MIAMI — Miami-Dade County police marine patrol officers stopped a yacht near Key Biscayne last Friday that turned out to be a human smuggling boat with more than 30 people from Haiti on board, the department, state fish and wildlife police and federal agents said.

Dade officers stopped the 60-foot boat around 11:15 a.m. near the iconic Stiltsville group of homes located in the shallows off Cape Florida in Key Biscayne, Detective Argemis Colome, a department spokesman, told the Miami Herald.

Following the initial contact, other agencies, including the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, U.S. Border Patrol, Coast Guard and U.S. Customs converged on the luxury vessel.

Government officials have not said yet whether the yacht came to South Florida directly from Haiti or if the migrants made their way to some place like the Bahamas and paid the smugglers to bring them to the U.S.

Coast Guard Lt. Cmdr. John Beal, spokesman for the Homeland Security Task Force Southeast, told the Herald that the vessel’s point of origin is under investigation by U.S. Homeland Security Investigations agents.

A photo of the boat released by the Border Patrol shows it with a motorized dingy attached to the back. U.S. Customs and Border Protection released a photo of the migrants cramped in a cabin below deck.

According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Coast Guard placed the migrants on board a cutter to be returned to Haiti. One of the two people police say are the smugglers was turned over to Homeland Security Investigations, said FWC spokespersons Ashlee Sklute and Shannon Knowles.

A Homeland Security Investigations spokesman did not immediately respond to questions about the case.

A criminal complaint had not yet been filed against the alleged smugglers as of Monday evening, according to a search of federal court records.

Violence in Haiti

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