Mr. Díaz was slowly watching his family disappear.
First his younger son, a petroleum engineer, left to Brazil, crossing treacherous borderlands controlled by criminal groups. Suddenly his 22-year-old daughter, Oriana Díaz, was talking about smuggling herself into Trinidad.
He never imagined anything like this. Until recently, he had enjoyed a middle-class life as a public high school teacher. His other son was an accountant. The family used to vacation around the Caribbean, not flee there.
But food was in short supply. Domestic production had collapsed and the few imported foods on the shelves had become unobtainable ever since hyperinflation had destroyed his salary. His daughter was a single mother with two children to feed, ages 5 months and 2.
“I would leave the food for my wife and daughter, and I would go to sleep with none,” said Mr. Díaz. “This is what is happening in Venezuela, the parents stop eating to give food to our children, our grandchildren.”
So when Oriana said she would head to Trinidad to send money back to the family, her father felt he couldn’t object.
“I took her 2-year-old to the football field that was beside our house so he wouldn’t see his mother leave the house,” said Mr. Díaz.
In another part of town, Héctor Torres, recently penniless after he lost his job at a soda factory, was busy recruiting teenage girls for his first attempt at smuggling women to the island.