A human smuggling suspect was nabbed in Sumter County with three people from Mexico who had apparently paid him for transport to Florida.
A white Nissan Armada had been traveling southbound at about 2:30 p.m. Thursday on Interstate 75 near Mile Marker 310 at Bushnell when the vehicle was pulled over for illegally tinted windows, according to an arrest report from the Florida Highway Patrol.
The driver, 23-year-old Esvil Miguel Soto Perez, presented the trooper with a Mexican identification card. Soto Perez had on clean clothes and was wearing an unused construction-style orange vest. Three passengers, who were “disheveled and unbathed,” were concealed in the second row of the vehicle, behind the black window tint. The trooper spotted a “large quantity of snack items and empty snack bags” in the vehicle. The trooper believed the trio was being smuggled by the driver.
Soto Perez had “a large sum of U.S. currency” and there were several receipts for “large currency transfers to Mexico.” A cell phone was found facing the driver’s seat. The phone had a GPS route set up with “35 miles to go,” the report said.
One of the passengers, a 29-year-old woman, admitted to illegally entering the United States three days earlier. She said she had been at a “stash house” near Juarez.
Another passenger said he had also been in the “stash house” and been suddenly hurried into a vehicle. He said he had paid $6,000 to be taken to Tampa. A 43-year-old passenger “couldn’t provide a reason for coming to Florida,” the report said. The three passengers did not appear to know each other, the arrest report indicated.
“A search of the Nissan revealed additional food and drinks in the rear passenger area. Bottles of urine were discovered in the rear hatch area of the vehicle. Wet clothing was discovered in a black backpack in the rear third seat area of the vehicle,” the arrest report said.
Soto Perez was arrested on four counts of human smuggling and one count of driving without a license. He was booked at the Sumter County Detention Center and Homeland Security has put a hold on his custody.
