Miami-Dade man sentenced to more than 14 years for extortion conspiracy

MIAMI – A Miami-Dade man was sentenced Monday to 175 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his role in a human smuggling ring. The sentence was the result of an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the FBI.

Eliezer Lazo, 41, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to commit extortion for his role in an alien smuggling operation that moved approximately 1,000 Cuban migrants from Cuba to Mexico and then the United States.

According to court documents, many of the Cuban migrants pre-paid for their illegal journey to the United States. Other migrants were Cuban baseball players who paid for the journey by entering into a contract with Lazo’s company, Estrellas del Beisbol, in which the migrants agreed to pay Lazo a share of their respective earnings from U.S. baseball teams. A third group of migrants, numbering about 100, did not pre-pay for their journey and were held in Mexico. The smugglers made phone calls to the migrants’ family members and beat the migrants while on those phone calls so their family members could hear the abuse. The smugglers extorted $10,000 from the family members to release their relatives.

In addition to the sentence, Lazo was order to pay a $17,500 fine and to forfeit his right to $1.49 million in cash, several real properties and a vehicle.