Panga Boat Driver Gets 5 Years in Prison

CORRECTION: An earlier headline on this story mistakenly said Ramirez-Leyva was sentenced to 25 years in prison. He was sentenced to five years. This has been corrected, and Patch regrets the error.

A Mexican national was sentenced today to five years in federal prison for smuggling 19 undocumented immigrants—including some who were forced to sit on gasoline containers during the 12-hour trip—from Mexico to Palos Verdes aboard an overloaded panga boat. 

Erick Ivan Ramirez-Leyva, 22, was arrested last Dec. 11 in Palos Verdes after border patrol agents spotted a 27-foot, open-hulled fishing boat—known as a panga—thought to be illegally ferrying people from south of the United States-Mexico border and attempting to come ashore at a spot where vans were allegedly waiting in the pre-dawn darkness.

Prosecutors said Ramirez-Leyva was to be paid $5,000 to drive the panga boat from Popotla, Baja California, Mexico, to Palos Verdes. The 19 passengers each agreed to pay between $7,000 and $10,000 for the 12-hour trip, according to prosecutors.

"As it approached the shore, the boat travelled swiftly with its lights off," prosecutors wrote in sentencing papers.

"The boat carried more passengers than it could safety transport, and the female passengers were forced to sit on gas cans, significantly increasing the risk they would be thrown overboard," according to the document. "One female passenger recounted how she feared drowning if accidentally thrown into the ocean."

Ramirez-Leyva pleaded guilty in April in Los Angeles federal court to three counts of bringing aliens to the United States for private financial gain.

The boat was spotted by agents using infrared scanners to search Abalone Cove, an area long used by smugglers, prosecutors said. Agents spotted the panga near Portuguese Bend Beach.

Local police agencies were called in to help find the vessel and search for occupants.

A main road through the area was shut down and residents reported seeing people running through the bushes to avoid capture. After about 30 minutes, agents rounded up 21 people whose clothes were wet and sandy. A GPS unit was found on a nearby hillside.

Authorities also spotted two vans parked in a dirt lot that they believed were waiting to pick up people from aboard the boat.

It was not the first human smuggling arrest for Ramirez-Leyva. Two years previously, he was found guilty of smuggling people into the United States aboard a panga boat and sentenced to 18 months in federal prison, according to prosecutors.

He served 17 months and was deported to Mexico. He committed the second offense five months later, officials said.

"I just want to apologize for having offended this country," Ramirez- Leyva said through a translator before he was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real.

Co-defendant Juan Francisco Becerra-Ruiz, who was in charge of contacting the van drivers, directing the passengers where to sit and assisting with refueling, was sentenced to three years' imprisonment.

A van driver, co-defendant Jose de Jesus Chavez Jimenez, who had driven to the shore but was unable to transport anyone because law enforcement got there first, received a 10-month sentence, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

—City News Service.

Related:

• 25 Arrested After Panga Boat Lands in RPV
• Human and Drug Smuggling Boats Reach Palos Verdes Shores