Lt. Chris Olivares - Texas DPS Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, I know Lieutenant to Olivaris is on a tight
time clock here, so let's dive right into this. He's
with Texas CPS talking about the cartels using people on
social media to mule on traffic some of their human
smuggling victims. Lieutenant tell us a little bit more about
what the cartels are doing here.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Welcome morning, Thanks for having me, and also thanks to
your listeners. You know, one thing that we've seen over
the last four years with this you know surge of
illegal border crosses that have taken place in the last
four years in Texas is the fact that the cartels
have been able to been able to expand their audience
by using social media. And what I mean by that
is target a specific audience to take part of human smuggling.

(00:40):
We've seen drivers from not only you know, local drivers
in Texas, from larger cities such as you know, Houston, Dallas, Austin,
San Antonio that make their way to the southern border
to take part of human smuggling, but even out of
state you know, New York, California, Nebraska, Iowa, Florida, that
we've seen drivers actually making their way to the border
to actually get involved in human smuggling. It's not because

(01:02):
of how the cartels use deceptive advertising on social media
platforms to hire drivers. And as you mentioned earlier, the
cartels take full advantage of anybody has any type of
economic issues or you know, maybe may not have a
job or is you know, it's struggling financially when you're
getting paid thousands of dollars to make a trip from

(01:23):
the border to any one of these cities to smuggle
legal immigrants. We're seeing more US citizens taking part in that,
and also even also that even a much you know,
younger audience as well, juveniles you know, as youngest thirteen
years old that we have seen that have been involved
in human smuggling. It's because they are being recruited through
social media platforms.

Speaker 1 (01:43):
So, Lieutenant, do you find that most of the people
who are caught up in this on social media, particularly
the ones with economic uncertainties, are are they aware of
what they are doing and they're just willing to look
the other way or do they have no idea they
just think they're actually giving people rides almost like ride share.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
You know, No, I mean, I think you know they're
they're fully well aware. I mean, the thing one thing
that cartels do use. I mean they don't. They don't
come out, you know, and just say on social media
we need a driver to smuggle legal immigrants. Socihow images
of money and you know, in jewelry and and they'll
show uh, trying to portray this lavish lifestyle. And of course,
you know, once these people get involved, uh, they know
where they're going, they know where they're gonna pick up,

(02:19):
they know who they're gonna pick up, and where they're
gonna take them to anywhere, anytime you're gonna get paid,
you know, anywhere from five to ten thousand dollars a
trip to smuggle a group of illegal immigrants. They're well
aware of what they're doing and as far as the
the criminal activity that's involved with it. So that's why
we stress as an agency, DPS just don't get involved

(02:40):
in any type of human smuggling. The constquences are very severe,
a minimum jail time of ten years if convicted, and
also the fact that you're also putting your life in
danger not knowing who you're gonna pick up. And also
you know, we've seen some of these high speed chases
that turn out to be deadly where either the driver
you know, risks the lives of people that they're smuggling,
or even the lives of innocent motorists on the roadway,
so it's not worth the risk. But again, once in,

(03:02):
the cartels have been very good at is actually targeting
an audience, a specific audience. Those are the struggs economically.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Lieutenant Chris Olivaris, Texas TPS laying it out for US
cartels using social media to lure Americans into participating in
their human smuggling operations. Lieutenant, I know you're on a
tight clock. Will let you run. Thanks for the time
this morning. We appreciate it, sir.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
I appreciate you. Thank you, You got it all right.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, I'm looking at some of the language, by the way,
you know, this is total social media verbage. The caption
on some of the posts to try to lure people
into this, the route's been green blank with the F
word blank that nine to five and come work, guaranteed pay,
guaranteed pickup. Another one shows a stack of money with

(03:51):
the caption where are my driver's at? That's gonna grab people.
That's gonna grab people who have no money. That may
grab people even if they do have decent money. Because
you see a lot more money just to give somebody
a ride someplace. Okay, I'm in uh you know, if
I'm trying, if I'm if I'm driving someone or something
that may or maybe not be illegal, and it's you know,

(04:11):
I'm not confirming that, and I'm not necessarily aware of that,
then you know I'm innocent. All I'm doing is responding
to an ad and they think that this is okay.
Another post depicted a screenshot of a map with the caption,
whoever trying to just again, you know social media lingo
here t r y na trya as I'm trying to
whoever trying to make ten k at six am hit

(04:33):
me guaranteed hit. They have all of these posts like
this up there, and it has a whole bunch of
people grabbing them. And then and they are you know,
luring people into participating in the human smuggling thing, you know,
moving illegal immigrants, moving perhaps people who are you know,
involved in sex trafficking and so on and so forth.
So it's really really a pretty horrific situation that they're

(04:56):
using social media for. But it's a guaranteed way to
get their drivers, all right. It is six twenty seven.
This is Houston's Morning news on news radio seven forty
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