MIAMI-DADE, Fla. — Three men have received decades-long federal prison sentences for their involvement in a violent conspiracy that involved alien smuggling and kidnapping, spanning from Cuba to South Florida and Louisiana.
U.S. District Judge Roy K. Altman sentenced Osmel Benitez, 40, from Miami, to 408 months in prison. Victor Manuel Perez Cardenas, 39, from Tampa, received 210 months, and Jhonny Walther Izaguirre Lopez, 45, from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was sentenced to 346 months.
“This was human smuggling at its most brutal—marked by kidnapping, extortion, and torture,” said U.S. Attorney Jason A. Reding Quiñones for the Southern District of Florida.
“The violent, inhumane conduct that Benitez, Cardenas, and Lopez doled out to the victims of their illegal alien smuggling and kidnapping operation is almost beyond imagination,” said Brett Skiles, Special Agent in Charge, FBI Miami.
Benitez, Perez Cardenas, and Izaguirre Lopez admitted guilt to conspiracy to kidnap. Furthermore, Benitez and Izaguirre Lopez admitted guilt to conspiracy related to forced labor, violent crimes supporting racketeering, conspiracy to possess a firearm, and brandishing a firearm during a violent crime.
Benitez and Perez Cardenas admitted to conspiracy charges related to smuggling, transporting, and harboring aliens in violation of U.S. law. Meanwhile, Izaguirre Lopez admitted to transporting aliens within the U.S. Court documents reveal that in May 2024, the three individuals conspired to kidnap aliens who had been smuggled from Cuba to the U.S. On May 18, 2024, Perez Cardenas used a boat to transport the smuggled aliens to a deserted shoreline on Key Largo.
Perez Cardenas, armed with a firearm, led the aliens to a nearby road. There, Benitez and other team members awaited with vehicles to take them to Miami.
That day, multiple aliens were brought to a farm in Miami. Benitez, Perez Cardenas, Izaguirre Lopez, and others from the enterprise kept the aliens captive, while also extorting or trying to extort money from their families and friends.
At the property, Benitez and other members of the group assaulted the aliens with a stick and a machete, and staged mock hangings of two aliens. In one recorded event, Benitez and another accomplice made an alien stand on a chair, fitted a noose around his neck, and hit him with the flat side of a machete. The footage was sent to the alien’s family to force payment.
Izaguirre Lopez and others involved with the enterprise reached out to the aliens’ families and friends, warning that the captives would be harmed or killed unless they sent money.
When four aliens couldn’t pay, Benitez, Izaguirre Lopez, and others agreed that Izaguirre Lopez would take them to Louisiana to work for his construction firm to settle their debts.
On May 20, 2024, law enforcement stopped Izaguirre Lopez on the Florida Turnpike in Sumter County while he was transporting the aliens.
Three additional alleged co-conspirators — Victor Rafael Arcia Albeja, Jose Angel Marrero Rodriguez, and Yoelys Prada Ramos — are awaiting trial.
Benitez and Perez Cardenas, both citizens of Cuba, along with Izaguirre Lopez from Honduras, are facing deportation after serving their sentences.
The FBI Miami Field Office investigated the case, and U.S. Attorney Reding Quiñones, along with Special Agent in Charge Brett D. Skiles of the FBI Miami Field Office, announced the findings.
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