Police detectives aren’t supposed to supplement their income by working for the Mexican cartels. The courts tend to frown on breach of the public trust. That’s why Hazel Eileen Diaz got sentenced to a full ten years in prison. She was convicted of “involvement in operating human smuggling stash houses.”
Police detective sentenced
The judge told former Eagle Pass police detective Hazel Eileen Diaz that she’s going directly to jail. She was recently sentenced to ten years in federal prison for “her involvement in operating human smuggling stash houses.” She owned them.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office successfully prosecuted Diaz because properties she owned “became temporary homes for undocumented noncitizens as part of a smuggling operation that spanned from September 2020 to August 2021.”
They’re not allowed to call them illegal aliens but that’s what “undocumented noncitizens” means. Trial documents from the federal court in Del Rio detail how the 54-year-old police detective “pocketed roughly $36,916.”
She did it by turning a blind eye and collecting rent from the “coyote” smugglers. She allowed “nearly 200 migrants” to live in her homes without being named on a lease.
She didn’t get much chance to spend it. “During her arrest, Diaz had in her possession $23,522 in cash.” The prosecutors convinced the jury that it was “earnings derived from the illicit enterprise.”
They snatched it and she’s not getting it back. She personally visited the properties to collect the cash “rent” and the police detective knew they were stuffed floor to ceiling with smuggled migrants.

Co-Conspirators too
Having a police officer in on the scheme didn’t help her co-conspirators any. We won’t find out what consequences Tomas Alejandro Mendez will have to face until he’s sentenced separately.
Mendez saved the court and taxpayers some aggravation by pleading guilty. He’ll be sentenced on charges of conspiring to harbor illegal aliens this January.
Paola Nikole Cazares was previously sentenced. On October 11 of last year he won a five-year stay at club fed. They gave him credit for the year he spent in jail awaiting trial.
The police detective doesn’t have a real promising future. While serving time in prison, she’ll be a prime target to the other inmates. If she manages to make it out alive, she’ll be broke.
“Upon completion of her decade-long sentence, she will submit to three years of supervised release, and pay $10,000 fine, along with a money judgment of $237,600.” She’ll have a hard time rounding up that quarter million since “the government will seize three properties, a truck, and the cash found at the time of her arrest.”
The police detective should have had a clue what she would be in for. Crime doesn’t always pay enough to make the penalties for being caught worth while. It sure didn’t this time.