Overview
- Federal prosecutors announced in mid‑July 2026 that nine Venezuelan nationals pleaded guilty to charges including sex trafficking, conspiracy to smuggle aliens for profit, and money laundering.
- Prosecutors say the operation recruited vulnerable women in Venezuela with false job offers, paid smugglers to move them through dangerous routes such as the Darién Gap, and then imposed inflated debts that victims repaid through commercial sex.
- Investigators allege the scheme was run from motels in Nashville by a family led by matriarch Yilibeth del Carmen Rivero‑De Caldera and her son Kleiver Mota Rivero, and that traffickers used threats, firearms, withheld immigration papers, and references to gang ties to coerce compliance.
- Eight defendants face charges carrying potential life sentences while one faces up to 20 years, and federal sentencing is scheduled for the week of November 16, 2026, with restitution and victim services still unresolved.
- The case was built by a Nashville Homeland Security Task Force with support from HSI, the FBI, ATF, IRS‑CI, U.S. Marshals, DEA, the Secret Service, and DOJ officials who say the prosecution fits broader efforts to disrupt transnational trafficking and smuggling networks.