The dangerous links of Russians in Mexico to smuggle migrants to the US

A Slavic couple was arrested with more than half a million dollars in cash along with a Mexican from Sinaloa (cradle of the most powerful drug cartel), in the border city of Tijuana, Baja California.

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the transit flow of people, mainly families from both nations, has increased around the world to get away from the conflict. Due to its geographical location with the United States (USA), Mexico is the most attractive destination to try to achieve the American dream.

Demographic changes in recent months marked a dramatic departure from the past, when migrants were predominantly from Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Central America: Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

In recent months there has been an increase in Russians and Ukrainians traveling to Mexico to request refugee status in the US, although there are also individuals who want to profit from this difficult situation.

The most recent incident took place last Wednesday afternoon when a couple of Russian origin and a person of Mexican nationality were arrested in the border city of Tijuana, Baja California after they were accused of allegedly being migrant smugglers.

The arrest took place in the vicinity of the port of San Ysidro; The Russian citizens were identified as 48-year-old Andrei Myakotin and 41-year-old Ola Myakotina, while the Mexican’s name corresponds to 28-year-old Francisco Javier, who is originally from Sinaloa, cradle of the homonymous cartel to which El Chapo Guzmán and that has spread its tentacles to the whole world.

At the time of their arrest, the couple of Russian citizens and the Mexican were seized with firearms and a suitcase with $587,500.

The Secretary of Security and Municipal Citizen Protection of Tijuana, Fernando Sánchez González, confirmed to the media that this arrest occurred after a citizen report and stressed that it is probably a matter of human trafficking.

“We know that people of Russian origin are looking for many mechanisms to enter the United States and there it is likely that a situation of trafficking in people of Russian nationality is being generated, but it will be the Prosecutor’s Office that resolves that matter,” he said.

According to witnesses and preliminary information from the authorities themselves, these people went daily outside the place where they were detained, to collect cash related to the trafficking of migrants of Russian, Mexican and other European origin.

For two months, authorities and the media had reported the massive crossings that had been taking place constantly through various points of the border wall, mainly through the immediate areas of the port of El Chaparral and the Tijuana Beach area.

Groups of five, 10 or up to 15 people are taken by car or on foot to these points on the border wall, where they are helped to cross the first metal fence of the wall and then turn themselves in to the Border Patrol with the aim of being granted asylum in USA.

Sometimes it has happened that migrants remain stranded between one wall and another waiting for the border agents to arrive, who usually leave them for several hours, even days, exposed to the cold, rain and lack of food and water.

The director of the pro-migrant organization Movimiento Juventud 2000, José María García Lara, shared that this is nothing more than an example of the symptom “that is lived in the city and that is suffered thanks to the closed immigration policies of the US government.”

“This (the arrest of people) is just the tip of the whole problem, surely there are many more (human traffickers) and surely they are getting their cut (profit) from all this; The authorities want to inhibit migratory transit, but what they promote is that they empower these traffickers who only take advantage of a need of the migrants,” he said.

Migrants not from Mexico and the Northern Triangle accounted for 41% of border stops between October and July, up from just 12% three years earlier, according to government data.

The region is experiencing a record migratory flow to the United States, whose Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Office detained an unprecedented number of more than 2.76 million undocumented immigrants in fiscal year 2022.

According to different activists, in the Mexican city the establishment of a “mafia” that is dedicated to human trafficking, especially those from Russia, has begun to be documented, which already has a modus operandi.