Four Additional Arrests in Smuggling Incident that Claimed 53 Lives
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced charges against four Mexican nationals for their role in the deaths of more than four dozen undocumented people, found in the back of a tractor-trailer in the sweltering Texas heat last June.
The four suspects were arrested in San Antonio, Houston, and Marshall, Texas.
According to court documents, the four suspects knew that the tractor-trailer’s air conditioning was malfunctioning and would not blow cool air onto the migrants during the three-hour ride from Laredo to San Antonio.
When authorities opened the tractor-trailer in San Antonio, 48 migrants were already dead. Five more later died at local hospitals and 11 others were injured, in one of the deadliest human smuggling incidents across the U.S.-Mexico border.
“The allegations in the indictment are horrifying,” said U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas. “Dozens of desperate, vulnerable men, women, and children put their trust in smugglers who abandoned them in a locked trailer to perish in the merciless south Texas summer.”
Authorities previously arrested the truck’s driver and another man for their role in the scheme to bring migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador across the U.S. border.
Court documents say the four recently arrested worked together to move the migrants by sharing routes, stash houses, trucks, and other transporters to “consolidate costs, minimize risks, and maximize profit” with the group storing some of its tractor-trailers at a private parking lot in San Antonio.
According to the indictment, the suspects exchanged the names of individuals who would be smuggled in a tractor-trailer. One of the suspects went to Laredo, at which point the driver loaded the migrants onto the tractor-trailer.
The indictment says the victims paid $12,000 to $15,000 each to be taken across the U.S. border.
“Human smugglers who put people’s lives at risk for profit and break our laws cannot hide for long: We will find you and bring you to justice,” said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland.
The four defendants face a variety of charges with a maximum penalty of life in prison.
The charges resulted from the coordinated efforts of Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA), which was established in 2021 between Attorney General Garland and Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro N. Mayorkas, to strengthen efforts to fight human smuggling crimes from Central America.