Guatemala arrests police officers involved in migrant smuggling ring

Guatemalan security agents arrested 25 mostly active police officers involved in a human trafficking network that operated along a route used by mostly US-bound migrants, Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez said on Tuesday.

Guatemala has been a major transit country for decades for migrants from Latin America and beyond as they travel north to Mexico’s border with the United States.

The minister said two of the detained police officers were retired, and an additional 11 civilians were also arrested on charges including money laundering on behalf of an organization known as “Los Rs.”

Guatemalan authorities have said the group has operated for several years while accumulating millions of quetzals, the local currency.

“This organization made use of police agents, corrupting them in order to guarantee the trajectory of the people who were trafficked across the country,” Jimenez said in a video message.

The Interior Ministry noted that a prior arrest of two people who were illegally transporting 10 migrants from Uzbekistan through Guatemala had led to the operation that ultimately dismantled the network.

Four vehicles, a firearm and cash were seized, the ministry added in a statement. It did not reveal where the migrants who were being smuggled came from, or where they would be sent.

The US Embassy in Guatemala and the US Department of Homeland Security collaborated in the investigation, Jimenez added.

The US Embassy said on X the human-trafficking network had exploited nearly 10,000 migrants.

In August, Panama launched US-funded migrant deportation flights as Washington seeks to stem the flow of people traveling to its southern border, many seeking better economic conditions and security.

The same month, Guatemalan and US authorities announced the joint dismantling of another human-smuggling network with ties to the 2022 deaths of 53 migrants trapped in a sweltering truck in Texas.