VIDEO: Armed Smugglers Escort Migrants to Arizona Border

Surveillance video released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection captures the moment when a group rifle-carrying smugglers escort a woman and her son to the Arizona border.

The video was released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection this week and was recorded west of Lukeville, Arizona.

#BorderPatrol cameras observed armed men escorting a mother and her 8-year-old son to the int’l boundary west of Lukeville, AZ. The armed men dropped off the pair in an area commonly used by smugglers to bring large groups of Central Americans into the country illegally. pic.twitter.com/xwJZZgvlbD

— CBP (@CBP) April 23, 2019

The thermal images appear to have been recorded at night when it captured a group of smugglers with rifles escorting a woman and her child toward a low vehicle barrier. The two migrants and a third man easily crossed into Arizona as the gunmen walked back to their vehicle.

The video comes weeks after U.S. Border Patrol agents in Yuma arrested an armed human smuggler who was leading a group from Mexico as a “large” Central American migrant group served nearby as a diversion of resources. During the arrest, authorities discovered a dropped Glock pistol.

The Arizona border region is a busy smuggling corridor used by the Sinaloa Cartel. In 2017, Breitbart News published a series of exclusive images that captured the moment when armed smugglers crossed into Arizona. The smugglers in those images can be seen carrying AR-15 and AK-47 style rifles as they trekked near the Huachuca Mountains. The area is full of Mexican cartel smugglers, rip crews, and prison-affiliated gangs looking to steal drug loads.

Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com. 

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded the Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz, and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.