If a job offer to make quick cash on social media sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Two women who sought to earn $500 to $550 after responding to an advertisement on TikTok to “taxi” people from Falfurrias to San Antonio are now charged with transporting people who are in the country illegally.
The criminal complaint, however, notes that when Maria Luiza De Leon and Brenda Nicole Medina went to pick up their fares at a Stripes in Falfurrias, they suspected those people were in the country illegally.
The women were pulled over for an obscured license plate by Texas Department of Public Safety troopers about 10 a.m. Monday while driving on Highway 285 near Rivera.
“Upon questioning, De Leon and Medina admitted to picking up the two passengers from a Stripes gas station in Falfurrias, Texas and were heading to San Antonio to drop them off,” the criminal complaint states. “De Leon and Medina further explained they received a call from someone they did not know and told them to pick up the two passengers and give them a ride.”
Both passengers are citizens of Guatemala with no legal status to be in the United States.
De Leon declined to speak with investigators without an attorney, but Medina told officials she lives near Edinburg and saw a TikTok video asking people to drive or “taxi” others for money, according to the complaint.
“She claimed the ‘Taxi’ job pays $500 or $550. She called and spoke to an unknown man about driving,” the complaint said.
This unknown man told her that two people needed a ride to the Alamo City and that she should go meet them at the Stripes, according to the complaint.
“The unknown man asked her for the description of her vehicle so he could wait for her to arrive at the store,” the complaint said. “Medina stated she and her friend (De Leon) parked and waited in front of the store for approximately 20 minutes when she noticed two people walk from around the side of the store building.
“She assumed the two people that entered her car were illegal because of the way they looked.”
The complaint said Medina claimed she did not speak with the people until they were pulled over by DPS and that they did not give her any money for the ride.
“She did not know how the people that set this up were going to get in contact with her. She assumed through the TikTok application,” the complaint said.
One of the Guatemalan citizens told investigators that she crossed into the United States Dec. 20 and stayed in a warehouse in McAllen for approximately 20 days until Saturday morning when she was dropped off to walk through the brush, according to the complaint.
She believed the women were taking her to Houston and provided her a password to get into the vehicle, investigators allege.
This individual believed De Leon and Medina knew she was in the country illegally.
Both women are scheduled to make a first appearance in federal court Wednesday morning in front of United States Magistrate Judge Mitchel Neurock, court records indicate.
