A 24-year-old woman admitted to smuggling cash from the United States to Mexico and stated the money was proceeds from undocumented immigrant smuggling, federal court documents reflect.
Kenia Lee Casas appeared Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Rolando Olvera Jr. where she was sentenced to time served after pleading guilty to money laundering through financial transaction, international money laundering and bulk cash smuggling.
Casas was also sentenced to one-year supervised release, with six months home detention. She will be required to wear an ankle bracelet during those six months of home detention.
According to a fact summary of the case, Casas on March 15, 2021, dropped off three undocumented immigrants at the Gateway International Bridge in Brownsville.
Casas then drove her vehicle across the Veterans International Bridge into Mexico while the undocumented immigrants attempted to cross the bridge using the pedestrian lane at the Gateway International Bridge, the case summary read.
As the undocumented immigrants were walking across the bridge, U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped them before they reached the “demarcation” line between the U.S. and Mexico, the case summary reads.
According to the case summary, as the agents tried to question the undocumented immigrants, they attempted to flee, and a struggle ensued with one of the immigrants biting one of the Border Patrol agents. It was determined that the three undocumented immigrants were Mexican nationals and were illegally present in the United States.
A search of the three was conducted and the agents found $28,701 in the pockets of one of the Mexico nationals, $10,000 on another one and $9,002 are the third one with the amount totaling $47,703, the case summary states.
Casas admitted to transporting the undocumented immigrants and dropping them off at the bridge “in order to facilitate the smuggling of currency from the U.S., authorities said. She was to collect them and the funds after their successful crossing and transport them to additional co-conspirators,” the case summary reads. She was aware the money was the proceeds of immigrant smuggling activity, according to authorities.
Javier Aleman Hernandez and Antonio Villa-Villa, both Mexican nationals, earlier pleaded guilty to similar charges. Aleman pleaded guilty to one count of money laundering, one count of international money laundering and one count of bulk cash smuggling. Villa-Villa pleaded guilty to assault causing bodily injury and conspiracy to transport and harbor undocumented immigrants.
Information on the third undocumented immigrant was not available since he was a minor.
Villa-Villa is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug.24. Aleman Hernandez was sentenced to time served June 15.
Both men were remanded to the custody of U.S. Marshals.
