As the death toll climbs over 50 for the smuggled migrants in the San Antonio tractor-trailer, federal authorities have arrested three suspects connected to the human-smuggling tragedy, the San Antonio Express News reported.
Sources say one man was arrested for abandoning the truck, while a pair of others were arrested at a home on gun charges and being in the country illegally.
Homero Zamorano, 45, allegedly abandoned the tractor-trailer near Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland, having fled the scene.
"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 paper.
After the arrest of Zamorano, who had addresses in Houston and the Rio Grande Valley, officials traced the tractor-trailer to a home and put it under surveillance. There, a pair of men, Francisco D'Luna-Bilbao and Juan Claudio D'Luna-Mendez, were seen leaving but were stopped for questioning, according to the report.
One of the men said he had guns in the vehicle and a subsequent search warrant found more guns at the address.
The men were arrested on suspicion of possessing firearms while in the country illegally and detained without bail, the Express News reported.
Zamorano, who reportedly has a criminal record, might appear in federal court on human-smuggling charges, according to the report.
San Antonio Homeland Security Investigations acting Special Agent in Charge Craig Larrabee called the 50-plus tractor-trailer migrant deaths "the worst one we've seen in the U.S."
"The [human smuggling] organizations are getting more violent — they don't care about the people," Larrabee told the Express News. "They don't think of them as people. They think of them as commodities."
There have been 51 reported deaths (39 men, 12 women), and another 11 rescued from the trailer and hospitalized, including a boy in critical condition, according to the report.
The deceased countries of origin among those identified were Mexico (22), Guatemala (7), Honduras (2), according Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard.
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
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