Nicaraguan Ex-Consul Arrested in Mexico for Alien Smuggling

By Jason Peña on June 25, 2019

Perhaps as part of Mexico's crackdown on illegal immigration in response to a tariff threat from President Donald Trump, Mexico's National Institute of Migration (INM) reported the arrest Sunday of a Nicaraguan woman who was discovered to be transporting three illegal-immigrant Cubans in Mexico. The Nicaraguan woman is identified as Nambia del Socorro Fuentes Gonzalez; the former consul of Nicaragua in the Mexican border town of Tapachula, a hotbed of illegal border-crossing and alien smuggling. Fuentes Gonzalez was driving a black vehicle with diplomatic license plates, and upon her detention she was found with the three Cuban illegal aliens.

Fuentes-Gonzalez indicated to law enforcement that she was traveling to a shelter in the city of Ixtepec in the state of Oaxaca, under the authority of the Nicaraguan Consul for a transfer assignment. When stopped, Fuentes-Gonzalez informed federal immigration officials that she could not be detained due to her "diplomatic immunity".

However, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nicaragua said she had lost her position as consul in February and in any case, according to the Mexican news site El Universal, Fuente's diplomatic visa expired two years ago and was no longer valid.

The Nicaraguan publication La Prensa reports that the nation's Ministry of the Interior cited unspecified "irregularities" in her conduct as consul as the reason for her departure from the agency. What's more, when she left she did not return her official consular documentation, claiming that it had been stolen.

Topics: Cuba, Mexico