HOMELAND Security Investigations executed a warrant and successfully installed a GPS tracking device on a white 2018 Toyota Tundra driven by a suspected human smuggling organization member on Saipan, according to court documents obtained by Variety.
HSI Special Agent Meilani Quintanilla told the federal court that task force officers installed the GPS tracking device on the suspect’s vehicle on Nov. 25, 2024, at 5:37 p.m. and was tracked the same day. The GPS device was used again on Jan. 27, 2025, at 3:24 p.m.
Quintanilla, who filed a report with the federal court on Feb. 4, 2025, said the GPS device was removed on Jan. 31, 2025, at 1:08 p.m.
Quintanilla applied for a tracking warrant on Nov. 22, 2024.
She said the vehicle was used in the “transportation of illegal aliens.”
In her affidavit to support the tracking warrant, Quintanilla said, “Human smuggling organizations facilitate the illegal transportation of aliens from the NMI to Guam using maritime vessels.”
“Such vessels used by human smugglers are typically single engine recreational boats, not intended for extended passenger voyages…. Vessels have been purchased in the NMI with the intention of illegally transporting aliens to Guam, often with no intention for the vessel to return to the NMI,” she said.
According to the HSI agent, vessels had been purchased for up to $30,000 cash in the NMI for the sole purpose of smuggling aliens to Guam.
She said, “Some vessels abandoned in and around Guam have had expired NMI registrations still listing the previous vessel owners.”
Quintanilla said human smuggling organizations or “HSOs utilize automobiles to facilitate their meeting with people to discuss and negotiate transportation fees and to collect payments that are usually in the form of cash…. Aliens pay smugglers huge fees to be transported between borders, and…have paid between $3,000 [and] $10,000…to be smuggled from the NMI to Guam by boat.”
She said “HSOs would travel using their automobiles to various locations within the NMI to meet with other members of the HSOs or other co-conspirators, or to financial institutions to deposit and safeguard cash that are proceeds of their illegal activity. The locations to which the automobile travels are potential clues that help identify co-conspirators of the HSOs.”
Quintanilla added, “The use of GPS tracking device allows law enforcement to maintain distance and minimize detection.”
She said task force officers saw the tracked vehicle in the vicinity of Smiling Cove Marina “trailering” a vessel believed to be used for human smuggling for a test run sometime between Nov. 4, 2024 and Nov. 19, 2024.
The vessel “was owned by a male Chinese national who also owned a restaurant in Garapan,” the HIS special agent added.
Quintanilla said an independent U.S. Department of Homeland Security data records check also identified a female Chinese national who has been unlawfully present in the U.S. since 2019.
She said DHS database record checks likewise identified “a male Chinese national who has been unlawfully present in the United States since overstaying his NMI-only parole in 2018. Record checks further indicated [he] is the subject of a RED NOTICE issued by the International Criminal Police Organization…as wanted by an unspecified foreign country since 2019.”
Quintanilla requested the court to seal the warrant and to “delay notification of the execution of the warrant for a period not to exceed 90 days after the end of the authorized period of tracking (including any extensions thereof) because there is reasonable cause to believe that providing immediate notification would seriously jeopardize the investigation.”
On Dec. 30, 2024, District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona granted the request of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Districts of Guam and the NMI for the use of the tracking device to continue from Jan. 2, 2025 to Feb.1, 2025.
