are connected.
"At this point, the victims did not say they were involved in human smuggling, so that is something we will have to investigate," Hill said. "However, the M.O. (modus operandi) of this offense is similar to that which has occurred when human smugglers try to kidnap human cargo from other smugglers, so we are going to look at that possibility."
Previous attacks have occurred in Chandler and near Tucson, Eloy and Sasabe.
On Wednesday, an undocumented immigrant in his early 20s was kidnapped when the car he was driving with five passengers inside was forced onto the shoulder of the Santan Freeway in Chandler by two trucks.
The occupants of the trucks opened fire on the car and then forced the driver, Jose Guzman, into one of the trucks.
One of the attackers tried to kidnap the five passengers by stealing the car but eventually fled the car. Those victims were not harmed.
Nailing down details on the attacks has been difficult for local law enforcement agencies.
Chandler police spokesman Sgt. Rick Griner said investigators have no new details about Guzman's whereabouts because of a lack of information.
"We didn't even have enough information to put the name and enter him as a missing person," Griner said. "You need to have a date of birth at least. We didn't have that. We just had an approximate age."
Earlier this month, Phoenix police began working with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to help solve crimes involving potential undocumented workers.
"That's been done in response to the fact that we have a number of violent crimes that have occurred that include undocumented immigrants, and they help us in those investigations by determining immigration status and help us by connecting us to smuggling rings," Hill said.
Ten agents have been working with the various units of the Phoenix Police Department's Violent Crime Bureau since Feb. 5, Hill said.
Phoenix police have few details on the missing victims in Sunday's kidnapping. The victims include three Hispanic females and two Hispanic males, including one named Pablo Jimenez. Names of the other victims were not available.
The van they were riding in has an Arizona license plate with the tag 779VWG.
String of attacks
Police do not know if the Sunday kidnapping is connected to these recent attacks on undocumented immigrants. The attacks are similar but have not been linked:
• Sunday: Five people - two Hispanic males and three Hispanic females - were kidnapped after the van they were riding in was approached by three gunmen near East Ray Road and South 50th Street. Two other people were able to exit the van before one of the gunmen stole the van and headed west on Interstate 10. Police do not know if the victims are undocumented.
• Wednesday: Jose Guzman, an undocumented immigrant in his early 20s, was kidnapped by gunmen after the car he was driving, with five passengers in it, was forced onto the shoulder of Loop 202 in Chandler by two trucks. Guzman was taken in one of the trucks, and one of the gunmen tried unsuccessfully to steal the car with the victims in it.
• Feb. 8: A 15-year-old girl and two men, riding in a pickup truck carrying undocumented immigrants, were killed north of Tucson when four gunmen opened fire on the pickup truck.
• Feb. 7: Four armed men robbed undocumented immigrants at gunpoint near the border at Sasabe.
• Jan 27: An Eloy man driving a truck carrying undocumented immigrants was shot and killed near an Eloy farm field after four men carrying assault rifles opened fire. The suspects also shot a 19-year-old man from Oaxaca, Mexico.
'Human trafficking is a $32 bn worldwide business'
Posted on : 2007-02-24 | Author : Sujoy Dhar
News Category : India
Kolkata, Feb 24 Afsana Khatun, a 15-year-old Muslim girl from Kolkata's Kidderpore area, has never met 13-year-old Rakesh who works for 18 hours in a Punjab village like a slave after he was trafficked from his native village in Bihar.
But on Sunday, Afsana will march with thousands of others from Kolkata so that Rakesh and other boys and girls of his age who are trafficked every day are not enslaved in a stone quarry or a red light area forever.
'I will walk because of other children of my age who are forced into hard labour or prostitution. Even in my area I work to stop trafficking. I will raise my voice against this evil,' said Afsana, who works with Apne Aap Women's Worldwide here.
'Trafficking is a $32 billion business worldwide, especially of women forced into prostitution. Of this about $12 to $14 billion is a turnover from child trafficking,' said Kailash Satyarthi, chairperson of Global March Against Child Labour and founder of the BBA (Bachpan Bachao Andolan), organisers of the South Asian March Against Child Trafficking.
Organised by BBA and a host of other non-government organisations, the march will end in New Delhi March 22 after nearly a 25-day-long campaign to sensitise people about child trafficking, especially of girls who are forced into prostitution.
The march involves mostly people from India, besides Nepal and Bangladesh. It kicks off from the city Sunday.
'The march is important because as we live smug in our own world boys and girls are being trafficked. There has to be a mental and attitudinal shift in all of us about the issue of trafficking. My public domain may be acting but that is only one-third of me. We all have to chip in with our bit by either writing or talking about it or stopping in our homes,' said actor and social activist Nandita Das.
'It is an extremely connected issue. I was watching a news report on TV the other day where a small girl was being forced to marry while the media person was filming the whole thing. I was shocked. We cannot live in islands and have to think about these and do something,' Nandita told IANS.
'I express my solidarity with this movement. Though I have to leave for Pakistan for a film shooting, I am very much with the movement,' she said.
Approximately a billion marchers, nearly half of whom are children and youth who were themselves victims of trafficking, will criss-cross cities, villages and hamlets and cover 100 km every day during the march.
At least two mass public meetings would be held everyday in schools, colleges and academic institutions while local mosques, temples, churches and gurdwaras would be encouraged to host the core marchers at every place, said Satyarthi.
The march will span 2,500 km for 20 to 25 days, he said telling people the need for a law to prevent human trafficking.
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