The network used false documents, private flights, and fraudulent asylum applications to bring its clients into the US and laundered more than $22 million
14ymedio, Havana, October 31, 2026 / Six members of a network that charged up to $40,000 to illegally transport Cuban migrants to the United States were sentenced this Thursday by a federal court in Florida to between two and four years in prison. The organization, whose members also committed asylum application fraud, laundered more than $22 million between 2021 and 2025, as reported by the US Department of Justice.
The longest sentence, four years in prison, went to Liannys Yaiselys Vega Pérez, 27, who ran an immigration services company that filed hundreds of fraudulent asylum applications. Layra Libertad Treto Santos, 30, received 30 months, while Miguel Martínez Vasconcelos, Luis Emmanuel Escalona Marrero, Walbis Pozo Dutel, and Emanuel Martínez González were sentenced to two years each. All six had pleaded guilty.
The court also ordered the forfeiture of $2.9 million from Escalona Marrero, $150,000 from Martínez Vasconcelos, and $95,000 from Treto Santos.
The court also ordered the forfeiture of $2.9 million from Escalona Marrero, $150,000 from Martínez Vasconcelos, and $95,000 from Treto Santos
The network recruited clients through social media and offered flights, travel permits, and immigration paperwork. Some Cubans entered through the border with Mexico, while others used Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) approvals obtained with false information. On occasion, the traffickers chartered private planes to transport groups of migrants.
According to the authorities, the organization passed off Cuban applicants as European travelers and falsely declared that they had not been in Cuba since 2011. Once in the United States, many went to the company Asesoría y Servicios Migratorios, based in Tampa, to file asylum applications based on invented stories.
Some clients were unable to review their applications before they were submitted or to access their own accounts with US immigration services. Vega Pérez, who was neither a lawyer nor an accredited representative, admitted to having directed employees who prepared fraudulent documents.
Among the cases examined by investigators is that of a Cuban minor whose journey was organized from Havana to Miami, via Grand Cayman. Records indicate that she arrived at Miami International Airport in October 2023, after her fraudulent ESTA authorization had been canceled, and was granted a permit to enter the country.
A woman told federal investigators that Frandy Aragón Díaz, another of the defendants, charged her $40,000 for the trip. The victim worked to pay off the debt while living with him in Tampa and, during a call monitored by the authorities, the man demanded payment and threatened her family, according to a criminal complaint whose contents were reported by the Miami Herald. Aragón Díaz remains a fugitive.
The organization was dismantled in September 2025, when US authorities identified twelve people involved
The organization was dismantled in September 2025, when US authorities identified twelve people involved. Investigators established that it had begun operating in January 2021 and continued moving people until June 2025. Its members used front companies, bank accounts, and payment apps to move the money obtained from the migrants.
Of the others involved in the organization, Lázaro Alain Cabrera Rodríguez, found guilty in September of using a travel agency as a front and submitting at least 600 false ESTA applications, is still awaiting sentencing. Yuniel Lima Santos and Gisleivy Peralta Consuegra are in the same situation, while Marianny Lucía López Torres and Frandy Aragón Díaz remain fugitives.
Lima Santos had pleaded guilty in August to migrant smuggling, asylum fraud, and money laundering. The Cuban admitted to having transported women who ended up working in strip clubs to pay off the debts they had incurred for their journeys.
US courts have prosecuted other migrant smuggling networks linked to Cubans. In March, a jury convicted Víctor Rafael Arcia Albeja, a member of an organization that held and beat migrants from the island to demand up to $15,000 from their relatives. In July, Juan Manuel Sifontes Sinales was sentenced to 18 months in prison for illegally transporting 25 migrants of various nationalities. The Cuban will be deported after serving his sentence.
Translated by GH.
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