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A young Florida woman has pleaded guilty in a human smuggling operation that resulted in the deaths of 16 migrants, many of which were children younger than 7 years old, off of Cuba's coast, authorities said.
Yaqulelin Dominguez-Nieves, of Sebring, facilitated the operation on Nov. 16, 2022, which ended in deaths when the boat the migrants were on sank 30 miles off the coast of the island while in transit to Florida, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Florida said.
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WATCH HEREDominguez-Nieves, now 26, was arrested in June 2024 by special agents with the Coast Guard Investigative Service, prosecutors said. She pleaded guilty on Tuesday.
"Dominguez-Nieves, who entered the United States illegally, collected at least $11,500 from the migrants’ family members in South Florida with the promise to smuggle the migrants from Cuba into the United States," the U.S. attorney's office said.
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She is accused of transferring the money to her co-conspirator on the island, and that person then "loaded approximately 18 migrants onto a small fishing vessel with no life jackets and with a captain who, according to the two survivors, did not appear to know how to operate the vessel."
All but two people died. Many of the victims were young children, from 9 months old to 7 years old, authorities said. Two 16-year-olds also died.
Four of the victims' bodies were found at sea, and determined to have died by drowning. A survivor said the boat was overloaded.
“Human smuggling ventures put people’s lives at risk for the sake of profit,” U.S. Attorney Markenzy Lapointe for the Southern District of Florida said when Dominguez-Nieves' arrest was announced last year. “Human smugglers prey on the migrants’ hopes for a better life. Tragically, the smugglers’ exploits pose a grave danger to migrants. The U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to work with our partners to prosecute those who carry out illicit human smuggling operations to protect vulnerable migrants and save lives.”
Dominguez-Nieves is to be sentenced in April in Miami. She faces up to life in prison and a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison.
