U.S. authorities on Tuesday announced the arrests of four men they say were part of a human smuggling operation that ended in the deaths of 53 migrants, including 8 children, in an abandoned and scorching tractor-trailer in Texas last summer.
The four new arrests were made Monday in San Antonio, Houston, and Marshall, Texas. Authorities accused Riley Covarrubias-Ponce, 30; Felipe Orduna-Torres, 28; Luis Alberto Rivera-Leal, 37; and Armando Gonzales-Ortega, 53, of coordinating and facilitating the smuggling operation last year.
It was the deadliest tragedy to claim the lives of migrants smuggled across the border from Mexico. The dead included 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.
“Human smugglers prey on migrants’ hope for a better life – but their only priority is profit,” Attorney General Merrick B. Garland said in a statement. “Tragically, 53 people who had been loaded into a tractor-trailer in Texas and endured hours of unimaginable cruelty lost their lives because of this heartless scheme.”
One year after 53 people were left in sweltering tractor
Authorities said on the anniversary of the June 27, 2022, tragedy that the four Mexican nationals had a planning role in the smuggling operation, and were aware that the trailer’s air-conditioning unit was malfunctioning and would not blow cool air to migrants trapped inside during the sweltering three-hour ride 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 five more died.
The truck was found on a remote San Antonio road, and arriving police officers detained driver Homero Zamorano Jr. after spotting him hiding in some nearby brush. The tragedy came at a time when a large number of migrants were crossing into the United States through dangerous conditions.
Migrants had been stopped nearly 240,000 times a month before the incident.
‘ALL ABOUT THE MONEY’:53 dead in San Antonio reveals harsh world of human smuggling
Migrants paid between $12,000 and $15,000 each
Surveillance video captured footage of the 18-wheeler passing through a Border Patrol checkpoint. One survivor, a 20-year-old from Guatemala, told The Associated Press the smugglers had covered the trailer’s floor with what she believed was powdered chicken bouillon, apparently to throw off any dogs at the checkpoint.
Another survivor, Adan Lara Vega, said the truck was already hot when it left Laredo and that the trapped migrants soon started crying and pleading for water. Some took turns breathing through a single hole in the wall, while others pounded on the walls and yelled to get the driver’s attention.
A climate and health expert who has studied child deaths in cars said it likely would have taken an hour or less for temperatures to climb to 125 degrees Fahrenheit (51 Celsius) or hotter inside the trailer.
To maximize profits, the indictment alleges the smugglers shared routes, guides, stash houses, trucks, and trailers for their operations — some of which were stored at a private parking lot in San Antonio.
Migrants paid between $12,000 and $15,000 each to be taken across the U.S. border, the indictment said.
In the days leading up to the operation, the indictment alleges the smugglers exchanged the names of the migrants who would be smuggled in the truck. The four men also facilitated the retrieval of the truck and its handoff to the driver on June 27.
Contributing: Christine Fernando, Cady Stanton, Jeanine Santucci, and Celina Tebor, USA TODAY; The Associated Press
