# Human smugglers hail Uber drivers to take migrants to U.S.-Mexico border



## njn (Jan 23, 2016)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/human-smugglers-hail-uber-drivers-migrants-u-mexico-144938204.html
https://www.yahoo.com/news/human-smugglers-hail-uber-drivers-migrants-u-mexico-144938204.html

June 30, 2016
By Alizeh Kohari

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Human traffickers, who are finding increasingly creative ways to shuttle Central American migrants through Mexico to the U.S. border, have begun to use the Uber ride-sharing service.

On June 10, five vehicles carrying 34 Central American migrants were apprehended while traveling together between the northern Mexican states of Zacatecas and Coahuila, said Segismundo Doguin, a Coahuila state official at the National Migration Institute (INM).

Four of the vehicles were linked to the Uber Technologies Inc [UBER.UL] platform, Doguin said, but it was unclear whether the human smugglers had hailed the drivers using the Uber app. The drivers said they weren't the owners of the cars but worked as Uber chauffeurs, he said.

There has been a sharp rise in the number of Central American children and families trying to reach the United States this year, a hot button issue in the U.S. presidential race. Republican candidate Donald Trump has vowed to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border to keep them out.

Mexican migration officials attribute the increase to migrants finding new routes past checkpoints, increasingly through varied forms of transport.

"First we saw them on trains, then on buses, then on trucks and today we see them in rented vehicles," Doguin told Reuters by telephone on Wednesday.

The drivers left the northern Mexican city of Monterrey and picked up the migrants in Matehuala, 323 kilometers (201 miles) further south, Doguin said. The caravan was headed for the city of Reynosa, 551 kilometers (342 miles) north, on the border with Texas.

The migrants told investigators they each paid 3,000 pesos ($162) to make the journey, Doguin said.

Uber Mexico said in a statement it bore no responsibility, but was cooperating with authorities.

"The company does not own the cars registered on the platform, nor does it employ the drivers, who are independent contractors," Uber said.

Only three of the drivers were registered in the database, Uber said. One of them was dismissed nine months ago for unrelated reasons. The other two were discharged when the INM flagged the situation, the company said.

This is not the first time Uber cars have been used to ferry migrants, Doguin said.

"About two months ago, seven other vehicles were detected in the area of San Luis Potosi state ... and were also in the Uber system," he said.

($1 = 18.5198 pesos)

(Editing by Gabriel Stargardter and Simon Gardner)


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## Squirming Like A Toad (Apr 7, 2016)

Were the illegal aliens the drivers or the riders?


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

Nice so they got UberMeX off the ground.

seriously though, tHis is why you never take a pool under 2x. or over 2 mex


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## SEAL Team 5 (Dec 19, 2015)

DriverX said:


> Nice so they got UberMeX off the ground.
> 
> seriously though, tHis is why you never take a pool under 2x.


UberMeX, funny funny funny. You know an Arizona driver definitely sees the humor in this one. 5 vehicles with 34 pax? Hell, I bet the pax were thinking they're riding 1st class. It's usually 34 illegals in one vehicle. I just read a little more of the article. They ordered UberMeX Select.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

UberMeX


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

UberMeXpress


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

UberTowMX


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

BTW, this is Hubersito a new service springing up in many areas of Mexico.










Costs.... umm 10 pesos. Which is about 70 cents per person anywhere in town. Drivers pay 300 pesos per day and keep everything above that. I didn't think to ask about who pays for fuel and maintenance. There is no insurance.


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## SEAL Team 5 (Dec 19, 2015)

observer said:


> View attachment 46823
> 
> 
> UberMeXpress


With all 4 legs off of the ground at once I don't think this kind of driving behavior is Uber approved.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

SEAL Team 5 said:


> With all 4 legs off of the ground at once I don't think this kind of driving behavior is Uber approved.


The UberTowMX driver needs to be careful. No cellphone calls while driving.


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## SEAL Team 5 (Dec 19, 2015)

DriverX said:


> Nice so they got UberMeX off the ground.
> 
> seriously though, tHis is why you never take a pool under 2x.


Look what you started DriverX. In 2 post, this forum can take a very serious matter like human smuggling and come up with better punchlines then The Laugh Factory. You guys ROCK!!!! This is one of the main reasons I love this forum. The UP.net Forum, helping to make my day a little better.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

SEAL Team 5 said:


> Look what you started DriverX. In 2 post, this forum can take a very serious matter like human smuggling and come up with better punchlines then The Laugh Factory. You guys ROCK!!!! This is one of the main reasons I love this forum. The UP.net Forum, helping to make my day a little better.


I picked up some Mexican women in SF and took them to the Superbowl to meet up with their husbands. It looked like 3 women and a child when I pulled up. Halfway down there I heard a baby cry! WTF they slipped one by me, I didn't want to check the trunk. LOL. Good thing I didn't get popped by la Migra and hit with the overloaded vehicle and no child seat fines. HAHA chill ride only like $50 bux tho. Superbowl was a bust.


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## DriverX (Aug 5, 2015)

SEAL Team 5 said:


> With all 4 legs off of the ground at once I don't think this kind of driving behavior is Uber approved.


No that's street legal, it's got AutoDonkey 7.0

The donkey knows it's way home every time.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

njn said:


> https://www.yahoo.com/news/human-smugglers-hail-uber-drivers-migrants-u-mexico-144938204.html
> 
> June 30, 2016
> By Alizeh Kohari
> ...


More comfortable than in the hulls of shrimp boats . . . 
Must be a new tunnel in Reynosa.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

njn said:


> https://www.yahoo.com/news/human-smugglers-hail-uber-drivers-migrants-u-mexico-144938204.html
> 
> June 30, 2016
> By Alizeh Kohari
> ...


That is super cheap !
No real Coyote would charge that little.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

In my hometown,3 busses with xyz tour agency on the side roll in every Sunday.
The busses have super dark tinted windows,you can not see in.
Dozens of white 16 passenger vans towing box trailers for luggage await

The busses unload,the vans load and speed off in every direction.


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## tohunt4me (Nov 23, 2015)

I knew an unlucky man from El Salvador.
He would get into situations that got him deported often.

He would call his girl friend up a few days later.meet me at 123 in Texas.a few days he was back.
( with friends)


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

tohunt4me said:


> That is super cheap !
> No real Coyote would charge that little.


That was probably just for the Uber ride.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

DriverX said:


> No that's street legal, it's got AutoDonkey 7.0
> 
> The donkey knows it's way home every time.


Hey donkeys and horses are pretty smart.

Back in the day when I was dating my now Ex, I would ride horseback to go see her. Four and a half hours there, four and a half hours back. Sometimes in the mountains, I would camp and rest up for the night, but most times I would ride back the same night.

At first I was afraid the horse would get lost and stayed awake on the way back. One dark, dark moonless night I began to panic because I couldn't see anything. I was afraid I'd get lost then I realized the horse knew how to get back home, it never strayed from the trail. I eventually would just fall asleep on the horse for stretches at a time. Sometimes awakening when the lights of a town struck me. Sometimes when I felt the horse getting skittish. The horse never got me lost.


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## elelegido (Sep 24, 2014)

observer said:


> Hey donkeys and horses are pretty smart.
> 
> Back in the day when I was dating my now Ex, I would ride horseback to go see her. Four and a half hours there, four and a half hours back. Sometimes in the mountains, I would camp and rest up for the night, but most times I would ride back the same night.
> 
> At first I was afraid the horse would get lost and stayed awake on the way back. One dark, dark moonless night I began to panic because I couldn't see anything. I was afraid I'd get lost then I realized the horse knew how to get back home, it never strayed from the trail. I eventually would just fall asleep on the horse for stretches at a time. Sometimes awakening when the lights of a town struck me. Sometimes when I felt the horse getting skittish. The horse never got me lost.


I've only ridden a horse once. It wouldn't go where I pointed it. 4.5 hours on a horse would be what, 20 miles? I would have taken a trail bike - a good Honda 600 off roader and you're there in an hour.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

elelegido said:


> I've only ridden a horse once. It wouldn't go where I pointed it. 4.5 hours on a horse would be what, 20 miles? I would have taken a trail bike - a good Honda 600 off roader and you're there in an hour.


It's about ten miles "as the cuervo flies" but it took awhile because it was mostly mountains so the trail went up and down and went around some mountains. A bike would have been nice but since I sometimes had some cowboying to do, wasn't really practical to go chasing cows.

I used to be on horseback 12-16 hours a day. My dad's first ranch was about an hour and half horse back ride. By truck it was two and a half because you had to go long way around where the road was, on horseback we took a trail.

I also had a friend that owned quite a bit of land and I would help him catch and brand his wild horses and cows. He looked identical to the Marlboro Man, he died when a horse reared back on him and the saddle horn crushed his chest. His ranch was close to my Exes so I would sometimes stop and help him.

I spent so much time on horseback I was bowlegged.

Not sure I could do it now, lol. Good thing is our ranch is well fenced and crisscrossed with roads now, so I can use a fourwheeler with no problem.


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## Modern-Day-Slavery (Feb 22, 2016)

observer said:


> View attachment 46823
> 
> 
> UberMeXpress


That looks like me!


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## Wil_Iam_Fuber'd (Aug 17, 2015)

Well, it's really no wonder they got stopped by the local PoPo. Only 7 peeps per vehicle and not even one domesticated farmyard animal among them. Seriously? If that was a group of bonafides, there would have been 12 peeps per car and at least one of them would have had a crate with a couple of chickens or maybe a small pig. Local blues probably thought they were gangbangers gonna shoot a rap video or some stupid shyte like that.


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## Brandon0315 (May 5, 2016)

DriverX said:


> Nice so they got UberMeX off the ground.
> 
> seriously though, tHis is why you never take a pool under 2x. or over 2 mex


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## BurgerTiime (Jun 22, 2015)

90% of news related to Uber is negative. They have serious, very serious image, brand, reputation issues to say the least.


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## ABC123DEF (Jun 9, 2015)

Clearly, Uber does not care about their image. Any real legit business would. Their exec management is beyond terrible.


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## wrongpinlocation (Jun 24, 2016)

I hope it was on a surge


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## New2This (Dec 27, 2015)

tohunt4me said:


> That is super cheap !
> No real Coyote would charge that little.


It's a beta version of the latest innovation from Uber.

First was UberPool, then UberEats, now we have UberCoyote.

UberCoyote: All the smuggling you're used to but at less than half what a traditional coyote charges.


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## observer (Dec 11, 2014)

New2This said:


> It's a beta version of the latest innovation from Uber.
> 
> First was UberPool, then UberEats, now we have UberCoyote.
> 
> UberCoyote: All the smuggling you're used to but at less than half what a traditional coyote charges.


Are there seatbelts in the trunk?


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