SAN ANTONIO — US authorities announced Tuesday the arrest of four men they say were part of a people smuggling effort last year that ended in the deaths of 53 migrants, including eight children, who were left behind. in a flatbed truck in the scorching Texas summer. .
Authorities said on the anniversary of the June 27, 2022 tragedy that the four Mexican nationals had a role in planning the smuggling operation and knew that the trailer’s air conditioning unit was malfunctioning and not blowing cool air into the migrants trapped inside during the sweltering three-hour journey from the border city of Laredo to San Antonio.
When the trailer opened in San Antonio, 48 migrants had already died. Another 16 were taken to hospitals, where five more died.
It was the deadliest tragedy that claimed the lives of migrants who smuggled across the border from Mexico. Among the dead were 27 people from Mexico, 14 from Honduras, seven from Guatemala and two from El Salvador.
The driver and another man were arrested shortly after the migrants were found. They were charged with smuggling resulting in death and conspiracy.
The four new arrests were made Monday in Houston, San Antonio and Marshall, Texas. Riley Covarrubias-Ponce, 30, Felipe Orduna-Torres, 28, Luis Alberto Rivera-Leal, 37, and Armando Gonzales-Ortega, 53, were charged with conspiracy to transport immigrants resulting in death, bodily injury serious bodily harm and danger of death. . Each faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted.
A federal grand jury indictment unsealed Tuesday reveals some details of a “mosaic partnership” of smugglers that allowed them to “consolidate costs, spread risk and operate more profitably.”
The indictment alleges that the men worked in human smuggling operations in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, and shared routes, drivers, hideouts, trucks and trailers, some of which were stored in a private parking lot in San Antonio.
The immigrants paid the organization up to $15,000 each to cross the US border. The fee would cover up to three attempts to enter the country, according to the indictment.
Migrants were given a code word to provide at various checkpoints on their journey, which would show they were paid “clients” of a smuggler who had made arrangements for them.
The indictment says the men exchanged the names of the immigrants who would be smuggled into the truck. Orduna-Torres provided the address in Laredo where they would be picked up, and González-Ortega met them there. The four then coordinated the trip and exchanged messages about the truck’s progress on the road to San Antonio.
The truck was found on a remote San Antonio highway, and arriving police officers detained the driver Homero Zamorano Jr. after spotting him hiding in nearby brush.
Surveillance video captured images of the 18-wheeler passing through a Border Patrol checkpoint. One survivor, a 20-year-old Guatemalan man, told the Associated Press the smugglers had covered the trailer floor with what she believed to be powdered chicken broth, ostensibly to get rid of the dogs at the checkpoint.
Another survivor, Adán Lara Vega, said the truck was already hot when it left Laredo and that the the trapped migrants soon began to cry and asking 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.
A climate and health expert who has studied child car deaths said as much. probably would have taken an hour or less for the temperatures get to 125 degrees Fahrenheit or higher inside the trailer.
“Human smugglers prey on migrants’ hope for a better life, but their only priority is making a profit,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement. “Tragically, 53 people who had been loaded onto a tractor-trailer in Texas and endured hours of unimaginable cruelty lost their lives due to this ruthless plan.”
