The White House terminated some U.S. attorneys Wednesday night.
A Brazilian national living in Worcester, Massachusetts, was arrested Wednesday in connection with a human smuggling operation, federal investigators said.
The office of U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Leah Foley said the arrest of 41-year-old Flavio Alexandra Alves, also known as Ronaldo, was part of an international operation by law enforcement in the U.S. and Brazil.
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Alves is charged with conspiracy to bring aliens to and transport aliens within the United States in violation of law, Foley's office said. He was previously convicted of charges related to human smuggling in California in 2004 and was deported to Brazil in 2005, but prosecutors said he "illegally re-entered" the country at some point after that.
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He and others in Brazil and Mexico allegedly worked together to smuggle hundreds of people from Brazil into the U.S.
Authorities accuse Alves of buying airline tickets "for Brazilian nationals to travel from border cities to other locations across the United States shortly after the aliens were encountered by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and released from detention."
Between May of 2021 and August of 2022, he allegedly bought over 100 airline tickets from Arizona to Boston and to the Pennsylvania cities of Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.
Prosecutors said Alves sent hundreds of thousands of dollars in money transfers to people in Mexico "to pay for expenses associated with transit into the United States." They added that he collected payments from those brought into the country as a fee, taking a "cut" before transferring the rest of the money to others involved in the operation.
Federal authorities detained four other people in connection with the alleged smuggling ring Wednesday in Pennsylvania, Foley's office said.
Alves faces up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000 if he is convicted, according to prosecutors, who added that he is also subject to deportation proceedings after any sentence is completed.
It was not immediately clear if Alves had an attorney.
