Caregiver Irene Burrows, who was honoured by The Queen for her humanitarian work, was found guilty of using her Bahamas nursing home in a human smuggling operation.
The 66-year-old woman admitted to smuggling migrants to the United States for private financial gain and was jailed for three years in the US on Thursday.
Burrows was working with her daughter-ln-law Jessie Gonzales-Urquizo, 37, to bring illegal immigrants from Brazil to Florida.
In a Tribune article it was stated: Irene Mildred Janette Burrows, of Grand Bahama, confessed to using her care facility, ‘Burrows’ Home for the Aged’, to house Brazilian immigrants, some of whom she helped with obtaining fraudulent Bahamian immigration documents, and to accepting payment for the lodging and transportation as set out in the smuggling scheme.
Various hotels and “stash houses” were also used.
According to the article Burrows and her cohort were charging these undocumented migrants between $100 and $125 per day. Burrows admitted to receiving instructions from Brazil-based smugglers – a ring which has reportedly brought in nearly 100 illegal immigrants since 2008, according to US court documents obtained by The Tribune.
Burrows was arrested in Fort Lauderdale after two Brazilian nationals were intercepted and then confessed to their participation in the scheme in February 2012.
In January she pleaded gulity to two criminal counts of bringing and attempting to bring aliens to the US for commercial advantage and private financial gain. Gonzales-Urquizo was sentenced to five years afer pleading guilty to three criminal counts.
