Venezuelan nationals convicted in Tennessee sex trafficking, alien smuggling ring
Ari Hoffman
“These perpetrators profited off human suffering while chipping away at the integrity of our border.”
The Justice Department announced that nine Venezuelan nationals have pleaded guilty to federal charges tied to a human trafficking, alien smuggling, and money laundering operation that prosecutors say forced vulnerable women into prostitution after luring them to the United States with false promises of legitimate work.
According to court documents, the defendants recruited women in Venezuela by offering employment opportunities, then arranged for them to be smuggled into the United States before directing them to Nashville, Tennessee. Once they arrived, prosecutors said the women were told they owed large, inflated smuggling debts that could only be repaid through commercial sex work. Women who resisted were allegedly threatened with violence against themselves and their families back in Venezuela.
Federal prosecutors said the organization also profited by taking a share of the victims’ earnings in addition to collecting payments on the fabricated smuggling debts.
“Human smuggling and trafficking operations represent a dangerous convergence of exploitation and lawlessness,” Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said in a statement. “These perpetrators profited off human suffering while chipping away at the integrity of our border. These convictions show that protecting vulnerable individuals and securing our border are not competing goals.”
According to the Justice Department, Yilibeth Carmen Rivero-de Caldera and her son, Kleiver Daniel Mota Rivero, led the criminal enterprise by recruiting family members and associates to help manage the operation. Prosecutors allege the pair, along with co-defendant Ramon De Jesus Velasquez Martinez, used firearms and threats of violence to intimidate victims into compliance.