NWA Sees Major Immigration Bust
By: Alex Flippin
Updated: May 23, 2007
The U.S. immigration and customs enforcement agency called I.C.E. teamed up with officers from Springdale, Rogers and Lowell during an investigation into a chain of Mexican restaurants that led to the arrest of twenty-one illegal immigrants. The Taqueria Michoacan chain is part of an on-going criminal investigation as are the businesses owners and operators.
On Monday of this week investigators executed four search warrants and two criminal warrants throughout Northwest Arkansas. In all, twenty-one illegal immigrants were arrested including two men the u-s attorneys office tells us were principles in the investigation. Local law enforcement officials say the U.S. Attorneys Office will not allow them to comment on the multi-agency operation called "El Rancho Tejocote", and our calls to the Department of Justice have not yet been returned,
During the course of the warrant executions officers with I.C.E. seized about twenty-eight bags of business records and close to forty-thousand dollars in American currency.
