Nine hundred dollars. That's what a child was worth to the smuggling ring operating out of Juarez, Mexico — the per-head fee paid to drivers who ferried kids as young as five across the southern border using falsified documents and cannabis-laced candy to keep them quiet.
The candy was THC-infused gummies. One child ended up hospitalized for marijuana poisoning.
Susana Guadian, 51, and Daniel Guadian, 51, both of Juarez, were extradited from Mexico to face federal charges in the Western District of Texas, the Gateway Pundit reported. The couple was indicted on September 24, 2025, on charges of conspiracy to transport aliens and bringing aliens illegally into the United States for financial gain. The operation ran from May 1 through October 17, 2024, targeting unaccompanied children between the ages of 5 and 13.
The method was as calculated as it was sickening. The conspirators presented falsified U.S. identity documents at border ports of entry, claiming to be the children's parents. To make sure no five-year-old blew the cover story by answering a border officer's questions honestly, they fed the kids THC-laced gummies to sedate them before crossing.
Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Criminal Division laid it out plainly: "These defendants are charged with smuggling multiple children across the southern border. The allegations include that they risked the safety of children by giving them THC-laced gummies to sedate them while smuggling them from Mexico into the United States to avoid the children answering questions from border law enforcement."
Drugging a child so she can't tell a federal officer that the adults holding her hand aren't her parents. That's the business model.
U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons called the extradition "a major development in a case that highlights the dangerous tactics that human smugglers employ when smuggling children." He added that the Guadians "will be aggressively prosecuted in federal court and held accountable to the fullest extent of the law."
The case is part of Operation Take Back America, and the Guadians aren't the only ones facing consequences. Co-defendant Manuel Valenzuela was sentenced to five years in federal prison on July 1. Another co-defendant, Dianne Guadian, pleaded guilty on July 28.
Acting Special Agent in Charge Ryan G. McRae of HSI El Paso didn't mince the agency's position: "There is nothing more reprehensible than exploiting vulnerable children for profit. Smuggling children across our border is not a victimless crime. Giving children cannabis-infused candy to sedate them is an especially disturbing abuse of their trust and safety."
The open-borders crowd spent years insisting that tighter border enforcement was the cruelty. Separating families at the border was inhumane, they said. Detention was trauma. Meanwhile, the actual cruelty — children drugged into silence, handed off to strangers with fake documents, treated as cargo at $900 per unit — was happening on the other side of the policy they demanded. The people exploiting these kids weren't ICE agents. They were the smugglers that lax enforcement empowered.
Duva noted that "protecting kids from smugglers, who will stop at nothing to exploit them, will always be one of the Department's highest priorities." Under Operation Take Back America, that's not just rhetoric — it's extraditions, indictments, and prison sentences.
Five to thirteen. That was the age range. Nine hundred dollars was the price. One child was hospitalized. Two co-defendants have already been convicted.
The Guadians are now in federal custody on this side of the border.