U.S. Citizen Caught While Allegedly Attempting To Smuggle a Dozen Migrants In Arizona

A U.S. citizen was caught by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents while allegedly attempting to smuggle a dozen migrants into the country, according to a new report.

Border Report detailed that Alan William Fischbach was spotted making trips to pick up migrants, taking them to hotels and picking them up from stash houses.

The outlet added that Fishbach made a stop at an apartment complex and left four migrants inside a rented SUV after he suspected he was being followed.

He then called a ride-share car, which was later stopped by agents. They arrested Fishbach while holding hotel keys in which he had allegedly dropped off migrants. They also retrieved the migrants from the SUV, noting that they looked in distress given the high temperatures they were enduring.

When talking to agents, Fishbach said he had picked up 12 migrants and arranged for the return of two cartel members who smuggled them into the country. They paid him $300 for each migrant he picked up in Nogales and $150 for those taken to Green Valley.

Fishbach was charged with bringing in and harboring migrants and will face a hearing on September 10 in Tucson.

Several such incidents routinely take place at the southern border. In late July, a Mississippi man was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of attempting to smuggle migrants inside a fake Lowe's truck.

Cezanne Megel Patterson was arrested last year outside Del Rio, in southern Texas, while driving what appeared to be a Lowe's Home Improvement Store delivery truck.

Troopers said that, after inspecting the truck, they found 17 migrants inside a false compartment without ventilation. Patterson was then charged with smuggling of persons with the likelihood of serious bodily injury or death, Border Report recalled.

A similar episode made headlines in late June, when a truck driver was caught driving over a dozen migrants in New Mexico. Back then, agents found a migrant hiding in the cabin and 12 more in a compartment under the flatbed trailer.

In mid June, nine other people accused of being part of a smuggling ring pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. They also admitted to harboring people and transporting them further into the United States.