5 presumed dead after migrant smuggling boat capsizes off South Florida, Coast Guard says

David Goodhue, Miami Herald on Apr 14, 2025

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MIAMI — Five people aboard a suspected migrant smuggling boat are presumed dead after the vessel capsized off South Florida over the weekend, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

The agency called off its search for the people Sunday night after covering more than 1,240 miles of ocean looking for them throughout the weekend.

Early Saturday morning, the 25-foot boat went down about 29 miles off St. Lucie Inlet. The vessel left Bimini in the Bahamas the day before with nine people on board, according to the Coast Guard. A boater saw the capsized boat with people clinging to the hull and reported the sighting to the Coast Guard.

A Coast Guard MH-60 Dolphin helicopter crew based at Air Station Miami rescued four of the passengers Sunday morning, the agency said. Footage released by the Coast Guard shows a rescue diver in the ocean and loading the people one-by-one into a basket, which was hoisted up to the helicopter.

The exact countries or origin of the migrants wasn’t immediately available, but Chief Petty Officer Nicole Groll said they were “mixed nationalities.”

The Coast Guard released a statement Monday warning people about the dangers of taking to the seas on migrant smuggling boats.

“The decision to suspend a search is always difficult and never taken lightly,” Chief Warrant Officer Edgardo Insignares, a Coast Guard Sector Miami search and rescue mission coordinator, said in a statement.

“Smugglers routinely exploit vulnerable aliens for profit while putting their lives at risk aboard overloaded and unseaworthy vessels,” Insignares said. “These dangerous and illegal voyages must not be attempted. Safe, legal and orderly migration saves lives. Don’t take to the sea.”

The search was called off three days after a federal judge sentenced a woman to seven and a half years in prison for her role in a migrant smuggling venture that killed 16 people on Nov. 16, 2024, off the Florida Keys.

Yaquelin Dominguez-Nieves, 25, a Cuban national in the U.S. illegally, pleaded guilty in January to alien smuggling conspiracy and other related charges. She’s accused of collecting more than $11,500 from South Florida family members seeking to smuggle their loved ones out of Cuba. The endeavor was partially organized by Dominguez-Nieves and her boyfriend, prosecutors say.

A total of 18 people were taken across the Florida Straits on the fishing boat, Playa Jaimanitas, when it sank about 30 miles into the journey, according to court records. Several of the 16 people who are presumed dead were children, prosecutors say.

Three of the bodies washed up in the Keys days later. Survivors say the Playa Jaimanitas was too small for 18 people, had no life jackets and was piloted by an inexperienced captain, according to court records.

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