A human smuggler told potential customers in Mandarin that there are now two potential maritime routes that can enter the United States illegally, which is to leave by boat near the U.S.-Mexico border and then get ashore near Los Angeles. The second time I took a boat to Nassau in the Miami area.
Smugglers said in audio obtained by NBC News from potential smuggling customers that law enforcement has increased on the Florida coast, but will soon assure potential customers that “you won’t be caught.”
Authorities say this is not the case.
In the maze of coral gables in Florida, police are looking for fishermen who may have found fishermen or boats that weigh more than usual.
Officials have been on a high stance as the city's mangroves shrouded waterways have become a landing destination for Chinese immigrants seeking illegal entry into the United States.
Since the southern border is a less viable option, these immigrants found a solution to Florida through the Bahamas. However, authorities have been suppressing, and the decline in smuggling attempts has been declining over the past few months.
In recent years, the number of Chinese nationals arrested by Florida-based customs and border patrol personnel has climbed and immersed - in 2020, it was 406, it was 616, that year, and then 483 in 2024.
Local law enforcement officers acknowledged that they were not sure if this was due to increased law enforcement, and Trump’s policies had similar effects on border crossings—or whether it was just smugglers becoming more complicated.
"We believe we have a little bit of a grasp," said Edward J. Hudak, Chief of Coral Gable Police. "(But) Where are you going next? (smuggling) is like water. Water can go anywhere."
The decline comes after two high-profile human smuggling incidents in wealthy cities, another incident that has been on the shore since the beginning of the year has caused concerns among nearly 50 Chinese immigrants.
Another incident appeared to have occurred on December 19, 2024, almost a full month before the first human smuggling by Coral Gable Police. Surveillance footage obtained by NBC News from neighbor's door cameras showed a group of 18-year-old Asian immigrants walked into a waiting U-Haul Van and parked next to a waterway, dozens of vehicles passing by. There were no police officers seen, and no obvious records of immigrants or so-called smugglers arrested.
Overall, the southwest border has fallen by 93% compared to last year, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, while smugglers have pivoted maritime routes along the hubs of California and Florida coasts.
In 2023, more than 35,000 Chinese immigrants crossed the southern border, but the intersections fell due to stricter law enforcement. Last year, concerns about Chinese nationals at the border reached a record.
As the country's lifting visa restrictions on Chinese citizens has quickly become a strategic starting point for many immigrants on the shores of Florida.
"These human smugglers are becoming more creative," said Leland Lazarus, deputy director of national security at the Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy at Florida International University. "They are seeing a route descending on the southwest border and they are trying the maritime route more frequently."
Police say patrols winding through the intricate waterways of coral gables and the sea outside are a challenge, but they do have scripts from the past. For decades, the region has been a hot spot for smuggling, first of all, drugs, and now it seems, humans.
"We just radiated our scripts since the 1980s and 1990s when smugglers were introducing Narco narcotics," Hudak said. "But this is now a cargo for humans, so it really changed our game."
Hudak said that human smugglers now use the same seaways as they used for drugs. Moreover, the development of smugglers and the tricks to evade the authorities seem to have not changed.
"There are some clever ways to get narcotics into this country, and there are some clever ways to get humans into this country," Hadak said.
Further communication between the smuggler and his potential clients gives a glimpse of how some criminals might be one step ahead of the authorities. The smuggler said he is now using a yacht.
"The boat will be in trouble," he wrote. "The big boat won't attract much attention."
His message includes a four-second clip of a docked yacht. The price of the trip (including the use of a luxury boat) is $35,000.
Law enforcement and some residents told NBC News that human smuggling busts in coral gables were not isolated incidents, and they believe more immigrants were smuggled into the area in undiscovered and undiscovered places.
"This is not the first time," Hadak said. "People have seen things in the past and said nothing."