LOS ANGELES—Federal law enforcement in Los Angeles March 3 announced charges against four people suspected of smuggling about 20,000 illegal immigrants from Guatemala to the United States, including seven who died in a car crash in 2023.

Officials said the operators of the so-called Turko Organization—Eduardo Domingo “Turko” Renoj-Matul, Cristobal Mejia-Chaj, Helmer Obispo-Hernandez and Jose Paxtor-Oxlaj—were charged in Los Angeles federal court last week.

Renoj-Matul, 51, and Mejia-Chaj, 49, were arrested Friday and each appeared in court where they were ordered held without bond. If convicted, they could each face the death penalty, officials said.

Paxtor-Oxlaj, 44, is behind bars in Oklahoma for his role in a 2023 car crash that killed seven immigrants, including three children, court papers show.

All the defendants are Guatemalan nationals who are or were illegally living in the United States at the time of the alleged offenses, federal authorities said.

Acting U.S. Attorney Joseph T. McNally called the ring “one of the largest human smuggling operations in the nation.”

McNally said that on Friday as search warrants were carried out near downtown Los Angeles, Obispo-Hernandez, 41, telephoned an investigator on the case and threatened to kill him and behead members of the agent’s family. The defendant escaped being arrested, McNally said.

Once the illegal immigrants were smuggled into the United States, some were held in “stash houses” in the Westlake district and elsewhere until fees to the smugglers were paid, authorities said.

The ring’s actions “demonstrate a complete disregard for the nation’s immigration laws,” McNally said during a news conference Monday in downtown Los Angeles.

He added that the sweep showed a renewed effort to “revitalize immigration laws in which dozens of complaints were filed against illegals with criminal records.”

Dwayne Angebrandt, Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles acting deputy special agent in charge, said the organization transported about 20,000 illegal immigrants into the Los Angeles and Phoenix, Arizona, areas since 2019.

“The illegal activity endangers the national security,” he told reporters, and asked for the public’s assistance in reporting any information on smuggling organizations.

Gregory K. Bovino, chief patrol agent of U.S. Border Patrol’s El Centro Sector, said the Turko operation was a complex coast-to-coast organization that “was destroyed, dismantled top to bottom on Friday.”

He continued, “Border security is created, it doesn’t just happen.”

All four defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to bring aliens to the United States, transporting aliens in the United States, and harboring aliens in the United States for private financial gain and resulting in death.

Additionally, Renoj-Matul and Mejia-Chaj are charged with two counts of hostage taking. Obispo-Hernandez and Paxtor-Oxlaj also are charged with one count of transporting aliens in the United States for private financial gain and resulting in death, court papers show.

A separate federal criminal complaint filed March 2 in Los Angeles charges Obispo-Hernandez with threatening to kill an HSI task force officer and members of his family.

If convicted of all charges, the defendants could face up to death or life imprisonment, authorities said.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office alleges that Renoj-Matual was assisted by associates in Guatemala who solicited illegal immigrants to come to the United States, accepted payment of between $15,000 and $18,000 for each illegal immigrant smuggled into the United States, and coordinated the journey of the illegal immigrants from Guatemala to the United States.

In November 2023, Paxtor-Oxlaj caused a car accident in Elk City, Oklahoma, while he was smuggling illegal immigrants from New York to Los Angeles. That car accident resulted in the deaths of seven people who were passengers in the vehicle he drove. Of the seven people killed, three were minors, including a 4-year-old child, court papers show.

“We must vigorously enforce our immigration laws so that these organizations cannot operate,” McNally said. “The indictment and arrests here have dismantled one of the country’s largest and most dangerous smuggling organizations. This work saves lives, and the members of the organization will now face significant consequences.”