The story is at least as old as the underground railroad in the time of slavery. Only
 this time, the conspirators speak Spanish: Cuban-American boat owners and business
 people in South Florida and their desperate relatives 90 miles across the sea.

 This particular smuggling scheme unfolded in secret at a fruit stand in Little Havana,
 the dining rooms of immigrants fresh from Cuba, a house in a tiny hamlet called
 Aguada de Moya, a quiet beach nearby in Sagua La Chica.

 It all became glaringly public on June 23, 1998, when the Panama-registered tramp
 steamer Caribe III came across a 29-foot, Wellcraft Scarab 302 speedboat-style
 fishing craft out of Miami drifting off Key Biscayne with 13 women, 11 men and
 11 children aboard who said they were from Cuba. Along with them: two Cuban
 Americans from Miami.

 How did Jose Lima, a 33-year-old maintenance worker, and Miguel Broche, 37,
 get on that boat?

 Broche and Lima say they left Miami in Lima's Scarab that day in a frantic
 attempt to rescue Broche's wife and child, who were in peril at sea on a rickety
 wooden boat.

 Federal prosecutors say Lima and Broche are for-profit smugglers, working with
 the boat's co-owner, Juan Carlos Ruiz, 31, in a ring centered at El Palacio de los
 Jugos, a popular fruit stand in Flagami. All three are originally from Aguada de
 Moya in Cuba.

 Backing up the feds: Sworn testimony from a Broward man who says he agreed
 to pay $23,000 to Ruiz to bring his half-brother and half-sister to Miami, and from
 that sister, who says Broche and Lima arrived in Sagua La Chica, Cuba on the
 Scarab on June 21.

 In Cuba, Lima's younger brother Alberto acknowledges that he picked up some of
 the 37 in his car, and let them stay at his house the night before the trip. But he
 and his mother insist Jose is innocent.

 The prosecution's star witness, defense attorneys say, is a thrice-convicted drug
 felon who made up his story in a successful attempt to get favorable treatment for
 himself and his family.

 Who's lying?

 A Miami federal jury split the difference. On March 3, it convicted Lima, Broche
 and Ruiz of smuggling, but acquitted them of profiting from the venture. They
 await sentencing at the Federal Detention Center in downtown Miami.

 Whatever the truth in this tangled tale, this is clear: When governments are
 enemies and families are separated by politics and red tape, human beings will
 find a way. They will take risks, they will use ingenuity to outfox both Cuban and
 U.S. authorities, whether for profit or for love.

 PROSECUTION VERSION

 Border Patrol investigators say the chain of evidence really begins not in June, but
 Feb. 13, 1998. That's the day the Coast Guard intercepted 10 Cubans on a 1993
 Renken boat, along with two Cuban Americans, Manuel Morales Viera and Jorge B. Leal.

 Leal's Renken was owned by his former housemate, Jose Lima, who said in court
 that he had given it to Leal, a mechanic, for repairs. He also said in court that Leal
 stole the boat from him and had no permission to use it to go to Cuba.

 Dan Geoghegan, assistant chief of the Border Patrol in South Florida, says Lima was
 involved then, too. But no charges were filed against anyone in the case. Leal and
 Morales could not be reached for comment.

 Prosecutors say the center of the conspiracy is a fruit stand at the corner of Flagler
 Street and Southwest 57th Avenue. Ruiz is employed at El Palacio de los Jugos,
 owned by his in-laws, the Bermudez family.

 It's a popular spot. On one recent afternoon, cars were double parked in the parking
 lot. Some, waiting to get in, blocked traffic. An elderly Cuban man sold fish and lobster
 out of his van. Next to him, someone else sold straw hats in the parking lot while a
 woman sold flowers from old paint buckets full of water.

 LITTLE NOTICED

 It's the kind of place where someone could run a smuggling operation with little notice,
 says Steve Quiñones, Border Patrol special agent in charge of smuggling. He says there
 are a few other ``smuggling hubs'' known to authorities, but for investigative reasons
 would not say where they are.

 Francisco Cruz, who ultimately became the government's star witness, says he found
 his smuggling connection through El Palacio.

 Cruz, a Cuban in the U.S. since 1980 with a record of three drug convictions,
 says a cousin of his half-brother and half-sister named Emma Perez Barquero,
 then a fruit stand employee, introduced him to Ruiz. He already knew El Palacio
 -- he had been there to drink water from coconuts after baseball games.

 According to Cruz's later trial testimony, he met Ruiz on June 17, 1998, at the
 fruit stand, and broached the subject of bringing his family out of Cuba. Ruiz didn't
 want to talk there; the two met later at the Bermudez house, then went on to
 Lima's house six blocks away at 245 NW 60th Ct. They sat at a dining room table
 and discussed the trip.

 ``We discussed about, you know, the price -- how much it would cost to bring my
 family. Juan Carlos . . . told me it was going to be $9,000,'' Cruz later testified.

 QUESTION OF PRICE

 He and Ruiz dickered over the price: ``I told him that that was not the price that
 Emma had told me. She told me it was $6,000. And then he said, `Listen, a couple
 of weeks ago, we charged $5,000 and there is no way we are going to take that
 risk for that kind of money. It is not worth it. So that's the reason we are  going to
 charge you $8,000. I think it is fair.'

 ``Then we made an agreement. I said, `Well, I don't have any other choice,' So
 I agreed on $8,000 for my brother and my sister and $7,000 for the child, for
 my nephew.''

 He told the judge and jury that he went back to El Palacio on Friday and then
 back to Lima's house, where he gave Ruiz $9,000 in cash -- a down payment.
 Cruz's employer at Tread Brokers Inc. in Coral Springs later told an immigration
 investigator that he lent the money to Cruz -- aware of what it would be used for.
 He could not be reached for comment.

 Cruz expected his relatives to arrive on June 21 -- a Sunday. Increasingly
 anxious, he called Ruiz on Sunday and Monday. Then, on Tuesday, he learned
 the Coast Guard had intercepted the boat.

 The next day, June 24, he went to see Ruiz at El Palacio. Before he could say a
 word, Ruiz handed him back the money he had paid.

 ``He gave me the money the same way I give it to him, in a rubber band, and I
 kind of got disgusted with him about -- you know, he told me that it was going to
 only be 10, 12, 15 people maximum on the boat and I asked him why there was
 37 people on the boat. He said that was not his part. He didn't know anything
 about it.''

 ANGRY WITNESS

 An angry Cruz offered his help to the authorities. It turned out to be a good deal
 for him and his family: His relatives were allowed to stay here, and Cruz himself,
 deportable because of his criminal record, was given immigration status that also
 allows him to continue living in the U.S.

 His half-sister Graciela backs Cruz's story in part. She testified Lima and Broche
 arrived with the Scarab in Cuba, and she remembers them helping her and the
 others board the boat. But both Graciela and the brother dodged other questions
 and were labeled hostile witnesses by the prosecution.

 More evidence: gas cans, fishing poles, a purchase agreement for the Scarab,
 phone records, the empty box of a Global Position System with the handwritten
 numbers on the instructions to mark Cayo Fragoso in Cuba -- the key about 2
 miles offshore from Sagua La Chica.

 DEFENSE VERSION

 The three defendants and their supporters are more reticent about talking than
 Frank Cruz is. Their lawyers would not permit The Herald to interview any of the
 defendants in jail. And the Bermudezes -- Ruiz's in-laws and the owners of El
 Palacio -- also refused to talk.

 ``We were told by our lawyer not to say anything. You know, the newspaper
 invented a bunch of things the last time,'' said a young woman who answered the
 door at the home of patriarch Elier Bermudez, 200 NW 57th Ct., around the block
 from the Palacio.

 A woman who lives at the home who said her name was Eddy Broche also
 declined to talk to a reporter. It is unknown if she is related to Miguel Broche, one
 of the defendants.

 WITNESS CHALLENGED

 The defense instead points to what it says is Cruz's unreliability: He is a
 three-time convicted drug felon. And it notes that he and his family benefited from
 his cooperation.

 According his court testimony, Miguel Broche says he didn't know anything about
 the trip until June 21 -- Father's Day -- when he got a call from Cuba.

 ``Your wife and kid left on a boat for Miami,'' he says a relative told him.

 He testified that he went to see the only friend he knew with a boat: Jose Lima.

 Lima testified that on their way, they ran into Cruz and some other people at a
 church parking lot near the fruit stand. ``Something was mentioned about other
 boats going out. All the relatives said that they would go down to Key West, that
 they were going to rent small airplanes,'' Lima said.

 He said he and Broche found a small boat carrying Broche's relatives at Cay Sal
 Bank. Eventually they ran into bad weather, and took everyone aboard the
 Scarab, Lima testified.

 ``I don't want to deceive anyone here,'' he said in court. ``I was going to bring them
 over and I wasn't going to deliver them to immigration.''

 FLAGGED FREIGHTER

 After the Scarab ran out of gas, they flagged down the Caribe.

 Although Lima and Broche said they just happened upon the Cubans in the sea,
 Lima's brother Alberto, still living in Aguada de Moya, acknowledged to a Herald
 reporter that he picked up some of the passengers in his car, and allowed them to
 spend the night in the family home before they took the trip. Still, he and his
 mother say Jose merely rescued the refugees at sea.

 They're backed up by some of the boat's passengers.

 Two of them, Yoama Morales and her husband Leonides Herrera, were among
 those repatriated after the June trip. They eventually did make it to South Florida
 on a subsequent trip in November and now live in a small, sparse apartment in
 west Miami-Dade.

 She said the group had left Cuba in a wooden boat that didn't look like it would
 survive the trip. Broche and Lima ``picked us up in open ocean,'' Morales, 24, said
 in an interview. ``They saw us and since we were taking on water, they picked us
 up.''

 DENIES PAYMENT

 Among the others on the Scarab were six relatives of Zoila Francisco, of west
 Miami-Dade. Francisco, who arrived from Cuba in 1994, adamantly denies paying
 smugglers to bring her son and daughter, daughter-in-law and three grandchildren
 here. They were also among those repatriated.

 ``We didn't pay a penny,'' said her sister, Maria Perez. ``I'll tell you what is
 criminal. It is criminal that they send them back to Cuba after being out there for
 four days without food or taking a shower.''

 Francisco, who has another daughter in Cuba (``She won't dare jump, she is too
 scared.''), said agents asked her if she knew her family was coming.

 ``If I had known, I would have died waiting, expecting, worrying,'' Francisco said.

 The women said they didn't know Lima or Broche, although the sisters are from
 Placetas, not far from Aguada de Moya. They said they didn't know Juan Carlos
 Ruiz either, though Perez said she had been to El Palacio many times.

 ``Whenever I buy bacalao I go there. It's good, very fresh. But like I go to any
 other establishment, like Publix,'' she said.

 EXTENDED FAMILY

 The women live with their extended family in a peach-colored, perfectly
 manicured, $260,000, 3-bedroom, 2-bath house with a swimming pool and an
 American Eagle mailbox.

 In addition to Perez and her husband Antonio, at least 17 other people with
 Hispanic surnames have lived in the Perez home since April, 1998, according to
 Florida driver's license records.

 Asked about it later, Francisco said she only recognized some of the names.

 ``Some of those are family and when they first came, at the beginning, they lived
 with us. But it can't be that many. That's too many,'' she said.

 The current residents include the six relatives who were repatriated after the June
 incident. They came in a second trip Nov. 2 -- in the same boat as Morales and
 Herrera. Perez and Francisco said they didn't know about that trip either.

 ``It was a complete surprise when they arrived,'' Francisco said.

 That's not very likely, feds say. Quiñones, of the Border Patrol, said the second
 trip was likely part of the smuggling deal.

 ``It's part of their marketing strategy,'' he said. ``They tell you that if your people
 are sent back, they will keep trying until they get them out.''

 Here's what is clear: 14 of the original 37 were on that boat on Nov. 2. However
 they did it, they overcame the sea -- and the law.