Court records provide insight into how trafficking works
When she was just 18, Anabel de la Cruz-Ramirez met a suitor who promised her love and happiness. Instead, he put her at the center of an international sex-trafficking operation.
De la Cruz met Adrian Zitlalpopoca-Hernandez in her native Veracruz, Mexico, where she was a college student, federal prosecutors say in court documents.
He persuaded her to leave her home and go with him on a journey that eventually would take her to the streets of Tijuana, where she worked as a prostitute, and later to North County, where they were both arrested last year.
Their journey ended Nov. 20, 2008, when sheriff’s deputies stopped the vehicle they were in in a rural area of Valley Center known as Couzer Canyon, a place police say is often used by sex traffickers to set up makeshift prostitution camps.
In the car, police found condoms, birth control pills, lubricants, toilet paper, plastic tarps and plastic bags. Shortly afterward, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrived and determined that the couple and another woman in the car were in the country illegally.
De la Cruz’s story is detailed in court records filed in advance of an upcoming trial. Zitlalpopoca faces numerous charges related to the sex-trafficking operation he allegedly ran.
Immigration authorities and federal prosecutors declined to speak about the case.
‘Always the same’
The story of how de la Cruz was taken from her home in southern Mexico to the United States appears to mirror other operations that have been discovered by authorities, said Marisa Ugarte, who heads the Bilateral Safety Corridor Coalition, a nonprofit organization that helps care for sex-trafficking victims.
“The modus operandi is always the same,” Ugarte said.
De la Cruz told authorities that Zitlalpopoca, who was 10 years older than she, romanced her and persuaded her to leave town with him.
A few months after they moved in together in his family’s home, Zitlalpopoca introduced the idea of her working for him as a prostitute. She cried and resisted at first, but he later persuaded her, telling her that if she really loved him she would do it.
In June 2005, the couple moved to Tijuana, where Zitlalpopoca turned de la Cruz over to an associate for “training,” according to court documents. Over the next several years, she worked as a prostitute in Tijuana and several other places in Mexico.
Zitlalpopoca allegedly beat her on several occasions, either out of purported jealousy or because she tried to keep the money she earned as a prostitute, according to court records.
Intimidation, beatings and threats
In May 2008, Zitlalpopoca allegedly paid a smuggler to bring de la Cruz illegally into the U.S. His relatives sheltered her in an apartment on West Los Angeles Drive in Vista. She later relocated to a nearby home at 311 Weston Circle.
Once in North County, Zitlalpopoca acted as de la Cruz’s driver. He took her to meet clients in ranches, canyons and apartments, according to court records. He paid her rent, cell phone bills and bought her supplies, such as condoms.
She learned that other women worked for him, including Florencia Calixto-Velazco, the third passenger in the car when de la Cruz and Zitlalpopoca were arrested last November.
Calixto, a native of Oaxaca, Mexico, told authorities a story similar to de la Cruz’s. She met Zitlalpopoca at a bus station when she was 17 years old in 2004.
Zitlalpopoca told her that he was in deep debt and needed her help paying it off, according to court documents. He told her that they would live in the lap of luxury if she worked for him.
The promises of happiness and riches were followed by intimidation, beatings and threats.
“Zitlalpopoca also threatened to tell Calixto’s family that she was a prostitute if she left him,” according to court records. “Calixto believed that her family would disown her if they knew what she was doing.”
Each of the women earned hundreds of dollars a day, according to court records.
‘Despicable‘
For years, activists and law enforcement authorities have reported on prostitution activity in local migrant camps. But in recent years, North County has earned a kind of notoriety as a hot spot for sex trafficking stemming from several arrests, Ugarte said.
In 2003, Luciano Salazar Juarez pleaded guilty to federal charges of smuggling and harboring women who worked as prostitutes in North County. Salazar’s sex-trafficking ring was discovered after three women drowned as they attempted to drive across a rain-swollen river while trying to reach a migrant camp in Carlsbad.
Authorities say the cases are difficult to investigate and prosecute because people, including the victims, are unwilling to testify against the traffickers. It is also difficult to get to the root of the smuggling rings because they are based in Mexico, Ugarte said.
In her campaign to bring attention to the problem, Ugarte has had an unlikely group of allies: anti-illegal immigration advocates. Members of the San Diego Minutemen, who often search the canyons to find migrant camps, have run into what they believe to be evidence of prostitution.
Jeff Schwilk, who leads the North County-based San Diego Minutemen, said his group has been trying to call attention to the problem for more than three years.
“We believe the only way to rid of our canyons of underage sex trafficking is to rid our canyons of illegal immigrant squatters and their camps,” Schwilk said. “These migrant camps are breeding grounds for this type of despicable organized crime.”
Trial set
In April, a federal grand jury handed up an indictment charging Zitlalpopoca with 11 counts related to sneaking women into the country and using them as prostitutes, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego.
Among the charges he faces is an accusation that he engaged in sex trafficking by force, fraud, or coercion, which carries a minimum sentence of 15 years.
The indictment also charged Eduardo Aguila-Tecuapahco and Carlos Tzompantzi-Serrano with two counts each, related to harboring the female immigrants for prostitution.
All three men pleaded not guilty. Attorneys for the men could not be reached for comment.
The trial is set to begin Nov. 10 in San Diego.
source: http://www.nctimes.com/news/local/sdcounty/article_92181df3-8e34-51b2-9672-6ba0a5e242e0.html
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