A Los Angeles County man who helped operate what prosecutors call one of the largest human smuggling organizations in the nation pleaded guilty Wednesday to a federal charge and admitted he held undocumented immigrants captive in a MacArthur Park-area “stash house” until their smuggling fees were paid.
Cristobal Mejia-Chaj, 50, of Westlake, entered a plea in Los Angeles federal court to one count of conspiracy to bring, transport and harbor aliens in the United States for private financial gain.
Sentencing was scheduled for July 17, at which time he will face up to 10 years in prison, a five-year period of supervised release, and fines, court papers show.
Mejia-Chaj worked as the “right-hand man” to the ring’s leader Eduardo Domingo Renoj-Matul, 52 — known as “Turko” — also of the Westlake district near downtown. Renoj-Matul pleaded guilty March 6 to the same charge as Mejia-Chaj, plus one count of hostage taking.
Renoj-Matul admitted in his plea agreement that the organization moved nearly 20,000 undocumented immigrants from Guatemala into the U.S. from 2019 through July 2024 — including seven who died in a car crash.
Once the immigrants were smuggled into the United States, some were held in a stash house on James M. Wood Boulevard in Westlake or in Phoenix, Arizona, until smuggling fees were paid, authorities said.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office stated that Renoj-Matul’s accomplices in Guatemala solicited immigrants to come to the United States, accepted payment of between $15,000 and $18,000 for each person, and coordinated their transport through Mexico to the United States.
In November 2023, one of the group’s members caused a car accident in Elk City, Oklahoma, while he was smuggling undocumented immigrants from New York to Los Angeles. That accident resulted in the deaths of seven people who were passengers in the vehicle he drove. Of the seven people killed, three were minors, including a 4-year-old child, court papers show.
According to the indictment returned last year, the “Renoj-Matul transnational criminal organization” operated for at least a dozen years.
Prosecutors said that in 2024, Renoj-Matul and Mejia-Chaj held hostage two Guatemalan nationals smuggled into the United States who had not paid smuggling fees. The defendants threatened to kill the victims unless third parties paid for their release, prosecutors said.
An April 21 trial is scheduled in downtown Los Angeles for co-defendant José Paxtor-Oxlaj, 45, a driver for the smuggling organization who is incarcerated in Oklahoma in connection with the fatal car accident.
Helmer Obispo-Hernández, 42, a lieutenant in the organization, faces federal criminal charges in the case and is a fugitive.
Renoj-Matul is expected to be sentenced Oct. 2, at which time he will face up to life in prison, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.