The two Marines pulled over on an exit ramp along a desolate desert highway in Southern California this month, and opened a back door of their black BMW just long enough for three people to rush from the thorny scrub into the back seat.

They were about a mile from the southern border, where thousands of troops have deployed this year to try to stem the flow of migrants — but the authorities say the Marines in the BMW had the opposite aim. According to a federal criminal complaint, they planned to make some easy money by taking their passengers, migrants from Mexico, to the next stop on their smuggling route north.

Instead, they were pulled over minutes later and arrested by Border Patrol agents. That stop on July 3 led this week to the arrest of 16 other Marines suspected of human smuggling and drug violations, pointing to a much broader operation that reached deep into the enlisted ranks.

Those Marines — from Camp Pendleton, near Oceanside, Calif. — have not yet been charged. But their arrests are a glaring indication that stepped-up enforcement at the border by both troops and Border Patrol agents has done little to stop migrants, and has instead had an unintended effect: pushing up smuggling fees and attracting atypical players to the trade.

Surging prices for sneaking past heavily patrolled areas north of the border have brought bigger payoffs that can be difficult to resist, even for the military. The two Marines caught by the Border Patrol, Lance Cpl. Byron Darnell Law II and Lance Cpl. David Javier Salazar-Quintero, were assigned to the 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment at Camp Pendleton. They told the authorities they had been recruited by another man, unnamed in the complaint, who would often meet with them in a parking lot next to a Whole Foods supermarket.

Smugglers of migrants are often not cartel kingpins but small players directing a web of independent contractors: foot guides, drivers and operators of stash houses where migrants are held until friends or family members pay an installment for the next leg of their trip.

The smugglers often recruit through Facebook, Craigslist and WhatsApp groups, or through word-of-mouth.

Alex Mensing, a project coordinator for Pueblo Sin Fronteras, a group that helps organize and support migrant caravans, said that as pressure on border crossers builds, and as prices rise, new groups of Americans will inevitably try to capitalize on the demand.

“At the end of the day, everybody has their price,” he said. “And when you put people in charge of a system that enough people are trying to game, it’s just bound to happen.”

The three Mexicans in the BMW told the authorities that they had paid $8,000 to be smuggled north. For the hourlong drive to San Diego, the Marines would get a small cut.

Lance Corporal Salazar-Quintero called Lance Corporal Law late on July 2, asking if he wanted to make $1,000 to “pick up an illegal alien,” the complaint said. Lance corporals earn about $2,000 a month in base pay.

The men drove in Lance Corporal Law’s car about an hour east of San Diego on the interstate, through the craggy desert mountains to a faded resort town called Jacumba Hot Springs.

Migrants who try to cross through the mountains typically begin their journeys in cities like Tijuana, Mexico, and are driven by smugglers into remote parts of the California high desert where they then set out on foot. They can sometimes hike for hours through terrain studded with boulders and thick brush, with no access to water.

For years the remote valley around Jacumba Hot Springs has drawn a steady stream of smugglers of both drugs and humans. In 2018, authorities discovered a 627-foot tunnel under the border there, complete with a rail line and solar-powered ventilation.

Lance Corporal Law drove while Lance Corporal Salazar-Quintero, who speaks Spanish, got directions through his phone from a smuggler with a Mexican phone number. They were told to pull over at the exit to Jacumba Hot Springs, and a single Spanish-speaking man quickly got in.

The Marines drove to a McDonald’s parking lot in Del Mar and delivered the man to someone the complaint described as their recruiter, and then went home.

The next morning they got another call from the recruiter, according to the complaint, and drove toward Jacumba Hot Springs again.

Smugglers will pay anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars to drivers who pick up migrants near the border and drive them through the 100-mile-zone north of the frontier that is closely monitored by Border Patrol agents. For migrants, a journey that a decade ago cost between $1,000 and $3,000 costs upward of $10,000 today, in part to pay American drivers for risking federal prison sentences.

Last year, four soldiers from Fort Hood, in Killeen, Tex., were convicted of hiding unauthorized migrants under military gear, and two soldiers from Fort Bliss, near El Paso, pleaded guilty to smuggling a pair of migrants in the back of their vehicle.

When the two Marines drove east to Jacumba Hot Springs on July 3, the smuggler told them to go past the exit and make a U-turn in an emergency pull-off. They stopped at the exit ramp on the westbound side. Within seconds, according to the complaint, the three Mexicans waiting in the brush bounded into the car, but they caught the attention of Border Patrol agents, who pulled the car over a few miles away.

The leaders at Camp Pendleton sent a strong message this week as the investigation widened, ordering the 16 Marines to the front of an early morning battalion formation on Thursday, and arresting them in front of 800 of their peers.

The Marine Corps has not released the names of the 16 Marines arrested this week.

The commanding officer of the battalion, the Corps said in a statement, “would act within his authority to hold the Marines accountable at the appropriate level, should they be charged.”

Nicholas Kulish and Caitlin Dickerson contributed reporting.

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