BRIDGEPORT, Conn. —
A Mexican woman has been sentenced in Connecticut for helping coordinate a smuggling and labor trafficking scheme that smuggled illegal immigrants into the United States and harbored them in and around Hartford.
Nineteen illegal immigrants were victimized by this scheme. While they were being harbored, they were both extorted and threatened, prosecutors proved in court.
Maria Carmela Sanchez, 71, A Mexican citizen who last lived in Hartford, was sentenced to four years and three months imprisonment in Bridgeport federal court on Friday, according to a release from the Acting U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut.
Prosecutors established that once the illegal immigrants arrived in Connecticut, they were forced to work and faced threats of harm through various methods if they didn’t pay substantial fees, interest and other living expenses.
Court documents and statements showed that, beginning in September 2022, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Hartford Police Department interviewed multiple Mexican citizens who claimed they were smuggled from Mexico into the U.S. and taken to Hartford.
Victims typically arranged with Sanchez and her associates in both countries to cross the border into the U.S. This trip cost them between $15,000 and $20,000 that they paid once they were in the U.S.
Most often, victims were forced to turn over a property deed as collateral before leaving Mexico. They were then smuggled across the border and taken to Hartford area residences such as Sanchez’s home on Madison Street in Hartford.
This process often occurred at risk of bodily injury or death.
Once the illegal immigrants arrived in and around Hartford, they were told they would have to pay around $30,000 more, with interest, to Sanchez and her associates for rent, food, gas and utilities. Sanchez and her associates created false documents for them, including Permanent Residence Cards and Social Security cards.
Sanchez also helped these individuals find employment in the Hartford area. Beyond working their own jobs, some victims were forced to perform housework and yardwork without compensation and without having their debt lessened.
The illegal immigrants were rarely given an accounting of their debts. If they failed to make regular payments, or payments in the expected amounts, Sanchez and her associates threatened them.
These included threats to harm family members in Mexico, take property in Mexico that had been used as collateral, raise their debts and even reveal their immigration statuses to U.S. authorities.
Multiple victims of Sanchez and her associates were minors, and at least two of them were smuggled into the U.S. without a parent or guardian present.
Sanchez was arrested on March 1, 2023, and has been detained since. She pleaded guilty on Oct. 24, 2024, to conspiracy to encourage and induce, bring in, transport and harbor aliens.
A judge also mandated that Sanchez pay restitution of $574,608. Furthermore, when Sanchez completes her prison term, she will face immigration.
The case has been led by the FBI, Hartford police, U.S. Department of Labor – Office of Inspector General, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.