Professional poker player Elvis Bersai Lopez-Ambrosio, best known to livestream poker fans as “Pepe,” was among eight people charged with human trafficking crimes by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico. The Lopez Human Smuggling Organization, as the government is calling it, operated out of both the United States and Guatemala.
In a Friday press release, the USAO said that Lopez-Ambrosio, along with Whiskey Hans Lopez-Ambrosio, worked with Mexican human smugglers to get undocumented aliens from Guatemala, though Mexico, and into the United States.
From there, he would manage a network of mid-level smugglers who “received deposits and made payments to co-conspirators through the United States banking system, peer-to-peer money transfer applications, and bulk cash that were derived from the Lopez Human Smuggling Organization.”
Lopez-Ambrosio would also tell co-conspirators to open bank accounts in the States so that they could receive their payments, but in a way that he could not himself trace. He would then have them withdraw the funds and either give them to him, buy real estate, or send money to Ronaldo Galindo Lopez-Escobar, the leader of the organization.
The federal government believes that the Lopez Human Smuggling Organization made $104 million to $416 million from human smuggling from September 2020 to April 2023.
“Border security is about neighbors taking care of neighbors, reaching across jurisdictional and agency boundaries to protect our community,” said U.S. Attorney Uballez. “With this indictment, we bring the fight across borders to the transnational criminal organizations and their leadership. No longer will you profit in safety while migrants suffer and load-drivers take the risks, and the fall, for your greed. We are coming for you and your bank accounts.”
Elvis Bersai Lopez-Ambrosio faces up to 20 years in prison if found guilty of the charges.
“Pepe” is best known by poker fans for his appearances on Hustler Casino Live. According to HighRollPoker, he has appeared in 51 episodes on HCL and other live-streamed poker shows over the last three years, netting over $500,000 in profits.
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