MCALLEN, Texas — A human smuggler recently caught trying to bring a group of illegal aliens from Mexico has been arrested 42 other times in the past six years. One of those times he claimed to have been an unaccompanied minor immigrant to avoid going to jail.

Later, he was able to escape a government detention facility for immigrant children.

On Saturday shortly after 11 p.m., a U.S. Border Patrol agent spotted a group of eight illegal aliens and their guide, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed. Agents were able to arrest two of the illegal aliens along with their foot guide, 20-year-old U.S. citizen Jiovani Hernandez, the rest of the group managed to flee.

Once in custody, Hernandez told agents that he worked for a man named Guero or Wero in Reynosa. He was to be paid $100 per illegal alien he smuggled into this border city. The Mexican border city of Reynosa is controlled by the Gulf Cartel, a criminal organization that, as reported by Breitbart Texas, has branched out into human smuggling in addition to drug trafficking, kidnapping and extortion. In 2014, during the Gulf Cartel was able to make $38 million from human smuggling alone in a matter of months.

Agents determined that Hernandez had been arrested 42 other times beginning in 2010. Authorities also discovered that on September 29. 2014, they had arrested Hernandez but he played the system by claiming to be an unaccompanied minor. As such he was sent to a detention center for children form where he was able to escape shortly after. During 2014, the human smuggling routes changed sending thousands upon thousands of unaccompanied minors as well as illegal aliens form Central America to this border city. The massive influx rapidly overwhelmed the detention capabilities of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security creating a humanitarian crisis where as initially reported by Breitbart Texas, hundreds of children were being crammed into small cells at a time, Breitbart Texas reported.

43 Detentions

Ildefonso Ortiz es un galardonado periodista de Breitbart Texas, puedes seguirlo en Twitter y en Facebook.