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PALABUHANRATU, INDONESIA – Japan is steeped in century-old rituals where people traditionally eat grilled freshwater eel on “doyo no ushi no hi,” the day customarily dedicated to eating eel. Eel day fell on July 22 this year, but concern over dwindling stocks in Japan is growing, with other countries in the region reporting a similar trend. Continued demand for juvenile eel has led to an increase in the smuggling of glass eel from Indonesia to Japan and China, prompting Jakarta to toughen regulations. In Japan, eel is commonly eaten in the summer but is also the main ingredient in several...

Over 60 undocumented immigrants are in federal custody after being caught this afternoon by Border Patrol agents The 63 immigrants were detained just north of Mission. The stash house was found by local and federal authorities working together on Taylor and 6 Mile Line. Border Patrol said an investigation from a previous smuggling case lead them to this bust. San Juan police assisted the agents around noon when they found the immigrants packed inside a house. Two of the people detained are persons of interest, meaning they could be smugglers themselves. Authorities the condition of the stash house was better...

Three accused people smugglers now face federal hostage-taking charges after they were caught holding Washington-bound immigrants for ransom, a Homeland Security Investigations spokesman announced Thursday. Federal investigators contend Espiridion Pablo-Madrigal, 34, Abel Donce de la Torre-Gonzalez, 32, and Luis Bretado-Aragon, 19, are accused of holding three immigrants hostage in a “drop house” in Phoenix, Ariz. A department spokesman said the kidnappers threatened to kill their hostages if the victims’ family didn’t pay. Homeland Security Investigations agents learned of the house on May 13, after a caller contacted HSI Seattle to report the kidnapping. HSI agents in Phoenix then worked around...

SIERRA VISTA— More than two dozen illegal immigrants were picked up by the U.S. Border Patrol after being discovered by a deer hunter on Friday morning. Gary Lium said he was out hunting in the mountains behind Fort Huachuca when he noticed a lot of footprints. Down the road he said he ran into a large group of people in wet clothes and tennis shoes who were obviously freezing. After Lium called them in at about 10 a.m., Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents searched the area and were able to locate about 27 men, women and children, said Brent Cagen,...

Four women are facing criminal charges after one of them allegedly received $1,500 dollars to smuggle two children and take them to Houston. U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested Lizeth De Leon, Herlinda Martinez, Janell Martinez and Juanita Martinez on Sunday.

WESLACO - Illegal entry into the United States is the only option for many who seek to escape poverty and violence, experts said. Immigrants put their money, trust and ultimately their lives in the hands of human smugglers. Some of those smugglers are not old enough to hold a driver's license. One of those smugglers is accused of crashing a van loaded with 17 illegal immigrants near Palmview. Life ended for nine of those immigrants. "These smugglers are ruthless people," Border Patrol Spokesman Henry Mendiola said. Mendiola is familiar with the carnage left behind by some of the human smugglers....

Four smuggling suspects were arrested in connection with the ransom of a 17-year-old Nicaraguan girl and a related raid last week that netted more than 80 suspected illegal immigrants, authorities said. A criminal complaint charges Luis Trejo-Onofre, 30, Jose Santos-Solorzano, 24, Jose Victor Perez-Olivas, 42, and Gumecindo Jaime-Martinez, 37, with harboring, transporting and conspiracy to harbor and transport illegal immigrants, records show. The men, all Mexican citizens, are scheduled to appear in federal court Wednesday

Federal agents recovered a teenage girl from Nicaragua who was being held by smugglers demanding additional money from her family. "She's in our custody now. She'll be interviewed and medically screened," said Greg Palmore with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

A grocery store parking lot in southwest Houston was to have been the spot where Amparo Centeno would be reunited with her teenage daughter. Centeno had already paid more than $6,000 to have Hidalma, 16, brought from Nicaragua to the United States.

BROOKS COUNTY -- A search is underway for a 12-year-old El Salvadorian girl has been missing for 17 days. Officials said the girl is an illegal immigrant who was traveling with a group of other immigrants that left her behind in Brooks County. Kimberly Orellana was last seen near the Falfurrias checkpoint on August 8th. Kimberly was traveling with a group of immigrants who were smuggled into the United States and dropped off in Mcallen. Immigrant activist Livio Danna said the group was heading to Houston but left her behind after she couldn't walk anymore. Now, Danna is doing whatever...

MESA, Ariz. -- Three Mexican men face federal charges after agents busted an alleged drop house in Mesa on Wednesday. Jesus Castillo-Mejia, 47, and Genaro Guzman-Guzman, 29, appeared in federal court Thursday where they were charged with human smuggling. Marco Guzman-Guzman, 27, was charged with illegally re-entering the United States following a previous deportation order.

(CNN) -- A 6-year-old girl, detained in Arizona on suspicion of entering the United States illegally, is now at a shelter in El Paso, Texas, as authorities try to locate a relative. The girl, who told authorities she is from El Salvador, had to be moved to El Paso because there is no room in Arizona shelters for minors in her situation, said Jose Joaquin Chacon, the consul general for El Salvador in Arizona. The girl was traveling with her mother through Mexico, Chacon said, but for some unknown reason the mother apparently turned her daughter over to smugglers at...

Inside Mexico's 'illegal immigrant theme park': Incredible footage gives taste of potentially deadly trip across the U.S. border-- An incredible new video has revealed a rare glimpse of what it's like for illegal immigrants who make the potentially deadly trip across the Mexican border into the United States. The EcoAlberto theme park in El Alberto, Mexico, offers tourists the chance to experience a simulated illegal U.S. border crossing and for the first time the bizarre tourist attraction has been caught on film. Vice documentary makers took a video camera along to expose just how scary it is for the thousands...

More information has been revealed about the 115 immigrants found in an Edinburg Stash House on Wednesday. According to court records, “Welcome to Hell” is the greeting dozens of undocumented immigrants heard when they arrived into the U.S. Those same court records stated that the greeting wasn’t far from the truth. $500 a week is much Marcial Salas claimed he was making to smuggle in and hide dozens of illegal immigrants. Court documents show that Salas admitted to locking the immigrants in a stash house located down a dirt road off of University Drive in Edinburg, despite the rising heat,...

Early on the morning of March 16, Wong Tat joined a line of about 100 people waiting for the launch of the new iPad in a chilly rain outside an Apple store on the outskirts of San Francisco. When the doors opened, he was among the first to buy his quota of two iPads -- the maximum Apple Inc allows per person. Then, sporting a bright red cap for easy identification, Wong began to direct a stream of people toting their new tablets to a silver Mercedes SUV in the parking lot. After about two dozen of the neatly boxed...

McALLEN — Another reminder of why we need a secure border emerged this week, as U.S. Border Patrol officials confirmed three Afghan nationals were detained in the Rio Grande Valley - an increasing "hot zone" of cartel invasion and violence against American ranchers. Border Patrol confirmed the detentions, but would not say where or when they occurred. Enrique Mendiola, assistant chief Border Patrol agent for the Rio Grande Valley sector, said that human smugglers see moving people besides Mexican nationals as a "business opportunity." "Average smuggling rates for other-than-Mexican nationals far exceed those of Mexicans and Central and South Americans,"...

Five people are charged in a plot to employ African Americans from Compton to avert suspicion when bringing illegal immigrants across the border. In the calculus of cross-border human smuggling, Maria Lopez-Diaz allegedly concluded that black instead of brown equals green. The 60-year-old Compton woman, prosecutors say, tried to cash in on racial profiling by operating a human smuggling ring that hired mostly African American drivers who didn't speak a word of Spanish to ferry small groups of immigrants from Mexico to Los Angeles. In the end, the venture failed. Authorities announced charges Thursday against Lopez-Diaz and four others, including...

Watch a police officer stop this plane with his car John McLane's got nothing on this real Brazilian Federal Police Officer, who use his cop car to take down a plane loaded with smugglers and $150,000 of stolen electronics. Here is THE LINK.

Some of them were 15... some 12 years old Does their cruelty know NO limit? Be warned, these repulsive images  are not for the faint-of-heart: ______________________________________________ Sick bas-----s! 'Risky Whiskey' smuggling video/more at Reaganite Republican _____________________________________________ WarNet.ws   h/t Speedunque

Drug smugglers are endlessly creative when it comes to inventing ways to move marijuana, cocaine and other contraband from Mexico into the United States. In the latest innovation uncovered by law enforcement, smugglers in the border town of Nogales, Arizona were bringing drugs into the U.S. for the cost of a quarter. The parking meters on International Street, which hugs the border fence in Nogales, cost 25 cents. Smugglers in Mexico tunneled under the fence and under the metered parking spaces, and then carefully cut neat rectangles out of the pavement. Their confederates on the U.S. side would park false-bottomed...