HAMMOND | The U.S. attorney's office charged a Mexican citizen Wednesday with driving illegal immigrants to various U.S. cities for cash until police stopped his vehicle on the Indiana Toll Road last week.
Four of the man's 15 passengers face charges of illegally re-entering the country after deportation.
An Indiana State Police trooper stopped the vehicle, driven by Lazaro Renferi Sandoval-Arreygue, on June 11 in the Toll Road's westbound lanes near Portage for changing lanes unsafely, a criminal complaint states.
Sandoval-Arreygue later admitted to federal agents he knew his passengers were illegal immigrants when he took as much as $2,000 from family members of each person as fare from Los Angeles to New York, North Carolina, New Jersey, Ohio and Georgia, the complaint states.
Federal authorities charged these passengers with illegal re-entry: Mexican citizens Hector Escobar-Izaguirre and Oscar Cesar Cruz-Rivera, Guatemalan citizen Juana Hilda Colop-Sop and Ecuadoran citizen Kleber Roberto Astudillo-Bustamante.
The defendants are all scheduled for hearings Monday.
