IRON COUNTY — An 18-year-old Iron County man is in jail facing a felony human smuggling charge after Interstate 15 traffic stop on Interstate 15 where Utah Highway Patrol troopers reportedly found an SUV full of undocumented workers headed to Denver for employment.
On Tuesday, a UHP trooper was monitoring I-15 traffic near mile marker 63 in Iron County shortly before 4 a.m. when a gray SUV passed by “slowly,” prompting the trooper to follow, according to the report filed following the arrest.
While trailing the SUV, the trooper watched as the vehicle reportedly swerved out of the travel lane in order to pass a slower-moving semitractor-trailer. Officers pulled the SUV over near mile marker 70 just south of Parowan.
The trooper approached and noted that the SUV was “full of people.” The front-seat passenger, Pascual Jeremias Chan Pastor, 18, of Iron County, was unable to identify the driver, though he told police he himself should have been driving but the actual driver was just helping. Nine occupants were traveling in the SUV at the time of the stop.
While speaking to police, Pastor reportedly admitted he was driving the group to Denver so they could gain employment, adding that none of the occupants had a passport or other documentation needed to legally work in the U.S.
The suspect told troopers he was being paid $1,000 to drive the group to their destination, and that he had made at least one similar journey for payment prior to the stop.
Pastor said the transports were arranged by a friend who also provided the individuals to be transported as well as money to cover travel expenses “for the people being smuggled,” the trooper wrote.
The suspect was arrested and during a search prior to transport, troopers found several business cards that Pasctor reportedly admitted he created — cards imprinted with a background photo of a minivan that listed a number of destinations, including New York, Nevada and Florida.
The trooper noted that Pastor said he created the business cards for the purpose of “driving people that needed rides without passports” and then charged them various rates depending on their intended destination.
Pastor was booked into the Iron County jail facing a second-degree felony count of human smuggling. The report was sent to the Iron County Attorney’s Office to be reviewed for formal charges and the suspect remains in custody without bail.
This report is based on statements from court records, police or other responders and may not contain the full scope of findings. Persons arrested or charged are presumed innocent until found guilty in a court of law or as otherwise decided by a trier-of-fact.
Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2023, all rights reserved.