MIAMI — FBI Miami special agents are investigating a human trafficking operation that federal prosecutors announced on Friday, so far, has three suspects awaiting trial and three convicts in prison.
The investigation started last year after Jhonny Izaguirre was arrested during a traffic stop on May 20, 2024, along the Turnpike in central Florida’s Sumter County, records show.
Izaguirre, 45, who was born in Honduras and lived in Louisiana, was driving from Miami-Dade County to Baton Rouge when he got caught traveling with four undocumented migrants, records show.
Investigators later learned that the four migrants had been kidnapped. Brett Skiles, FBI Miami’s special agent in charge, later described Izaguirre’s conduct as “violent,” “inhumane,” and “heinous.”
Investigators found the undocumented migrants had been in Florida for a few days after traveling from Cuba to Key Largo in a boat with Victor Perez on May 18, 2024, records show.
Once in Key Largo, Perez, 39, who was born in Cuba and lived in Tampa, was armed with a gun when he ordered the migrants to walk from a deserted shoreline to a road to meet with human traffickers, records show.
Osmel Benitez was among the traffickers who then drove the migrants northbound to a farm in Miami-Dade County, where they terrorized them and their family and friends, according to investigators.
Benitez, 40, was involved in beatings, two “mock hangings,” and forced a migrant “to stand on a chair” with “a noose around his neck” while hitting him with “the flat side of a machete,” according to investigators.
To extort them, the traffickers recorded a video and sent it to their loved ones to “coerce payment” -- and they threatened “to kill or harm the captives unless money was sent,” according to prosecutors.
Investigators learned that the human traffickers agreed that those migrants who were unable to pay the extortion fees were kidnapped to work in Izaguirre’s construction company, records show.
U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida described the cases as “human smuggling at its most brutal — marked by kidnapping, extortion, and torture.”
Federal prosecutors identified the three suspects who are awaiting trial for their alleged role in the same human trafficking operation as Victor Arcia, Jose Marrero, and Yoelys Prada.
Benitez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to provide and obtain forced labor, violent crimes in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to possess a firearm, and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violenceconspiracy to provide and obtain forced labor, violent crimes in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to possess a firearm, brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and conspiracy to smuggle, transport, and harbor aliens in violation of U.S. law.
Izaguirre pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap, conspiracy to provide and obtain forced labor, violent crimes in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to possess a firearm, and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violenceconspiracy to provide and obtain forced labor, violent crimes in aid of racketeering, conspiracy to possess a firearm, and brandishing a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence, and transporting aliens within the U.S.
Perez pleaded guilty to conspiracy to kidnap, and conspiracy to smuggle, transport, and harbor aliens in violation of U.S. law.
During hearings on Sept. 18 and Sept. 25, U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman sentenced Benitez to 408 months in prison, Izaguirre to 346 months in prison, and Perez to 210 months in prison, records show. After serving their time in prison, Benitez and Perez are set to be deported to Cuba, and Izaguirre to Honduras.
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