3 dead in ocean were smuggled, police declare

SOUTH FLORIDA SUN-SENTINEL
POMPANO BEACH, Fla. -- A deputy spotted the group of people trying to come ashore in the Saturday morning darkness. Fifteen minutes later the first body was found.
By 8 a.m., three women, believed to be Haitian nationals, had been found dead in the surf, washed up along a six-block stretch of shoreline in Pompano Beach.
Five of their companions were in the custody of immigration officials, said Liz Calzadilla-Fiallo, spokeswoman for the Broward Sheriff's Office. Up to four immigrants may have escaped law enforcement officials, she said.
The women's identities were unknown Saturday, but all three were described as being in their late 20s or early 30s. Immigration officials did not release the names of the five people detained Saturday.
As authorities pieced together details, the nature of the investigation shifted. One of the men taken into custody told investigators that the group arrived on a 19-foot sailboat, said Calzadilla-Fiallo. The boat could not be found Saturday.
"This is now a human smuggling investigation," Barbara Gonzalez, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said Saturday evening.
South Florida Haitian radio stations broadcast messages about the deaths Saturday and asked for the community's help finding relatives.
Activists in the Haitian community pointed to the deaths and detainments as examples of how desperate people are to flee the troubled nation and how unfairly Haitian refugees are treated by U.S. immigration policy.