SAN DIEGO — Armed bandits have robbed and assaulted groups of migrant border-crossers at least three times in recent weeks near the Otay Mountain wilderness area, Border Patrol officials said Thursday.
The attacks come six months after Border Patrol agents found three migrants shot and wounded in the same vicinity. Those victims said they were shot in Mexico just before crossing the international boundary.
The series of holdups and assaults increases an already dangerous journey for migrants who often face some combination of extreme heat or bitter cold, a lack of food and water, rugged mountain terrain, rattlesnakes, cacti and other dangers.
The most recent attacks occurred over a four-day period late last month, according to information the victims gave Border Patrol agents. On March 24, agents encountered five migrants who reported being robbed by bandits armed with at least one rifle and one pistol. The victims said the attackers demanded $1,000. When the victims said they didn't have any money on them, the robbers took their cellphones. Agents reported seeing two potential suspects running south from the area.
The victims also told the agents that other bandits were holding a different group of migrants against their will on the Mexican side of the border.
On March 27, agents apprehended 20 migrants who had recently crossed the border. Some members of the group reported being robbed about 40 minutes earlier. They said each of the robbers was armed with a revolver. Border Patrol agents responding to that area spotted three suspects walking south toward the border and then crossing into Mexico.
Later that same day, agents apprehended another group whose members recounted being beaten and robbed by two men. The victims said the bandits, armed with pistols, held them up just after they'd crossed the border. They punched and kicked the victims, then took their cellphones and cash. They said the men tried to separate a female from the migrant group and take her back to Mexico, but failed to do so.
The Border Patrol said each of the victims was medically evaluated before being taken into custody. The agency also said each robbery and assault was reported to Mexican government officials.
Such attacks call to mind a period in the mid-1970s when robberies and assaults in the border area became so common that the San Diego Police Department put together a group of undercover officers to pose as migrant border-crossers in order to catch the bandits.
The unit — the Border Armed Robbery Force, or BARF — was disbanded after just 19 months because of the dangers it faced, but not before making some 300 arrests. Three of the undercover officers were shot and wounded during that time, and the unit was involved in at least 16 shootings, including at least six major shootouts.
