New body camera footage shows a traffic stop in the Florida Keys involving a man who was later convicted of kidnapping and torturing Cuban migrants.
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The 44-minute bodycam video from February of 2024 shows the traffic stop of 32-year-old Victor Rafael Arcia Albeja, known as “Vitico.”
Part of the video shows a long back and forth between a Monroe County Sheriff’s Office deputy and Arcia Albeja and the other people in the vehicle as she tries to communicate with them despite a language barrier.
“Turn the car off, turn the car off!” the deputy tells the men in the car.
“One moment, one moment!” a man yells back. “Take it easy.”
Arcia Albeja was initially stopped for running a stop sign and arrested after he was unable to provide any proper documentation for the vehicle.
Arcia Albeja was the last of six suspects to be convicted in a violent human smuggling operation across Cuba, Miami and Louisiana, that involved kidnapping and extorting Cuban migrants as well as torturing and forcing them into labor, authorities said.
He was convicted by a federal jury on Feb. 20 for his role in the scheme on charges of conspiracy to kidnap, four counts of kidnapping, conspiracy to bring an alien to the U.S., bringing an alien to the U.S., and four counts of violent crimes in furtherance of racketeering.
Five other men — Osmel Benitez of Miami and Victor Manuel Perez Cardenas of Tampa, Jhonny Walther Izaguirre Lopez of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Yoelys Prada Ramos of Baton Rouge, and Jose Angel Marrero Rodriguez of Houston, Texas, previously pleaded guilty.
Prosecutors said in March and May 2024, Arcia Albeja and Perez Cardenas transported Cuban nationals by boat from Cayo Coco, Cuba to Key Largo.
Benitez and other members of the smuggling enterprise then transported the migrants to a safe house in Miami Gardens, where members of the enterprise demanded $15,000 in smuggling fees per person from the aliens’ families and friends.
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Members of the group used threats and violence to get them to comply and when some failed to pay, they were shown a video showing a man being beaten with a machete before he was shot to death.
In one instance, Arcia Albeja and Perez Cardenas brought approximately 15 migrants to Key Largo and after some attempted to flee, members of the enterprise pursued them.
When several of their families failed to pay, the migrants were taken to a vacant farm property in northwest Miami-Dade used for cockfighting, where members of the group staged and recorded acts of violence that were sent to the migrants’ families.
One migrant said Izaguirre Lopez put her on a FaceTime call with her mother, put a gun to her head, and told her mother that if she did not pay, she would receive her daughter’s head, prosecutors said.
In another case, Benitez and Arcia Albeja forced one migrant to participate in a mock hanging while being beaten with a machete.
When the attempts to extort the families failed, group members tried to transport the migrants to Louisiana for forced labor to satisfy the smuggling debts, authorities said.
Arcia Albeja faces up to life in prison at sentencing.
Benitez, Perez Cardenas and Izaguirre Lopez were previously sentenced to 34, 17.5 and 28 years in prison, respectively.
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