Special to the NEWS
HOUSTON—The Department of Justice has announced the unsealing of an 11-count indictment charging 12 individuals, including an individual from San Benito, in a long-running, multi-faceted conspiracy to monopolize the transmigrante forwarding industry in the Los Indios border region.
Transmigrantes are individuals who transport used vehicles and other goods from the United States through Mexico for resale in Central America. Transmigrante forwarding agencies are businesses that provide services to transmigrante clients, including helping those clients complete the customs paperwork required to export vehicles into Mexico.
According to the indictment, Carlos Favian Martinez, 36, Mission; Marco Antonio Medina, 32, Rigoberto Brown, 38, and Miguel Hipolito Caballero Aupart, 70, all of Brownsville; Pedro Antonio Calvillo Hernandez, 47, Tamaulipas, Mexico; Roberto Garcia Villareal, 56, San Benito; Sandra Guerra Medina, 68, Rancho Viejo; and Mireya Miranda, 56, La Feria, conspired to fix prices and allocate the market for transmigrante services in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
They also allegedly conspired to monopolize the same market in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The indictment alleges they implemented price-fixing agreements and created a centralized entity known as “The Pool” to collect and divide revenues among the alleged conspirators.
Transmigrante agency owners and industry participants who refused to charge the fixed prices, pay into the pool or pay an extortion tax were subjected to threats, intimidation and acts of violence against themselves and their families, employees, associates and businesses, according to the charges.
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