Mexican human-smuggling cartels have implemented a system of numbered, colored and labeled wristbands to help them track “their swelling human inventory,” the Center for Immigration Studies reported.
Through executive orders, President Joe Biden has shown South and Central Americans that the United States will not enforce its immigration laws, which has caused a spike in human smuggling at the southern border.
The new tracking system emerged at the same time that Biden promised to end deportations and prosecutions of illegal aliens.
A Customs and Border Protection official said Border Patrol agents started finding thrown-away wristbands about two months ago.
“It’s an inventory system,” a CBP official confirmed. “They’re all over the place.”
Illegal aliens throw out the wristband once they reach the Texas side of the Rio Grande, especially in Starr County.
Jaeson Jones, a retired captain from the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Intelligence and Counterterrorism Division, started finding the wristbands and posted about them on his website, Tripwire & Triggers, which covers cartels and illegal immigration.
To Jones, the wristband system indicates that the cartels want to smuggle and traffic as many persons with the utmost efficiency to make the most profit.
“What this means is that the cartels and the smuggling organizations have created a process because they are being so overrun with people that, even for them, it’s difficult to keep up with who has paid and who hasn’t,” Jones said. “It goes to show the sheer challenge that even they are facing in trying to ensure that people don’t overwhelm them.”
One wristband that Jones found was red with a turtle symbol, the word “Metal,” and the number 3969.
Other wristbands have a symbol of the devil’s face.
The symbols indicate the smuggling cartel that controls the illegal alien.
Jones said the turtle symbol belongs to the Gulf Cartel, one of Mexico’s oldest organized gangs that traffics drugs and humans as well as kidnaps, extorts and assassinates for profit. The Spanish word for tortoise, tortuga, is only one letter different from the word for torture, tortura.
The wristband’s number comes from the illegal alien’s registration in Mexico.
Jones said that during registration the cartels collect information, including names, addresses and cell-phone numbers. This information can be used to retaliate against the illegal alien’s family members if he or she does not pay the cartel.
“If they don’t pay their debt then the cartel has the information about where they’re going, but more importantly, they have the information on their families in home countries,” he said.
“From there, they can start the threats and hold them accountable through debt bondage, a form of human trafficking,” he added. “Either pay or we’re going to come after your family.”
Jones said cartels charge Mexican migrants $2,500 and an increased fee for migrants from more distant countries.
Venezuelans, Peruvians, Ecuadorians, and Hondurans pay $3,000, while Chinese pay $5,000.
Cartels charge Russians and Arabs $9,000.
“It’s the sort you’d get at a water park,” Jones said. “Except that these have clear markings to a criminal organization in a foreign country. Their system is stressed and they’ve got a process under way. That’s incredible. That’s the big takeaway.”
