MIAMI — The same morning that 26 people from China landed in Coral Gables in what authorities say was a migrant smuggling operation, Customs and Coast Guard crews stopped a boat off the Upper Florida Keys carrying migrants from Ecuador and also China, officials say.

Tuesday’s incident in southern Coral Gables was the second large human smuggling operation busted in the same area this month. On Jan. 17, Coral Gables police stopped a U-Haul and Toyota Corolla near the Snapper Creek Lakes neighborhood with more than 20 migrants inside both vehicles.

Most of the people were from China, but there were others from Ecuador and Brazil, according to Homeland Security Investigations, the federal agency investigating both incidents.

Around 9 a.m. Tuesday, about an hour after police stopped two vans on Old Cutler Road in Coral Gables carrying the Chinese migrants, a Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations aircraft was tracking a 22-foot center console boat with seven people on board traveling east of Key Largo, a spokesperson for that agency told the Miami Herald.

The air crew notified a Customs interceptor boat and a Coast Guard boat from Station Islamorada. Both boats stopped the center console in Card Sound, a body of water in south Biscayne Bay sandwiched between north Key Largo and south Miami-Dade County on the mainland, the spokesperson said.

Card Sound is located roughly 15 miles south by water of where federal agents said a boat dropped off the Chinese migrants near Snapper Creek Marina Tuesday.

The Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said a driver who is suspected to be a smuggler and six others were on board the center console. Four are from Ecuador and two from China — all adults, the spokesperson said. They were taken to a Coast Guard cutter to be processed for removal from the U.S., according to the spokesperson.

The boat operator was taken into custody by agents with Homeland Security Investigations, the spokesperson said.

It is unclear if the at-sea stop was related to the incident in Coral Gables.

“This incident is still an active, ongoing investigation,” the spokesperson said.

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