MIAMI – A 26-year-old woman faces five years to life in federal prison after pleading guilty to playing a role in a human smuggling operation that left more than a dozen Cuban migrants dead at sea in 2022.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Yaquelin Dominguez-Nieves pleaded guilty in Miami federal court Tuesday to conspiring to smuggle aliens into the United States. She was charged in 2024.
Recommended Videos
Prosecutors said Dominguez-Nieves, of Sebring, collected $11,500 from migrants’ family members in South Florida ahead of the ill-fated November 2022 voyage from Cuba. She sent the money to a co-conspirator on the island.
That co-conspirator loaded 18 migrants “onto a small fishing vessel with no life jackets and with a captain who, according to the two survivors, did not appear to know how to operate the vessel,” a DOJ news release states.
On Nov. 16, 2022, the boat sank 30 miles into its journey, killing 16 aboard.
Many of the victims were young children and teenagers, ranging from 9 months to 7 years old, along with two 16-year-olds, authorities said.
Only four of the migrants’ bodies were recovered at sea. Their cause of death was ruled as drowning.
Dominguez-Nieves is scheduled to be sentenced in Miami federal court on April 11.