Top DOJ official warns of deadly smuggling route after 42 vanish at sea
A Colombian smuggler’s guilty plea is shedding new light on a deadly route to the United States after a boat carrying 42 people vanished at sea and a top Justice Department official said the danger would not have ended if they reached land.
Luis Enrique Linero Pinto, 41, also known as "El Calvo," pleaded guilty in federal court in El Paso, Texas, after being extradited from Colombia for his role in a smuggling conspiracy that prosecutors said used bribery and maritime routes to move migrants north.
The boat left Colombia’s San Andrés Island for Nicaragua on Oct. 21, 2023, carrying approximately 40 migrants and two captains. It never arrived, and no one aboard has been seen or heard from since.
"This was a particularly sad and disturbing situation," Assistant Attorney General Tysen Duva, who leads the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, told Fox News Digital.
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"These 40 individuals and the two boat captains, once they set out from San Andrés Island to Nicaragua, were never heard from again," Duva said. "These individuals are, of course, missing and presumed dead, and it appears that there were no survivors."
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Duva said the disappearance offers a brutal look at the danger posed by transnational smuggling organizations that turn vulnerable migrants into commodities while pursuing routes toward the United States.
"It’s all about money," he said. "Anybody who’s involved with a cartel or transnational smuggling in this regard, it is about money. It’s about preying on people’s misfortune."
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According to the Justice Department, Linero Pinto advised migrants on how to reach San Andrés Island, personally received them upon arrival, arranged their accommodations and transported them to boats bound for Nicaragua.
From there, the migrants intended to travel through Central America and Mexico before illegally entering the United States, prosecutors said.
Linero Pinto also bribed members of the Colombian Navy to obtain real-time intelligence about the positions of patrol vessels between San Andrés Island and Nicaragua, allowing smuggling boats to evade authorities, according to court documents.
He admitted helping smuggle the migrants aboard the boat that vanished in October 2023.
Duva said the victims had not even completed the opening stretch of the dangerous route when they disappeared.
"That’s the first leg. They didn’t even finish the first leg here and get to Nicaragua and then try to come north by land," he said. "It’s a really long journey, and it’s full of really bad things that can happen."
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The danger, he warned, is not confined to the open water.
Duva said migrants can face treacherous terrain while traveling through South and Central America and across the U.S.-Mexico border. Even those who reach the United States may be trapped by mounting debts and pushed into sex trafficking, he warned.
"You pay money to come to the United States, and then when you get here, the co-conspirators or those involved in the criminal enterprise will say, ‘But now you owe more, and you’re going to work this off in the sex trade,’" Duva said.
"Cross-border smuggling cases often times just morph right into human trafficking cases," he continued. "The crime sort of changes along the way. The travelers are the ones victimized, and this comes at a significant cost in terms of public safety."
Linero Pinto was charged in October 2024 and arrested in Colombia that December at the request of the U.S. government. He was later extradited to the United States and made his first appearance in federal court in El Paso in December 2025.
He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit alien smuggling and placing lives in jeopardy. He faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison, though a sentencing date has not been set.
A case against alleged co-conspirator Hernando Manuel de la Cruz Rivera remains pending, Duva said.
The prosecution is part of Operation Take Back America and was coordinated by Joint Task Force Alpha, the Justice Department-led initiative targeting cartels and other transnational organizations involved in high-impact human smuggling and trafficking.
Duva praised President Donald Trump and his administration for putting a "tremendous focus" on the initiative and providing the Justice Department with additional resources to pursue smugglers, cartels and other transnational criminal organizations.
"We’re super thankful to President Trump," Duva said. "We’re deeply thankful to the White House for that. We’re thankful to Congress for that, and we’re going to keep doing what we’re doing."
Duva said funding approved through Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill allowed the Criminal Division to hire additional prosecutors and place experienced attorneys in sections handling the administration’s priorities.
"People think, ‘Well, what is that? What did it do?’" he said. "We’re feeling the effects of that. We’re able to put skilled prosecutors in these different sections to attack these administration priorities."
Duva said the task force is hunting criminal networks along the southern border, maritime routes near Florida and the northern border with Canada.
"We are focusing on these cases at any border that we have," he said.
His warning to smugglers operating beyond America’s borders was blunt.
"Our reach is substantial," Duva said. "We are going to chase these cases no matter where they originate from or where we find them."
Duva said the department’s expanded international partnerships are critical because the criminals behind the operations often believe distance will protect them from prosecution.
"They just think, ‘Well, they catch other people, but they’re not going to get me,’" he said. "You really try to combat that one case at a time."
Joint Task Force Alpha has produced more than 483 domestic and international arrests, over 436 U.S. convictions and more than 371 significant prison sentences, according to the Justice Department.
Duva said the mission should transcend partisan fights because the networks being targeted threaten migrants and American communities alike.
"It shouldn’t be partisan," he said. "It should be obvious that anybody who’s in the White House, anybody who is in Congress, should be lauding these cases and the work that’s being done by Criminal Division entities like Joint Task Force Alpha."
The Justice Department’s ultimate goal, Duva said, is the "total elimination" of cartels and the criminal organizations profiting from human suffering.
"You do it one case at a time," he said. "We are focused on doing the very best cases that we can for the American people. That’s what we get up every day and think about."
For Duva, however, the vanished boat remains a haunting illustration of why that mission matters.
"I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of anybody who survives that one after several months and a year," Duva said. "It’s super tragic, and hopefully people realize when they hear about this case just how dangerous it is and how important it is that you target these smuggling groups."