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AUSTIN, Texas — Three men have been arrested amid their alleged roles in a human smuggling conspiracy that led to the deaths of 51 migrants found inside an abandoned tractor-trailer that was meant to imitate a legitimate commercial truck, according to a local report.
The driver of the truck was arrested and two others found at his residence were taken into custody on gun charges and being illegally present in the United States, according to the San Antonio Express-News.
The 45-year-old driver, Homero Zamorano, is accused of leaving behind the trailer just several miles southwest of downtown San Antonio.
“He was very high on meth when he was arrested nearby and had to be taken to the hospital,” a law enforcement officer told the Express-News.
MIGRANT TRUCK CLEARED BORDER PATROL CHECKPOINT BEFORE 51 DEATHS, FEDERAL SOURCE SAYS
The bodies of 46 migrants were found in the back of an 18-wheeler truck. As of Tuesday afternoon, another five people found at the site had died, bringing the death toll to 51 people. All suffered from heat-related complications, being confined to the back of a suffocating container lacking air conditioning when the temperature outside hit triple digits Monday.
Federal investigators from the Department of Homeland Security’s Homeland Security Investigations arm and local law enforcement have determined that the truck in which the migrants were transported was not a legitimate commercial vehicle. Rather, it was made to look like a real truck.
Authorities said information found as a result of searching the truck’s license plate in the Texas motor vehicle database led them to Zamorano’s residence, where they found the two other men.
Authorities staked out at Zamorano’s home before moving in and making the arrests. San Antonio Police Department officers “observed a Ford F-250 leave the residence with a single Hispanic male driving,” according to a CNN report on a criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The driver, Juan Francisco D’Luna-Bilbao, had a firearm in the car and admitted to having additional guns inside.
Police also saw another man, Juan Claudio D’Luna-Mendez, driving a second truck. Both men were identified as Mexican illegal immigrants and charged in federal court with possession of a weapon by an alien illegally in the United States. They are held without bail.
“The [human smuggling] organizations are getting more violent — they don’t care about the people,” Craig Larrabee, the HSI acting special agent in charge of the San Antonio office, told the Express-News. “They don’t think of them as people. They think of them as commodities.”
Larrabee said migrants are paying cartels, which are transnational criminal organizations, between $8,000 and $10,000 per person to get across the border and be transported to the U.S. city of their choice.
Although it is not clear how involved the other two men were in the smuggling attempt, authorities believe the driver had dispensed steak seasoning on all of those on board to cover their scent from any law enforcement canines.
The Washington Examiner reported Tuesday that the truck had passed through one of the Border Patrol’s highway checkpoints on I-35 heading to San Antonio from the border city of Laredo, Texas. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX) told the Washington Examiner on Wednesday that migrants had been on board but went undetected at the checkpoint. The use of the seasoning is an indication that the truck driver may have gone to this measure because people were hidden inside at the time of its passage through the checkpoint, though officials have yet to confirm it.
The driver’s truck had authentic-looking state and federal identification numbers posted on it in what investigators said copied a legitimate business’s truck in Alamo, Texas.
The driver is believed to have left the truck due to mechanical problems, leaving those inside stranded for a period that has not yet been determined.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
“In the past, smuggling organizations were mom and pop. Now, they are organized and tied in with the cartels. So you have a criminal organization who has no regard for the safety of the migrants. They are treated like commodities rather than people,” Larrabee told CNN.
