The grisly discovery of seven dead migrants who were trapped inside a boxcar in Texas led to the indictment of 11 people accused of human smuggling causing death.
During the investigation, authorities uncovered an alleged years-long human smuggling operation that illegally used cargo trains to smuggle migrants into the United States, the U.S. Department of Justice announced last week.
A federal grand jury in Del Rio, Texas, indicted 11 people related to the organized smuggling scheme that led to the deaths of seven migrants in May.
They each have been charged with one count of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens resulting in death and one count of aiding and abetting the transport of illegal aliens resulting in death.
The victims were trapped for hours in an unventilated container on a Union Pacific train from Del Rio to Laredo, according to the indictment.
The illegal migrants who died include four Mexican nationals and three Honduran nationals. They could not get out of the container because it could not be opened from the inside, DOJ officials said in a news release.
Six people, including one 14-year-old child, were found dead inside the Conex storage container in Laredo, and a seventh was discovered near railroad tracks at the San Antonio stop, authorities said.
U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons said at a press conference on Friday that they were likely supposed to get off in San Antonio but were found in grave danger, so the smugglers left them in there, according to prosecutors.
“There was one individual inside that then fell out of the car,” Simmons said. “They left that individual for dead there by the tracks in San Antonio, closed the door to the container and sent the train on its way.”
The Homeland Security Task Force, along with local and state police, investigated the case, which led to the charges, and helped apprehend the alleged smugglers.
Among the 11 defendants, four of them are from Texas and seven are from either Mexico, Honduras or Guatemala. Investigators said they charged between $1,500 and $10,000 for each smuggled migrant, which was paid by the individuals, their families or friends, according to the indictment.
Nine of the 11 people charged in connection with the smuggling and the deaths of the migrants have been arrested and are now in federal custody.
Mayra Alejandra Huerta, 32, of Del Rio, was the first to be arrested on May 12. She was initially charged with one count of harboring illegal aliens and has remained in federal custody.
Three people from Texas also facing charges include: Karina Garcia, 37, of Del Rio; Edson Alejandro Perez, 18, of Del Rio; and Eric Hernandez, 40, of Eagle Pass, Texas.
The foreign nationals charged include four from Mexico: Seferino Huerta-Casillas, 35; Maria Norma Neri de Moran, 56; Damian Huerta Analucas, 55; and Rosario Cristal Lopez-Saldana, 26.
Another two defendants arrested were from Honduras, including Jonas Ulloa-Aguilera, 25, and Franklin Williams Ayala Aguilera, 30.
Pascual Raymundo Loarca, 34, of Guatemala, was also arrested in the Homeland Security operation.
Garcia and Huerta-Casillas remained at large last week, according to prosecutors.
The group allegedly ran a human smuggling operation from April 2023 until May 2026, according to the indictment. After getting migrants across the border from Mexico, the smugglers used cargo trains to get migrants further into the interior of the country.
Regarding the deadly incident in May, the organization first smuggled the seven migrants from Acuña, Mexico, into Del Rio, Texas, in late April, prosecutors said.
On or about May 9, they transported them near the Union Pacific train tracks in Del Rio.
“While a Union Pacific train was stationary, smugglers, using red bolt cutters, allegedly cut the lock off a Conex shipping container’s door, loaded the aliens into the container, and then shut the door,” DOJ officials said in the news release.
The shipping container was stacked on top of another one and had no ventilation or cooling system. The migrants were trapped inside while outside temperatures topped 88 to 92 degrees Fahrenheit, investigators said.
One individual inside the car “frantically contacted their family as they were dying from the sweltering heat in that container,” Simmons said.
The train left Del Rio and traveled east along U.S. highway 90 to San Antonio, about 150 miles away, where the smugglers “opened the door to the Conex container and discovered the aliens in peril,” according to the indictment.
The smugglers reportedly fled the scene, allegedly leaving one person near the railroad tracks and the others in the shipping container.
On May 10, the train departed for Laredo, where a worker at the Union Pacific Rail Yard saw a leg sticking out from a Conex shipping container. Authorities later confirmed the six individuals found inside were dead.
