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Cuban man gets 4+ years for migrant smuggling operation

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MIAMI (AP) - A Cuban man has been sentenced to four years and nine months in U.S. federal prison for running a human smuggling operation from Cuba to Mexico to the United States.

Court records show that 45-year-old Tomas Vale Valdivia was sentenced Tuesday in Miami federal court. He pleaded guilty last year to conspiring to commit migrant smuggling for profit.

From 2013 to 2018, Vale Valdivia and at least five others smuggled more than 100 migrants, charging them about $10,000 a person.

Prosecutors said the conspiracy operated in Miami, Cuba, Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti.