An Arizona man is being held at the Sumter County Jail after being stopped for allegedly smuggling four illegal aliens into Florida.
Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) Public Information Officer (PIO) Sgt. Steve Gaskins said that just before 2:30 am on Nov. 4, members of the FHP Troop C Contraband Interdiction Unit stopped a 2007 Nissan Armada traveling southbound on I-75 near milepost 310 in Sumter County on grounds that the vehicle had an illegal tint on its windows.
At their request, the car’s driver, Esvil Miguel Soto Perez, 23, of Phoenix, Arizona, presented troopers with a Mexican ID card, but no valid driver’s license.
While troopers detained Soto Perez on the driver’s license violation, they found him carrying a large amount of US currency as well as several receipts for large currency transfers to Mexico.
Troopers also discovered four Hispanic passengers who disclosed that they had all entered the US illegally, and had paid to be transported to the Tampa area. They were all transferred to the custody of the US Border Patrol at the scene.
Soto Perez was arrested and booked into the Sumter County Jail on four counts of human smuggling and one count of having no valid driver’s license.
He is being held for the US Department of Homeland Security.
