Major League Baseball

Cuban players paid smugglers $15 million, prosecutors say

Published Apr. 26, 2016 5:55 p.m. ET

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MIAMI (AP) Federal prosecutors say Cuban baseball players paid a South Florida-based smuggling ring more than $15 million to leave the communist island in secretive ventures that included phony documents, false identities and boat voyages to Mexico, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

A recently unsealed grand jury indictment against three men provides fresh details about the smuggling of 17 Cuban players, among them Jose Abreu of the Chicago White Sox and Leonys Martin of the Seattle Mariners. The smugglers usually took a percentage of any Major League Baseball contract a player signed.

The indictment names Bartolo Hernandez, a Weston, Florida-based sports agent whose clients included Abreu; Hernandez associate Julio Estrada, who runs Total Baseball Representation and Training in Miami; and Haitian citizen Amin Latouff of Port-au-Prince, who is not in U.S. custody.

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