SAN ANTONIO – The US Department of Justice announced that it has arrested four additional people in connection with the discovery of migrants in a trailer in San Antonio. In the incident, 53 people died, including eight minors and a pregnant woman.
According to the US Department of Justice, four Mexican nationals were arrested Monday in San Antonio, Houston and Marshall for their alleged connection to the 2022 tractor-trailer smuggling incident.
An indictment filed by a San Antonio Grand Jury on June 7 alleges that Riley Covarrubias-Ponce aka Rrili aka Rilay, 30; Felipe Orduna-Torres aka Cholo aka Chuequito/Chuekito aka Negro, 28; Luis Alberto Rivera-Leal aka Vaquero, 37; and Armando Gonzales-Ortega aka El Don aka Don Gon, 53, participated in a human smuggling organization.
The smuggling included citizens of Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico into the United States between December 2021 and June 2022.
The indictment indicates that the smugglers worked together to transport and facilitate the transportation of migrants, sharing routes, guides, hideouts, trucks, trailers, and carriers to consolidate costs, minimize risks, and maximize profits.
WHAT THE INVESTIGATION BY FEDERAL AUTHORITIES SAYS
The indictment alleges that in the days leading up to June 27, 2022, Covarrubias-Ponce, Orduna-Torres, and others exchanged the names of undocumented non-citizens who would be smuggled into an upcoming truck-trailer load.
The four new defendants allegedly orchestrated the recovery of an empty trailer and its corresponding delivery to the driver on June 27.
The driver, Homero Zamorano, Jr. of Elkhart, Texas, was previously charged in July 2022 along with Christian Martinez, of Palestine, Texas. Orduna-Torres allegedly provided the Laredo address where Zamorano loaded the migrants onto the tractor-trailer.
The indictment also alleges that González-Ortega traveled to Laredo to meet the trailer, where at least 66 undocumented persons, including eight children and a pregnant woman, were smuggled. According to the indictment, Martinez, Covarrubias-Ponce, Orduna-Torres, Rivera-Leal, and Gonzales-Ortega then coordinated, facilitated, messaged, and briefed each other on the trailer’s progress.
“The allegations in the indictment are horrifying. Dozens of desperate and vulnerable men, women and children trusted smugglers who left them in a locked trailer to perish in the merciless South Texas summer. Thanks to our law enforcement partners at the local, state and federal levels, with the San Antonio Homeland Security Investigations Division leading the investigation, we are one step closer to bringing justice for these migrants and their families, said US Attorney Jaime Esparza for the Western District of Texas.
The truck was packed and among the dead were citizens of Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. According to authorities, his cause of death was suffocation inside an abandoned truck on Quintana street.
The governor of Texas signed measures related to border security and migrants.
