According to prosecutors, Mr. Estevez devised the scheme to take advantage of his A-2 visa, given to foreign nationals who enter the United States to work full time in a consular post. The document allowed Mr. Estevez and his immediate family members ? his wife, his mother and his six children ? to bypass a host of security procedures that foreign visitors must typically go through, like having their digital fingerprints and photographs collected and scrutinized. It also granted them almost unlimited travel in and out of the United States.
For Mr. Estevez, the authorities said, those loopholes opened the door to a lucrative smuggling enterprise. They said that between October 2007 and July 2008, Mr. Estevez smuggled groups of Dominicans into the United States an average of twice a month, charging about $10,000 a person.
