AZ Prosecutors Blaze a Trail to Fight Money Men Behind Illegal Immigration
"In 2001, Arizona state prosecutors trying to stem the growing tide of
immigrant smuggling found a Western Union outlet in the border town of Douglas that was doling out more than $91,000 a month -- this in a community where the per capita income was barely $10,000 a year. People across the country, prosecutors said, were sending money to the little Western Union shop in Douglas -- and scores others like it in Arizona -- to pay smugglers to sneak illegal immigrants into the United States," the Washington Post reports. "To fight back, Attorney General Terry Goddard employed a controversial technique known as a damming warrant to seize $17 million in money transfers into hundreds of Western Union locations in Arizona, prosecute scores of immigrant smugglers and deport hundreds of people in a program he marvels at because of its 'elegant simplicity.'"
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