Hours ago, police in Brazil announced that they have arrested 'Saifullah Al-Mamun', originally from Bangladesh, one of the world’s most prolific human traffickers.
The federal police in Sao Paulo, where Al-Mamun was living, explained that an operation was carried out on Thursday, in coordination with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and led to arresting "members of a group allegedly implicated in a large scheme of smuggling people into the United States".
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Police in Brazil (Archive)[/caption]
An official statement further added that several arrests were also made in three other Brazilian cities, in addition to freezing 42 bank accounts "which were used by the group to finance their activities".
According to police, Al-Mamun entered Brazil six years ago as a refugee, and was living in Bras, Sao Paulo, which houses immigrants from around the world. Later, he was indicted on U.S. charges of sheltering people coming from Southeast Asia - in São Paulo - and arranges for their travel through a network of smugglers operating in Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala and Mexico.
The Brazilian police said that the smuggled immigrants were mainly coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
"They were sent to Brazil’s northern Acre state to start a long and dangerous trip through Central America all the way to the Mexican border, to cross into the United States," the police statement said.
Brazilian police revealed that the rate of smuggling people coming from Asia is around 50,000 reais ($12,524) for the attempt to reach the United States. "Some would also stay illegally in Brazil, where they were given fraudulent documentation," it added.
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