PHOENIX — The owner of a Colombian travel agency was indicted last week for allegedly helping to smuggle over 100 people illegally over the border and into Arizona.
Greiby Melissa Barcelo-Velasquez has been charged with smuggling crimes after she was identified as the coordinator behind a transnational operation that involved transporting Colombian citizens to the U.S.-Mexico border.
According to the U.S. Attorney's Office of Arizona, the defendant would require individuals to pay a fee before they were taken to Mexico under the false pretense that they were going on vacation.
They would then have to pay the defendant more fees at the Cancun International Airport before the travelers were taken to stash houses near the border.
The Colombian citizens were then escorted, sometimes by armed guards, to the international border and illegally crossed over into Arizona. Homeland Security began investigating Barcelo-Velasquez in late 2023.
If convicted, Barcelo-Velasquez is facing several years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000.
UP TO SPEED
How big is Maricopa County?
Maricopa County is the United States’ 4th largest county in terms of population with 4,485,414 people, according to the 2020 Census.
The county contains around 63% of Arizona’s population and is 9,224 square miles. That makes the county larger than seven U.S. states (Rhode Island, Delaware, Connecticut, Hawaii, New Jersey, Massachusetts and New Hampshire).
One of the largest park systems in the nation is also located in Maricopa County. The county has an estimated 120,000 acres of open space parks that includes hundreds of miles of trails, nature centers and campgrounds.
The county’s seat is located in Phoenix, which is also the state capital and the census-designated 5th most populous city in the United States.
The county was named after the Maricopa, or Piipaash, Native American Tribe.