Inside "the Pool": Fugitive arrested in alleged cross-border car trade scheme

Along the Texas-Mexico border, it's known as "the Pool." And this week, federal authorities say they caught one of the men accused of helping run it.

Every year, drivers known as transmigrantes transport used cars bought in the United States through Mexico to be resold in Central America. Federal prosecutors say a group of South Texas businessmen found a way to monopolize the industry that took those cars across the border — fixing the fees, pooling their revenues and squeezing businesses that refused to comply.

At the center of the scheme, authorities say, was Carlos Martinez , a Mission, Texas, businessman known as "Cuate" who controlled the transmigrante forwarding agency near the Los Indios border crossing in Texas' Rio Grande Valley. Prosecutors allege Martinez — the son-in-law of a former notorious Gulf Cartel leader — helped turn a cluster of supposedly competing businesses into a tightly controlled network of fixed prices, shared revenue, cash payments and intimidation. He pleaded guilty to federal charges and was sentenced to prison time.

Working alongside him, prosecutors allege, was Rigoberto Brown, a dual U.S.-Mexican citizen who served in managerial roles on Martinez's behalf, helping him pull off the alleged scheme. Brown was charged in November 2022 with conspiring to fix prices and divide the market and with conspiring to monopolize the transmigrante forwarding business. Then he disappeared.

For nearly four years, authorities say, Brown lived as a fugitive in Mexico. This week, they caught him near McAllen, Texas. He is set to be arraigned Friday in federal court in Houston.

For years, much of the traffic moved by transmigrantes was funneled through one place.

Before March 2021, Mexican regulations required commerce to enter Mexico through the Los Indios Port of Entry in South Texas, according to the federal indictment. That created a concentrated industry around the crossing, where forwarding agencies helped drivers handle the customs paperwork and other requirements needed to get their vehicles into Mexico.

Thousands of vehicles moved through the system, generating millions of dollars a year in forwarding agency revenue, according to prosecutors. Federal authorities allege a group of operators found a way to control it.

Beginning as early as 2011, prosecutors say, forwarding agencies agreed on prices instead of competing for customers, choosing to inflate prices and divide the market among themselves.

Participating businesses allegedly collected their revenues centrally and divided the money according to agreed-upon percentages. Prosecutors say the operation was so organized, participants used charts and spreadsheets to keep track of the arrangement and communicated about prices and revenues throughout meetings and in calls, texts and exchanges on social media and messaging applications.

Some participants referred to the collective enterprise as the "empresa" — Spanish for "the company" — according to the indictment.