The State Department is offering up to $2 million in rewards for information about a Pakistani national and his alleged human smuggling network, which the government says is used to smuggle illegal immigrants into the United States from the Middle East and Southwest Asia.
The department has put out a reward of up to $1 million for information that leads to the arrest or convictions of Abid Ali Khan, and a second $1 million for information that leads to what it describes as his “human smuggling network” being disrupted.
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In a release, the State Department said that Khan allegedly operated a smuggling network based in Pakistan that moves individuals into the United States from the Middle East and southwest Asia for money. Khan is also alleged to have offered or provided false travel documents for those seeking entry into the U.S.
The Department of Justice unsealed an indictment in April charging him with encouraging and inducing an alien to unlawfully enter the U.S., and bringing an alien to the U.S. He was also sanctioned by the Department of Treasury as part of orders to block transnational criminal organizations.
The release says that the migrants were being moved through South and Central America, where they were placed in dangerous conditions. The route through South and Central America and into the southern border is a common smuggling route for those seeking to enter the U.S. illegally.
There have been more than 200,000 migrant encounters at the southern border in August and July, but that does not include the number of migrants who have got past overwhelmed Border Patrol agents known as “gotaways.”
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Former Border Patrol chief Rodney Scott told Fox News in an interview that there are more than 400,000 “gotaways” this year along and warned about the risk of terrorists entering the U.S via the porous southern border.
“They exist, and they want to come across that border. Statistically, it always includes rapists, murderers, potential terrorists every single year if you look at CBP’s statistics publicly available. Those all exist in who we actually catch,” he said. “To think there is not just as bad or worse people in those getting away would be naive.”
