A Sao Paulo-based Bangladeshi businessman was arrested in Brazil on charges of smuggling people from South Asia and other places, into Brazil, and eventually to the United States, according to the US Justice department.
Saifullah Al-Mamun, 32, has been charged in a Texas court on eight counts of conspiracy and smuggling foreign nationals into the US.
The Brazilian operation also led to the arrests of six other Brazil-based Bangladeshi nationals on the charges of human smuggling, but Al-Mamun is the only one to be charged in a US court.
The other six Bangladeshis arrested by Brazilian police are--Saiful Islam, 32; Tamoor Khalid, 31; Nazrul Islam, 41; Mohammad Ifran Chaudhary, 39; Mohammad Nizam Uddin, 28; and Md Bulbul Hossain, 36.
The charges contained in the Texas indictment are merely allegations and the defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
Al-Mamun is alleged to have housed the foreign nationals in São Paulo and arranged for their travel through a network of smugglers operating out of Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico to the United States, according to the chargesheet filed in the Texas court.
“In return for smuggling the aliens into the United States, Al-Mumun and his two co-conspirators, are alleged to have arranged to be paid in Mexico, Central America, South America, Bangladesh, and elsewhere,” it says.
A Brazilian newspaper reported that Al-Mamun owns a tourism company and also a grocery shop in Sao Paulo and charged 47,000 Brazilian Real (approx. 12,000 USD) for smuggling people into the US.
“If the person preferred to stay in Brazil instead, the charges would be 25,000 Brazilian Real (6,200 USD),” according to the newspaper.
The operations were conducted in a collaborative mission by the United states and Brazilian agencies. The mission focuses on human smuggling networks that may present “particular national security or public safety risks, or present grave humanitarian concerns”.
“Today’s indictment shows our commitment to prosecute here in the United States those alien smugglers who put our country’s public safety at risk by attempting to thwart our system of legal immigration,” said Assistant Attorney General Brian A.
Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.
Last August, two other Bangladeshi nationals, Milon Miah and Moktar Hossain, were arrested in the US on similar charges.
