Ariz. woman smuggled hundreds across border for $15K each

A 24-year-old Arizona woman allegedly smuggled 80 to 100 migrants a month across the U.S.-Mexico border before her arrest on Friday, authorities said Sunday.

Tania Estudillo Hernandez ran the scheme for six months before police received a call from a tipster who claimed her husband was being held for ransom at a house in El Mirage, Maricopa County, alongside multiple others who had been “kidnapped,” according to the El Mirage Police Department.

EMPD officers saw a vehicle leaving the home, which they followed and pulled over to find Hernandez and a Guatemalan national.

Two other smugglers fled Hernandez’s home with 10 undocumented immigrants during her traffic stop, police allege.

Investigators obtained a search warrant for the home and determined that Hernandez “managed and directed smuggling operations,” according to ledgers documenting the smuggling ring’s transactions. They indicated each undocumented immigrant was charged as much as $15,000 in smuggling fees.

They also seized a semi-auto rifle, two handguns and ammunition. One of the handguns was reported stolen out of Phoenix, about 20 miles to the southeast.

Hernandez was charged with kidnapping, money laundering, illegally conducing participation in an illegal enterprise and conspiracy, and is being held in Maricopa County Jail.

These “stash houses” are used by human smugglers to hold and hide those who pay them for help crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, usually undocumented immigrants. Migrants are often squeezed into tight quarters without bedding, running water or air conditioning and told they cannot leave without permission.

Some migrants who make it across the border have been held hostage by smugglers for a ransom. Sixty percent of women and girls who make the trek to the U.S.-Mexico border are raped, according to reports.

Stash houses are typically close to the southern border like El Mirage – which is 130 miles away – but they have been reported further north. In July, authorities found 73 migrants living in one such house in Washington D.C.