Feds seize $500,000 from alleged migrant smuggler ‘Uncle Ron’

LAS CRUCES, New Mexico (Border Report) – The federal government has unsealed a 47-page indictment against eight alleged members of the Lopez Crime Family transnational migrant-smuggling organization.

The suspects allegedly helped migrants cross illegally into the United States from Mexico for money, purchased a home in Deming, New Mexico, to “stash” them after entry, arranged for their transportation to the interior of the U.S. and laundered the profits.

Federal officials named Ronaldo Galindo Lopez Escobar, aka “Tio Roni” (Uncle Ron), as the leader of the organization. In a news conference Thursday outside the federal courthouse in Las Cruces, U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico Alexander Uballez said the indictments mean “another arm” of Lopez’s organization has been dismantled.

He said the federal government seized half a million dollars from the organization, 11 additional bank accounts and a 2023 Chevrolet Corvette acquired with illicit profits. The Treasury Department also has blocked all commercial transactions with individuals named in the indictment and any affiliated businesses.

The Lopez Crime Family has roots in Guatemala but operated in Mexico and in the United States. Its stateside operations spanned West Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California.

“With these actions, we bring the fight overseas. The transnational criminal organizations and their leadership no longer will profit off the safety of the migrants they traffic, the load drivers who take the risks – and take the fall – for their greed,” Uballez said. “The (message) to the Tio Ronis of the world, the transnational criminal organizations who have profited and, so far, counted the money in safety, is that we are coming.”

Lopez Escobar was charged in a separate indictment last year in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico. The new indictment filed July 17 includes seven additional alleged members of his organization, two of whom were recently arrested. All have been charged with conspiracy to transport and harbor illegal aliens and conspiracy to launder money.

Uballez said he could not speak to the particulars of how the organization was able to run a complex illicit enterprise spanning three nations.

“Generally [….] there are folks in home countries who do the organizing to come to the United States. For every country they pass through there must be arrangements made, especially if you’re going to pass through a country like Mexico where arrangements must be made in partnership with cartels,” he said. “And then, usually cells operate on our side of the border to support the crossing and movement of migrants in our country.”

The case was investigated by the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Border Patrol and other agencies part of the federal government’s Joint Task Force Alpha.

JTF-Alpha operates from California to Texas and since its creation in June 2021 has contributed to more than 300 domestic and international arrests involving human smugglers. Some 240 defendants have been convicted in federal court and 170 sentenced. Its investigations have led to extraditions.

“We target transnational criminal organizations to focus on human smuggling, to target command-and-control, to seize assets, to really put pressure on persons who make decisions on the exploitation of migrants,” Uballez said.

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