Ocean patrols and narcotics playbooks: How a Florida city is tackling human smuggling

A human smuggler tells a potential customer in an audio message in Mandarin that there are now two potential sea routes for illegally entering the U.S.

A human smuggler tells a potential customer in an audio message in Mandarin that there are now two potential sea routes for illegally entering the U.S. One is to depart by boat near the U.S.-Mexico border and then come ashore near Los Angeles. The second departs Nassau in the Bahamas by boat for the Miami area.

The smuggler says in the audio, obtained by NBC News from a potential smuggling customer, that enforcement off the coast of Florida has increased, but quickly reassures the potential customer, “You won’t get caught.”

Not so, authorities say.

Out on a labyrinth of canals in Coral Gables, Florida, police are on the lookout for fishermen who might be spotters or boats carrying more weight than normal.

Officials have been on heightened alert because the city’s mangrove-shrouded waterways have become a landing destination for groups of Chinese migrants seeking illegal entry into the United States.