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HEBER CITY — A California man pulled over in Utah, who claimed he was driving a group of people to Wyoming for work, is now facing charges of human smuggling.
Gerardo Garcia-Mejia, 29, of Los Angeles, was charged Tuesday in 4th District Court with seven counts of human smuggling, a second-degree felony,
About 3:45 a.m. Monday, a Heber City police officer pulled over a vehicle for going an estimated 50 mph in a 35 mph zone. Garcia-Mejia, who was driving, claimed he was headed to Cheyenne for work, according to a police booking affidavit. The officer called for backup after seeing several others in the vehicle.
"While I was typing out a citation for the speeding, another officer spoke with Gerardo and the front passenger. They told officers that they were going to Wyoming and then to Washington and Oregon for work. Gerardo consented to a vehicle search. During the vehicle search, a ledger with written financial transactions with dates and times for individuals to be dropped off was located in the vehicle. There were also fake Social Security cards as well as fake ID cards," the officer wrote in the arrest report, while also noting Garcia-Mejia's identification card "appeared to be false due to the poor quality of the information on the card."
"The occupants of the vehicle did not know each other and their stories did not make sense. The stories also did not match each other," the affidavit states.
Police discovered the vehicle had crossed into Nevada from California the day before and into St. George later that night. Additionally, "the floorboard of the vehicle had been cut and the underside of the steering wheel area had been cut out. The leg airbag cover had been tampered with," according to the affidavit.
Investigators said they later discovered the seven people being transported in the vehicle were not U.S. citizens.
"The individuals were being transported from California to various states across the United States. They originally said that they were family members, then they changed their stories to they were only acquaintances. The driver, Gerardo, had been transporting the individuals to several different states with the intent of collecting a payment for his services," the affidavit alleges.
"One of the victim's told officers that he was told that he had to pay a fee or owe a debt to Gerardo for his transportation. He said that he was going to be transported to Indiana. He told officers that he did not know how much the debt was that he would owe, as well as how he was supposed to pay the debt. He said that if he can't get any work to pay, he would just 'go back down south,'" according to the affidavit. "Another victim told officers … that the debt was cheaper than having to pay the monthly debt to the cartels in Mexico."
