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E-coyotes: The Central American people smugglers who ‘Like’ Facebook

05
Aug
2014

By Gabriel Stargardter and Patricia Zengerle SAN PEDRO SULA Honduras/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When Alan Villeda began smuggling people from Honduras to the United States in 1998, he could only communicate with customers via patchy phone calls. These days, he is a word-of-mouth success and new clients seek him out on Facebook. Social media like Facebook and Skype are changing, and in some cases accelerating, the decades-old northward migration of Central Americans, U.S. and Honduran officials said, by providing crowd-sourced information on the risks and rewards of making the journey. Images and testimonials posted by migrants who have made it to the United States help keep uprooted families closer together and drive business for e-commerce coyotes like Villeda, who is based in the city of La Ceiba on Honduras Caribbean coast.

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