SAINT ANTONIO.- US authorities announced on Tuesday the arrest of four people who, they said, participated in a human smuggling operation last year that ended in the deaths of 53 migrants, including eight children, who were abandoned in a trailer truck in the scorching Texas summer.
Authorities reported on the anniversary of the tragedy that occurred on June 27, 2022 that the four accused Mexicans played a planning role in the human smuggling operation, and that they were aware that the trailer truck’s air conditioning was not working and it would not cool migrants trapped inside during the nearly three-hour drive from the border city of Laredo to San Antonio.
When the trailer was opened in San Antonio, 48 migrants were already dead. Another 16 were taken to hospitals, where another five died.
It has been the deadliest tragedy for migrants smuggled across the southern border of the United States. Among the deceased were 27 Mexicans, 14 Hondurans, seven Guatemalans and two Salvadorans.
The driver and another man were arrested shortly after finding the migrants. They were charged with human trafficking resulting in death and criminal association.
The four new arrests were made Monday in Houston, San Antonio and Marshall, Texas. The defendants are Riley Covarrubias Ponce, 30 years old; Felipe Orduña Torres, 28; Luis Alberto Rivera Leal, 37, and Armando Gonzales Ortega, 53. All were charged with conspiring to transport migrants resulting in death, causing serious bodily injury, and endangering lives. Each faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
A federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday reveals some details of a “mosaic association” of traffickers that allowed them to “consolidate costs, spread risk and operate more profitably.”
The record alleges that the men participated in smuggling operations in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, and shared routes, guides, hideouts, trucks and trailers, some of which were stored in a private parking lot in San Antonio.
Migrants paid the organization up to $15,000 each to cross the US border. The fee covered up to three attempts to enter the country, according to the indictment.
Migrants were given a code word that they had to provide at various checkpoints during their journey, which would prove that they were “clients” who had paid a smuggler who had made the arrangements for them.
The indictment states that the men exchanged the names of the migrants who would be transported in the truck. Orduña Torres gave them the address in the border city of Laredo, Texas, where they would be picked up, and Gonzales Ortega met them there. The four then coordinated the trip and exchanged messages about the progress of the truck on the way to San Antonio.
The truck was found on a remote San Antonio road, and police officers who arrived on the scene detained the driver, Homero Zamorano Jr., after they saw him hiding in a nearby bush.
A security camera recording shows the truck passing through a Border Patrol checkpoint. A 20-year-old survivor from Guatemala told The Associated Press that traffickers had covered the trailer floor with what she believed to be powdered chicken broth, apparently to mislead dogs at the checkpoint.
another survivorAdán Lara Vega, said that the truck was already hot when it left Laredo and that the trapped migrants soon began to cry and ask for water. Some took turns breathing through a single hole in the wall, while others banged on the walls and yelled to get the driver’s attention.
“Human smugglers prey on migrants’ hope for a better life, but their only priority is profit,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Tragically, 53 people who had been loaded onto the tractor-trailer in Texas and endured hours of unimaginable cruelty lost their lives to this ruthless ruse.”
FUENTE: With information from AP
