Texas sheriff investigating flights to Martha’s Vineyard Transcript

Javier Salazar: (00:00) We are opening up a case with an investigation with regard to the suspected activities involving the 48 migrants from Venezuela, that as we understand it at this point, the facts of the case at this point, are that on Wednesday, September 14th, here in Bexar County in the city of San Antonio, our understanding is that a Venezuelan migrant was paid what we would call a bird dog fee to recruit approximately 50 migrants from the area around a migrant resource center on San Pedro here in San Antonio. Javier Salazar: (00:39) As we understand it, 48 migrants were lured, I will use the word lured, under false pretenses into staying at a hotel for a couple of days. They were taken by airplane... At a certain point, they were shuttled to an airplane where they were flown to Florida and then eventually flown to Martha's Vineyard again, under false pretenses is the information that we have; that they were promised work, they were promised the solution to several other problems. Javier Salazar: (01:09) They were taken to Martha's Vineyard, from what we can gather, for nothing, for little more than a photo op, video op, and then they were unceremoniously stranded in Martha's Vineyard. Speaker 2: (01:26) [foreign language 00:01:26] Excuse me. [foreign language 00:01:29]. Javier Salazar: (01:33) I believe there's some criminal activity involved here, but at present, we're trying to keep an open mind and we're going to investigate to find out to determine what laws were broken if that does turn out to be the case. And it is way too early for me to start naming any suspects. We do have the names of some suspects involved that we believe are persons of interest in this case at this point, but I won't be parting with those names. I think, to be fair, I think everybody on this call knows who those names are already, so I won't be naming any of them.