FBI source says agency busted immigrant-smuggling ring

From Charles Feldman
CNN Correspondent

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- The FBI said Thursday it has broken up a ring involved in smuggling Ukrainians into the United States, where many of them became sex workers to pay off the smugglers' fees.

In early morning raids Thursday, about a dozen people in the Los Angeles area were arrested, an FBI spokesman said.

He said the group, which he described as well-organized, had brought several hundred people into the country in the past few years, charging them about $7,000 apiece. Many of them wound up serving as prostitutes in order to pay the charge, the FBI spokesman said.

At a news conference in Los Angeles, another FBI official said that the 200 or so illegal immigrants that the agency knows about may be the tip of an iceberg. "We know that a little over 200 were interdicted by border patrol and INS," said FBI's Patrick Patterson. "And our conservative estimate is that was probably about 10 percent of the total operation."

Thursday's arrests -- all of them in the Los Angeles area -- included the ring's alleged leader, he added.

The spokesman said the Ukrainians were taken first to Ensenada, Mexico, where they were given phony documents, and then taken by boat to Los Angeles.

The immigrants will not face criminal charges, but immigration officials will work to deport them, the spokesman said.

Federal Bureau of Investigation

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