Friday’s interdiction comes a week after Customs agents stopped a boat off the coast of Key Largo that federal agents said was smuggling 14 people from Ecuador.

On April 15, U.S. Customs Air and Marine Operations agents tracked a center-console boat as it traveled from the Bahamas to Key Largo, according to a federal criminal complaint.

A Customs airplane crew watched as the boat’s operator retrieved a large drum and refueled the vessel as it was underway, the complaint says. Several people were lying on the deck of the boat, according to the complaint.

Agents stopped the boat about three miles from the Garden Cove subdivision in Key Largo.

They arrested Yasmani Lopez Torres, 29, and Reynel Hernadez Almeda, 34. Both are Cuban nationals with parolee status to stay in the United States, according to court documents.

“Both separately admitted to traveling to the Bahamas for the purpose of picking up 14 non-citizens to bring them into the United States in exchange for payment,” a Homeland Security Investigations agent wrote in the complaint.

As of Monday, Lopez Torres and Hernandez Almeda have not been formally charged, but they remain in custody facing multiple counts of conspiring to encourage and induce people to illegally enter the U.S.

The Coast Guard confirmed Monday that the people being smuggled are from Ecuador, and they have been transferred to the custody of the Royal Bahamas Defense Force.

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