Former Eagle Pass detective sentenced to 10 years in prison for running migrant stash houses

Eagle Pass seen from Piedras Negras, Mexico. A former Eagle Pass police detective received a 10-year federal prison sentence for her role in a human smuggling operation. (Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Texas Tribune)

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EAGLE PASS — A former Eagle Pass police detective this week was sentenced to a decade in federal prison for helping run stash houses for a human smuggling operation that smuggled nearly 200 migrants over the period of a year, according to federal prosecutors.

Between September 2020 and August 2021, Hazel Eileen Diaz, 54, rented out several properties in Eagle Pass that were used to hold migrants and received $36,916 in cash and money transfers, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas.

Diaz also was ordered to pay a $10,000 fine, a judgment of $237,600, and must forfeit three properties, a truck and $23,522 in cash that was found in her possession when she was arrested.

The FBI, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Border Patrol and the Texas Department of Public Safety investigated the case, which resulted in the arrest of two other people Diaz worked with: Tomas Alejandro Mendez pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to harbor illegal aliens and is scheduled to be sentenced in January and Paola Nikole Cazares was sentenced last year to more than 5 years in federal prison on the same charge.