Yasiel Puig and Human Trafficking
The
story that recently broke regarding the journey of Los Angeles Dodgers’ star
Yasiel Puig from Cuba to the United States provides a rare insight into the
reality of human smuggling.[1]
While Puig had much bigger dreams in mind than most who seek out the help of
smugglers, analyzing the process is useful. It is likely that very similar
methods to those used to get past Cuban authorities are currently used to
smuggle migrants within and out of Central Asia. Many victims of human
trafficking at some point engage with smugglers to get them to their final
destinations. This can range from unsuspecting targets attempting to get to
Moscow to work for a trafficking ring posing as a modeling agency they found
online to unwilling victims already in the grips of traffickers who are being
moved or sold to another location.
It is
crucial to remember that for the smugglers, it is a business. Ultimately,
expected returns must justify costs and potential risks. Certainly in Puig’s
case, expected returns were justifiably very high. Over the past 5 years at
least 20 defectors have been smuggled from Cuba who signed Major League Baseball
contracts worth more than $300 million. Puig’s salary soared from $17 monthly in
Cuba to over $150,000 per month for the Dodgers in 2013. The five men who drove
the boat were in the employ of the infamous Mexican drug cartel, Los Zetas, who
also controlled the landing spot on the Yucatan peninsula, Isla Mujeres. Similar
to our understanding of likely behavior for human traffickers in Central Asia,
this group moved any product that could produce a profit, from people to
cocaine. Puig had already made several unsuccessful attempts to get out, and
for this job the smugglers demanded $250,000 in return for smuggling Puig. He
had a sponsor in the US, who initially offered to pay the fee in return for a
contract with Puig that gave him 20 percent of all future earnings. When they
arrived in Mexico, his smugglers demanded more from his sponsor, who refused to
pay the full price. After a month of waiting for a deal, the sponsor sent in a
“team of fixers” to deal with the smugglers and set Puig up with an agent. The
leader of the smuggling group was later apparently executed after making
repeated demands for payment.
Smuggling
people is much different from smuggling drugs. People cannot be squirreled
away, and must be provided with food, water and reprieve. Unlike drugs, the
easiest way to sneak people past authorities is in plain sight. While Puig was
spirited out undercover from Cuba on a high-speed boat, after landing in Mexico
and being released from his smugglers he was able to move about essentially as
a legal immigrant. This required proper paperwork and typically the cooperation
of corrupt officials. Smugglers must possess extensive knowledge of often
highly intricate immigration regimes. In Puig’s case, given his eventual desire
to play in the MLB, he was required by both league rules and US Treasury
Department restrictions to establish residency in a third country. A mere
formality, it forced his smugglers to take an alternate route (from the typical
straight shot to Miami) to Isla Mujeres in the Yucatan, where their official
contacts provided all the necessary documents and they were ensured no trouble
by the local police.
Due to the nature of the black
market, it is difficult to ascertain how comparable the costs of smuggling Puig
out was to standard costs. An interesting website managed by ‘Havocscope’
attempts to give current prices on a variety of black market goods based on
open-source information. While its reliability is dubious, it lists $10,000 as
the going rate to smuggle someone from Cuba to the US.[2]
Puig was certainly a unique case, given his need to transit via Mexico to meet
MLB rules, and common knowledge of his future earnings potential.
Puig’s
account exemplifies the uncertainty and danger that are unavoidable throughout
the smuggling process. Such situations are faced by smuggled migrants across
the globe. At several points before finally succeeding, Puig was offered to be
taken to the US by likely secret police trying to entrap him. When the money
didn’t come through upon his arrival to Mexico, his smugglers threatened to
maim and kill him. There is no guarantee for those arranging to be moved that
they will not be exploited and harmed. One of the men who brought Puig across
was being sought by US Homeland security for holding a migrant family captive until
$40,000 was paid. To get to the escape point in Cuba, Puig hiked for 30 hours
by night, hiding during the day, through backcountry and swampland to an
unknown destination battling dehydration. At several points they were nearly
intercepted by police, once having to wade out into the sea to escape. Upon
finally arriving in the US, Cuban migrants face an uncertain situation, and turn
to lawyers of Cuban descent for protection and guidance, often being extorted
in the process. Even Puig has not fully escaped his past, as recent news
reports say he faces continuing demands for payment by his smugglers, who even
threatened his family still living in Cuba.
[1] http://www.lamag.com/features/2014/04/13/escape-from-cuba-yasiel-puigs-untold-journey-to-the-dodgers;
http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/10781144/no-one-walks-island-los-angeles-dodgers-yasiel-puig-journey-cuba;
http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/2014/04/17/affidavit-smuggler-threats-follow-puig-from-cuba/7832677/
[2] http://www.havocscope.com/black-market-prices/human-smuggling-fees/
