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The Federal Highway Police (PRF) of Brazil found 21 migrants —18 of whom were Cuban— aboard three vehicles and arrested two human traffickers in the state of Roraima, in an operation called "humanitarian rescue," authorities reported.
During the operation, conducted on the night of May 22, agents detected an abandoned car along the side of the BR-401 highway in Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima, with six people inside. They later intercepted two more vehicles in the same city, containing 15 more immigrants.
A total of 21 migrants were rescued: 18 Cubans, two Chinese, and one Haitian, including children and the elderly, according to the PRF's confirmation.
Two Brazilian citizens transporting foreigners were detained and presented to the Federal Police in the state capital for the crime of promoting illegal immigration, an offense defined in Article 232-A of the Brazilian Penal Code, which can be punished with sentences of two to five years in prison and fines, according to a report by CNN Brasil.
The operation adds to a series of recent police actions in Roraima against migrant trafficking networks in various municipalities of the northern Brazilian state.
On May 16, agents from the Military Police found 10 Cubans, including two children aged two and four, crammed into a car without rear seats, on the same BR-401 road. Days earlier, on May 12, another police operation detected the illegal entry of 31 Cubans — 14 men, 12 women, and five children — who had crossed the Tacutu River in canoes from Guyana. Two men were arrested as suspects of facilitating irregular migration.
On March 31, the PRF rescued 34 Cubans and intercepted six Brazilian coyotes at the Ponte dos Macuxis, also on the BR-401, while they were transporting them from Bonfim, at the border with Guyana, to Boa Vista.
Between 2024 and May 2026, the PRF in Roraima rescued 189 immigrants on the federal roads of the state, arrested 31 traffickers, and confiscated 31 vehicles used in the clandestine transport of migrants, the agency confirmed in a statement. Approximately 91% of the immigrants were of Cuban nationality.
Roraima is considered by Brazilian authorities as the main illegal entry point for immigrants into the country, due to its proximity to Venezuela and Guyana.
The most commonly used route by Cubans departs by air from Havana to Georgetown, the capital of Guyana—a country that does not require a visa for Cuban citizens—; it continues overland crossing the Tacutu River towards Bonfim in Roraima, then advancing along the BR-401 from north to south Brazil.
This route was especially consolidated starting in 2024, when the tightening of U.S. immigration policies partially closed the path north.
Brazil currently hosts about 84,000 Cubans according to data from the Ministry of Justice, a number that has rapidly increased due to the severe economic and social crisis facing the island after decades of dictatorship.
Asylum requests from Cubans in Brazil skyrocketed by 88% in just one year, increasing from approximately 22,300 in 2024 to over 41,900 in 2025, according to data from the Flow Monitoring Matrix (DTM) of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). This figure positioned Cubans as the leading nationality requesting asylum in Brazil, surpassing Venezuelans for the first time and underscoring the scale of an exodus driven by the economic collapse and political repression of the Castro regime.
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