Woman pleads guilty in Tucson to leading people-smuggling network

A Honduran woman who was extradited to Tucson last year to face people-smuggling charges has pleaded guilty in the case, officials say.

Maria Mendoza Mendoza, 51, who also is known as “Guera,” pleaded guilty Wednesday to a charge of conspiracy to transport migrants for profit, the U.S. Attorney’s Office, for Arizona said Thursday in a news release.

Mendoza Mendoza faces 10 years in prison when she is set to be sentenced April 2, by U.S. District Judge Raner C. Collins.

Mendoza Mendoza admitted that she was a leader of a smuggling organization that smuggled more than 100 migrants from Honduras into the United States and coordinated "smuggling and money laundering events," the release said.

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Mendoza Mendoza "admitted she told a co-conspirator she would 'bleed out' a guide as punishment and that she stated that a migrant whose family did not pay his fee would be thrown 'back in the desert,' " the news release said.

Mendoza Mendoza was arrested in February 2023 as apart of a larger investigation that involved 27 defendants. She was extradited by the government of Honduras to the United States in June 2023 to face charges.