Yesterday, Fidel Mancinas-Franco, 51, of Nogales, Sonora, Mexico, and Jose Villela-Lopez, 53, of Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, were sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins to 96 to 120 months in prison, respectively. Mancinas-Franco and Villela-Lopez previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bring in, transport, and harbor unauthorized aliens. Another co-defendant who played a lesser role in the conspiracy, Fernando Diaz-Gonzalez of Cananea, Sonora, Mexico, previously pleaded guilty to the same charge and received a 48-month sentence.
Mancinas-Franco and Villela-Lopez were part of a conspiracy to smuggle unauthorized aliens into the United States from Mexico and to transport and harbor those aliens within the United States. Most of the smuggled aliens hailed from Central and South America. Mancinas-Franco and Villela-Lopez knew that the aliens, once in the United States, would be transported on the floor of overloaded sport-utility vehicles whose rear seats had been removed. On three separate instances in 2009, large groups of aliens who were being smuggled by Mancinas-Franco’s and Villela-Lopez’s organization were killed or injured as a result of this dangerous transportation method. First, on June 6, 2009, 11 smuggled aliens were killed during a rollover incident near Sonoita, Ariz. Second, on July 19, 2009, another group of 11 smuggled aliens were endangered during a rollover crash in southern Arizona. The members of the alien-smuggling ring collected over $110,000 in smuggling fees and Mancinas-Franco and Villela-Lopez were required to forfeit those proceeds at sentencing.