Apparent child-smuggling plot thwarted in Arizona, authorities say

May 29, 2000
Web posted at: 9:27 p.m. EDT (0127 GMT)

In this story: Man charged with alien smuggling Authorities say vehicle was stolen RELATED STORIES, SITES

WILCOX, Arizona (CNN) -- A routine traffic stop for a speeding ticket may have uncovered a plot to smuggle several Mexican children into the United States, authorities say.

Kevin Wood, a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Public Safety, said Monday that state police stopped a 1995 Ford Explorer on Sunday morning on Interstate 10, about 15 miles east of Wilcox, a town of about 3,000 in southeastern Arizona.

Inside the vehicle were a man and five children, Wood said. The driver told the officer he did not speak English, whereupon a U.S. Border Patrol agent was summoned.

The man told the agent he was in the United States illegally. He also said he was the father of a 6-month-old girl in the vehicle, and the uncle of two of the other four children, said Charles Klingberg, spokesman for the U.S. Border Patrol.

The man said he did not know to whom the other two children belonged, Klingberg said.

The man was detained, and the Border Patrol contacted the Mexican consulate's office in Douglas, Arizona.

The driver was identified as Gonzalo Cardasco Olivera, 28, a U.S. citizen, according to Miguel Escobar, the Mexican consul.

Klingberg said the man has been charged with alien smuggling and was in federal custody in Tucson. The children were turned over to Arizona Child Protective Services.

Cardasco told Mexican officials that a relative had asked him, as a favor, to drive the children across the border from Palomas -- a small border town in the state of Chihuahua -- to Phoenix, Escobar said.

Cardasco also said he had been threatened with dire consequences if he revealed anything about his relationship with the woman who organized the trip across the border, Escobar said.

"This is a typical case of contraband of human beings between the two borders," the Mexican official said.

Cardasco appears to be related to none of the children, Escobar said. "It's a bit haphazard," he said. "There are so many loose ends."

He said Mexican authorities have identified three of the children, all girls, ages 3, 5 and 6 months. Their parents were en route to the border with identification to claim them, he said.

One of the mothers, contacted in Mexico by phone, told a representative of the consul that she had begged Cardasco to take her two children into the United States and deliver them to an address in Phoenix, where they were to be raised by relatives, Escobar said.

Wood said the vehicle Cardasco had been driving was reported stolen.

U.S. Border Control

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