He called himself a simple onion farmer, a Mayan Indian with four kids and a fourth-grade education.
U.S. prosecutors knew better.
By his late 30s, Felipe Diego Alonzo had built a crime route stretching from Central America to Texas, allegedly paying off Mexican drug cartels along the way. He tooled around Guatemala’s western highlands in a loaded silver Ford Ranger pickup. When the police finally raided his ranch, they found a study in rural narco-chic: wooden chalets, a swimming pool, a show horse valued at $100,000.
What they didn’t find was a narco. Alonzo’s business “was more profitable than drug trafficking,” said one of the Guatemalan officials who detained him.
Alonzo was moving people.
As smuggling rings made billions from migrants, the U.S. was sidelined https://t.co/QKiCwSIpZx
— Mary Beth Sheridan (@marybsheridan) November 1, 2024