HOUSTON: "Five suspects have been charged and arrested after last week’s discovery of a suspected human smuggling operation in a southwest Houston home, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday. The criminal complaint charges Marina Garcia-Diaz, 22, of El Salvador; Henry Licona-Larios, 31, of Copan, Honduras; Kevin Licona-Lopez, 25, of Santa Barbara, Honduras; Marco Baca-Perez 30, of Michoacan, Mexico; and Marcelo Garcia-Palacios, 21, of Oaxaca, Mexico. All five are accused of harboring and concealing people for “the purpose of commercial advantage or private financial gain.”

Police were called to the home after authorities received a call from a woman reporting her brother had been kidnapped. The woman told police that she paid human smugglers $11,000 earlier this year to bring her brother to the U.S. from Honduras.

“She had paid several thousand dollars for him to be smuggled into the United States, according to the charges. However, the smugglers had allegedly demanded additional money before they would release her brother. They also threatened to kill him, according to the charges,” stated DOJ officials.

Investigators were able to track the suspects' phones, which led them a home in the 12000 block of Chessington Drive. The HPD SWAT team carried out the search warrant and found 97 people, five of whom were women, crammed into two locked bedrooms of the home. All of the human smuggling victims were stripped down to their underwear. The Houston Health Department confirmed that five of them tested positive for COVID-19 on-site and another five are pending test results."

https://www.khou.com/article/news/crime/houston-stash-house-with-90-to-100-people-found-charges-and-arrests-made-doj-says/285-aeb766bb-4e17-480b-95d4-f0d451501c5f