– to be sentenced in May
The 52-year-old Guyanese woman who was indicted late last year by authorities in Texas on charges of conspiracy and alien smuggling in connection with the attempt to illegally move four Indian nationals into the United States, pleaded guilty on Tuesday and faces a possible three-year sentence.
According to a release from the US Department of Justice (DoJ), Annita Devi Gerald, aka Annita Rampersad will know her fate on May 17; the crime carries a mandatory prison sentence of three years or a maximum penalty of ten years with a US$250,000 fine.
“Today’s guilty plea puts another alien smuggling organiser out of business,” US Assistant Attorney General Lanny A Breuer was quoted as saying in the release.
“Travelling the globe seeking people willing to pay for illegal entry into the United States, this defendant sought personal riches in exchange for disregarding the immigration laws of our country,” he continued.
Meanwhile, US attorney Jose Angel Moreno of the Southern District of Texas said his office will continue to work closely with the justice department and the Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) to get international smugglers who engage in elaborate schemes to smuggle people into the US through Houston and South Texas.
Gerald was slapped with a nine-count indictment last year December after she was arrested by ICE agents in November.
The indictment had revealed that from approximately April 2009 to November 17, 2009, Gerald and others conspired to smuggle four Indian nationals into the United States. According to a DoJ release, Gerald and her co-conspirators fraudulently obtained Belizean visas for the Indian nationals and escorted them from India to Belize, moving through various countries in South and Central America. Gerald allegedly provided lodging for all four Indian nationals in Belize, while further smuggling arrangements were made.
It was stated that in August 2009, Gerald allegedly arranged for one of the Indian nationals, Nitinkumar Patel, to cross the border from Belize into Mexico where he met Gerald’s co-conspirator, who escorted him through Mexico. In Monterrey, Mexico, Gerald’s co-conspirator paid a Mexico-based smuggler to illegally transport Patel across the Mexico-US border to Houston.
After making these arrangements, Gerald’s co-conspirator allegedly flew to Houston where the co-conspirator received the Indian national at a motel approximately ten days later.
The smugglers who delivered the Indian national to Gerald’s co-conspirator in Houston allegedly demanded and received a smuggling payment prior to releasing him.
The Indian national smuggled to Houston was detained by ICE and is awaiting removal. The whereabouts of the other three Indian nationals allegedly harboured by Gerald in Belize are currently unknown.
According to the indictment, Patel told investigators that he flew from Singapore in July last and when he arrived he met Gerald at the airport. She told him that she would get him to the US for a smuggling fee of US$20,000.
A visa was obtained for him to travel to Belize on the false premise that he was invited to that country to serve as an agricultural expert by a commercial farming company. The visa was issued by the Belize Consulate in Singapore that same month.
The woman escorted Patel to Belize and along the way provided him with food, lodging and airline tickets and spoke on his behalf to immigration authorities in the different countries through which they transited in South and Central America. In Mexico she arranged accommodation for him for several days and for him to receive a Mexican entry stamp in his passport to enable him to travel through Mexico to the US. From that point her co-conspirator, Dhanraj Samuel, a Trinidadian, took over and later, on August 16, a vehicle with Illinois licence plates picked him up from the Houston motel he had travelled to from Mexico. Later that date the vehicle was stopped by local police and Patel and the other occupants of the vehicle were found to be illegal aliens.
No details were given on how Gerald was arrested.
It is not the first time Gerald has been involved in such matters as back in May 2005, while she was reportedly living in Suriname; she appeared in the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court charged with false pretence.
It was stated that that with intent to defraud, Gerald took US$2,000 each from Berbice sugar workers Zaheer Khan and Ramkaran Mangal, on May 3 and 9, 2005 respectively, by falsely pretending she was in a position to get work for them in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.
The victims were lured by someone else who told them Gerald could secure employment for them to earn US$300 weekly and the money they gave her was to pay their passages and other expenses, police had said.
It is alleged that Gerald took the men a West Coast Demerara house where she abandoned them. At that time she had pleaded not guilty and was remanded to prison.
