Smugglers use black drivers to avert suspicion at border

(LOS ANGELES TIMES) — In the calculus of cross-border human smuggling, Maria Lopez-Diaz allegedly concluded that black instead of brown equals green.

The 60-year-old Compton woman, prosecutors say, tried to cash in on racial profiling by operating a human smuggling ring that hired mostly African American drivers who didn’t speak a word of Spanish to ferry small groups of immigrants from Mexico to Los Angeles.