In October 2013, a highly prized Cuban baseball player was given a fake passport and visa bearing a false name to use to board an airplane in Port-au-Prince, Haiti en route to Miami.
According to federal prosecutors, who have identified the player only by the initials J.A.C., he received the fraudulent papers from a member of a human smuggling ring that had orchestrated his escape from Cuba on a cigarette boat in August 2013. After J.A.C. signed a contract with a major league team, prosecutors say, he would go on to pay his smugglers more than $5.8 million.