Sports Agent Sentenced for Smuggling Cubans

July 10, 2007 — -- A Beverly Hills sports agent will spend five years in prison for smuggling Cuban baseball players into the United States.

Gustavo "Gus" Dominguez, 48, was convicted on April 12 and sentenced Monday on charges of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling for profit, bringing aliens into the United States, transporting and harboring aliens for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain.

A Florida grand jury had returned an indictment against Dominguez last fall, stating that he and four other men had engaged in a conspiracy to smuggle the athletes in on boats "for the purpose of commercial advantage and private financial gain."

Dominguez is the first sports agent to be charged and convicted of alien smuggling.

"This is a prime example of a respected community member using his position to smuggle people into this country illegally, putting lives at risk and compromising the integrity of our borders to make a profit," said Marcy M. Forman, director of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Office of Investigations. "This sentence tells any others in the human smuggling business that no one is above the law." ICE had lead the investigation into Dominguez's activities.

Trial evidence indicated that Dominguez organized two smuggling boat trips and hired individuals to pick up the baseball players in Cuba.

Investigators say Dominguez and his co-defendants made two runs to Cuba to pick up prospective athletes. The first attempt in July 2004 failed when law enforcement officials intercepted their boat at sea; investigators said a second attempt, in August 2004, succeeded in smuggling 19 Cubans into the country.

Prosecutors said Dominguez paid for the smuggling of five of those Cuban baseball players for the purpose of profiting by subsequently representing them as their sports agent.

The new arrivals were then driven from Florida to California in a rented van and put to work training for Major League tryouts.

U.S immigration policy allows Cubans who make it to U.S. soil to stay in the country, but even so, it is a federal crime to smuggle them in.