Suspected MS-13 gangbanger Kilmar Abrego Garcia was paid up to $1,500 per smuggling trip and may have raked in more than $100,000 annually trafficking humans, including minors, according to witnesses.
The new details about Abrego Garcia’s alleged “full-time job” come from co-conspirators and witnesses cooperating with the federal government’s human smuggling case against the Salvadoran national who was wrongly deported in March.
The allegations were shared by a federal agent during a Friday detention hearing in a Nashville court, where Abrego Garcia entered a plea of not guilty.
As part of the illegal operation, smugglers charged migrants from Central and South America $8,000 for passage into the US — and Abrego Garcia would pick them up in Texas to transport them across the US, Homeland Security Investigations special agent Peter Joseph testified.
Abrego Garcia was paid between up to $1,500 per trip and made about one to two smuggling trips per week, according to one co-conspirator, Joseph revealed.
The trips may have netted the Maryland man more than $100,000 per year in income.
The payment structure was corroborated by a second co-conspirator helping federal authorities, who noted $1,000 payments were passed from the trafficker to the driver making the long-haul trips.
The co-conspirator also alleged that roughly 30% of the smuggling operation’s customers were gang members.
The human smuggling charges against Abrego Garcia stem from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee, where Abrego Garcia was pulled over driving a vehicle with nine passengers.
An envelope stuffed with $1,400 in cash was found on the illegal immigrant during the speeding stop, a Tennessee Highway Patrol officer noted in body camera video of the encounter, which also demonstrates that the officers had suspicions the Maryland man was smuggling the people in the car.
Joseph testified that the vehicle Abrego Garcia was stopped in was owned by Jose Hernandez-Reyes, a convicted migrant smuggler, and that six of the nine occupants were in the US illegally.
Witnesses further alleged that children were also transported during the trips and forced to sit on the floorboards.
One of Abrego Garcia’s co-conspirators told authorities that they witnessed drug and gun smuggling, as well, and that the weapons — which included handguns and semi-automatic rifles — were hidden beneath the children on the trips.
Testimony related to allegations that Abrego Garcia had sexual relationships with some of his passengers, including a minor, was limited after his defense team objected.
Abrego Garcia is not charged with any sex, drug or gun crimes. The evidence was presented during the hearing to demonstrate that Abrego Garcia presents a danger to the community and should remain behind bars.
His lawyers have called the allegations presented by the Justice Department “preposterous.”
The defense team also pressed Joseph on any deals he’s cut with the government witnesses, suggesting that their testimony presents a conflict of interest.
Abrego Garcia’s lawyers noted that one witness had been previously deported and is serving a 30-month prison sentence, but is now living in a halfway house and may receive work authorization.
A second witness, according to defense lawyers, is a close relative of the first witness and indicated he would cooperate in return for his release from jail.
A third had previously been compensated for helping law enforcement.
With Post wires
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