El Paso smuggling ring used marijuana gummies to sedate children, 4 charged

Four people are facing charges in a shocking child-smuggling case out of El Paso, Texas.

The four are accused of smuggling unaccompanied children between five and 13 years old from Juárez, Mexico, into the United States, posing as the children’s parents at Border Patrol checkpoints and sedating them with marijuana gummies.

Mexican nationals Susana Guadian and Daniel Guadian, their daughter, Dianne Guadian, a U.S. citizen; and Manuel Valenzuela, a legal U.S. resident living in El Paso, were charged in the Western District of Texas with conspiracy to transport aliens and bringing aliens to the U.S. for financial gain. Officials are working on extraditing the Mexican nationals to the U.S. to face their charges, according to Jason Stevens, the Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) El Paso.

“They would have the drivers pose as their parents and provide U.S. documents, falsely claiming that the documents belong to those children that were being smuggled,” Stevens said.

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According to the criminal complaint, the smuggling events happened between May 1, 2024, and Oct. 18, 2024. During at least one smuggling event, one child was taken to the hospital after taking gummy candies laced with marijuana.

“We’ve seen everything from Benadryl to now these gummies being used to be able to sedate the children,” Stevens added. “They would normally bring them in overnight between 10 a.m. and 4 or 5 a.m., when the children would be sleeping anyway. They use that to ensure that they stay sedated, and that way they’re less likely to answer questions or provide anything that’s going to be inconsistent or contrary to what the smuggler’s saying.”

The criminal complaint includes text messages to the suspect, which translate to English, “Young lady, are you working today? I have a boy 7 and 8. They are small,” and another text reads, “Also Fanny, I have two little girls ages 4 and 5.”

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Proof-of-life pictures of some of the children were found on the suspects’ phones.

Stevens says the parents trusted the smugglers to deliver their children to family members in the U.S., despite the significant risks. 

“These children are nothing more than currency to the criminals,” Stevens said. “We want to ensure that we interdict this and stop this before they get here because there are instances where we find children that are in stash houses, or we get cases where we will be contacted by a local department where a family is being extorted and children are being held.”

READ THE CRIMINAL COMPLAINT – APP USERS, CLICK HERE:

Earlier this month, Fox News got an exclusive look at the team within the Office of Refugee Resettlement which was created under the Trump administration to help find the tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors who disappeared into the system under the Biden administration.

“While we understand people wanting to come to the United States for a better way of life, there is a legal way to do it,” Stevens said. “That is the way obviously that we suggest that they do that and that money be invested in that process, because when they go with a struggling organization, they can’t control any of the elements or the people that are smuggling them.”