Three people have been charged after conspiring to smuggle a 9-year-old boy from Mexico to Texas to be sold, officials say. Elida Moreno, 26, was paid $1,700 to use her son’s birth certificate to smuggle a 9-year-old boy into the United States, officials say. She is a U.S. citizen living in Piedras Negras, Mexico. The boy is believed to have been kidnapped.
Officials say Moreno entered the U.S. through Eagle Pass, Texas, where she and the boy stayed in a hotel before taking a shuttle to San Antonio the next day. She’d been asked by a friend’s neighbor to meet Mexico citizen Nery Dominguez, 26, at Santa Rosa Park and hand over the boy in exchange for $2,500.
At some point, the friend’s neighbor told Moreno not to hand over the boy causing “a struggle between Moreno and [Dominguez],” officials say. San Antonio Police Department showed up at the scene and arrested Dominguez.
It’s unclear where the boy was located at the time.
After, Moreno was instructed to deliver the child to Victor Monsivais, 65, instead. She handed him over at a truck stop in San Antonio, officials say.
Following a sting orchestrated by Homeland Security Investigations, officials intercepted the boy and Monsivais in a grocery store parking lot in San Antonio on Wednesday morning, according to KSAT. Monsivais was arrested and the boy was recovered, officials say.
On Tuesday, Moreno was pulled over in Batesville, TX, and questioned at an Homeland Security facility in Eagle Pass when she told officials the complicated story, they say.
Moreno, Dominguez and Monsivais all face conspiracy charges while Moreno is also charged with “bringing an illegal alien into the U.S. for profit” and “making a false statement to a federal official upon conviction,” officials say.