MS-13 gang member Kilmar Abrego Garcia was earning $100,000 a year in order to smuggle people around the United States, according to witnesses who have been cooperating with the federal government on Abrego Garcia's human smuggling case.
The New York Post reported that the witnesses, as well as co-conspirators who have been involved with the federal government on the case, have said Abrego Garcia would make around $1,500 for each smuggling trip he took, including the transportation of minors around the US. This reportedly equated to over $100,000 per year for Abrego Garcia.
The case against the gang member was launched after the Department of Justice had Abrego Garcia returned to the United States in order to carry out the human smuggling case against him.
"On May 21, a grand jury in the Middle District of Tennessee returned a sealed indictment charging Abrego Garcia with alien smuggling and conspiracy to commit alien smuggling in violation of Title 8, USC, 1324," Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the time.
According to the case witnesses, smugglers would charge $8,000 for those migrating to the United States, Abrego Garcia would then pick them up in Texas and deliver them across the US, Homeland Security Investigations special agent Peter Joseph has testified.
A co-conspirator in the case has corroborated the findings, who said that $1,000 payments were made by human traffickers to the drivers. The co-conspirator also said that around a third of all customers in the smuggling operation were gang members.
The human smuggling charges against Garcia stem from 2022, when Abrego Garcia was stopped by police in Tennessee while he had nine people in his van. $1,400 cash was found in an envelope with Abrego Garcia at the time, and police suspected Garcia was engaged in smuggling.
Abrego Garcia, who has been painted as a victim of unfair deportations by left-wing media and politicians, was deported to El Salvador earlier this year before being returned to face the smuggling charges. His lawyers have called the smuggling allegations “preposterous.”
