PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti, Feb. 12 (UPI) -- The adviser to 10 Americans charged with trying to take 33 children out of Haiti without permission is being probed for human trafficking, officials said.
However, the legal adviser, Jorge Puello, said he wasn't engaged in illegal activities in El Salvador, where he is being investigated, and called the matter a case of mistaken identity, The New York Times reported Friday.
"I don't have anything to do with El Salvador," Puello told the Times. "There's a Colombian drug dealer who was arrested with 25 IDs, and one of them had my name."
Police in El Salvador said they are investigating whether Puello, who is a spokesman and legal adviser for most of the 10 detainees in the Dominican Republic, is suspected of heading a trafficking ring involving Central American women and girls.
The controversy surrounding Puello is the latest twist for the group that tried to take the children from Haiti to the Dominican Republic. The group's first legal adviser was dismissed after being accused of trying to bribe officials to secure the Americans' release from jail.
The Americans have been in jail since Jan. 29 in Port-au-Prince, Haiti's capital. The judge overseeing their case, Bernard Saint-Vil, recommended to the prosecutor members of the group could be released and allowed to leave Haiti as long as a representative remained in Haiti until the case was finished, the times said.
When Saint-Vil learned of the investigation in El Salvador, he said he would initiate an inquiry of his own.
