A Guatemalan man has pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges for his role in an attempt to smuggle over 150 illegal aliens to the U.S. in a tractor-trailer that later crashed, killing at least 50 of the passengers.
Tomas Quino Canil, who was extradited to the U.S. from Guatemala in 2025, is the last of six total defendants who admitted to having a role in the 2021 operation, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
“With Quino Canil’s guilty plea, every member of this smuggling conspiracy has now been held accountable for one of the deadliest human smuggling tragedies in recent memory,” U.S. Attorney Aaron Reitz said in a statement. “These criminals packed more than 150 illegal aliens into a trailer like they were cargo. Fifty people then died at the hands of these foreign criminals. My office will continue hunting down anyone who profits from this trade in human suffering, no matter where they hide or how long it takes to bring them to American justice.”
The illegal aliens paid Quino Canil and the co-conspirators thousands to smuggle them into the U.S. The tractor-trailer carrying over 150 aliens crashed near Tuxtla Gutierrez, Chiapas, Mexico, by the border with Guatemala.
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Urgente4 extraditables capturados
Son coyotes vinculados a graves hechos que costaron la vida de más de 50 personas.
Los detenidos son Tomás Quino Canil, de 56 años, Josefa Quino Canil de Zavala, 42, Alberto Macario Chitic de 31, y Oswaldo Manuel Zavala Quino, de 24 años pic.twitter.com/s9dkcfbwIW
— PNC de Guatemala (@PNCdeGuatemala) December 9, 2024
“In some cases, the smugglers provided scripted language to unaccompanied minors for their use if U.S. immigration authorities apprehended them,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas said.
Quino Canil, 38, faces up to life in prison and a $250,000 fine after pleading guilty to conspiracy to bring illegal aliens into the U.S. and causing serious bodily injury that resulted in death.The other five co-conspirators pleaded guilty to the same charges earlier this year.
“Sadly, this preventable tragedy occurred because of these criminals’ callous disregard for the safety of men, women, and children, and our immigration laws, which resulted in serious injury and death in Chiapas, Mexico,” DOJ Criminal Division Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva said. “These defendants exploited vulnerable people and created an atmosphere with deadly consequences, all for money. These events will be investigated and prosecuted with the full resources of the Criminal Division.”
