Tegucigalpa.
The Honduran National Police arrested two Guatemalans on the border with Guatemala on Saturday for illegally transporting 16 Nicaraguans and a Honduran woman in a van, the final destination was the United States.
The arrest was made in Corinth, a border point with Guatemala, in a work of “surveillance and monitoring” of agents of the National Directorate of Border Police Services and the Police Directorate of Investigations, the Honduran Police said in a communiqué.
The Guatemalans, aged 32 and 36 and whose identity was not revealed, were caught on suspicion of “illegal trafficking in human beings to the detriment of the security of freedom of 16 citizens of Nicaraguan origin Honduran, “he added.
Security forces seized 8,915 quetzals ($ 1,155) and three mobile phones from the detainees, according to the official report.
Guatemalans will be “referred to the appropriate instance to continue their legal process,” the Honduran police said.
The 16 Nicaraguans were taken to an office of the National Migration Institute (INM), where authorities will coordinate their return to Nicaragua.
In recent days, Honduran police have intensified border patrols to prevent the smuggling of people across the country.
The Central American country has become in recent decades a transit point for migrants, especially Cubans and Africans, who cross the countries of Central America to reach the United States.
About 3,000 irregular immigrants, mostly Cubans, have been detained in Honduras so far in 2021 for entering illegally, some of them with the intention of arriving in the United States, according to INM figures.
Foreigners are received at the four Irregular Migrant Care Centers (CAMI) that the Honduran government has set up in different parts of the country.
Immigrants receive more humanitarian care and undergo a migration process through Honduras ’Comprehensive Migratory Biometric Control System.