Seven arrested over deaths of 53 migrants abandoned inside tractor trailer in Texas

Alleged ringleader Rigoberto Román Miranda Orozco, known as “Rigo,” was nabbed in the department of San Marcos, according to Guatemalan authorities

Alleged ringleader Rigoberto Román Miranda Orozco was captured with six others in Guatemala (AP)

Guatemalan police on Wednesday captured seven people suspected of being involved with a 2022 human smuggling operation that saw 53 migrants die of asphyxiation — including eight children — in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas.

Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez announced the arrests on social media, applauding the joint effort between his agency, the Guatemalan Armed Forces, and Homeland Security Investigations, the US Department of Homeland Security’s investigative arm. Officers and agents carried out 13 raids in three administrative departments, which Jiménez said dismantled a trafficking network known as “Los Orozcos.”

Alleged ringleader Rigoberto Román Miranda Orozco, known as “Rigo,” was nabbed in the department of San Marcos, according to Guatemalan authorities. On Thursday, US officials announced an indictment charging Orozco with six counts of migrant smuggling resulting in death or serious injury.

Six others were previously arrested for allegedly being part of what officials said was the single deadliest migration-related incident at the US-Mexico border. The US government has requested Orozco’s extradition, according to the Associated Press. Authorities also seized vehicles and cash, and rescued other migrants during the raids, the AP reported.

First responders found dead bodies stacked up in the sweltering trailer, according to authorities. (AP)

Los Orozcos reportedly charged migrants as much as $15,000 each to be spirited into the US, with the fee covering three tries to cross. The smuggling network stretched from Guatemala into Honduras and Mexico, and was made up of a complex web of clandestine routes, guides, or “coyotes,” stash houses, and trucks for transporting the human cargo.

In the case that led to Wednesday’s arrests, officers with the San Antonio Police Department were summoned to the outskirts of the city on June 27, 2022, after concerned citizens called 911 to report an abandoned big rig packed with people. When cops arrived on the scene, according to federal court filings, they discovered dozens of exhausted, dehydrated migrants in the back of the truck, with dead bodies, many of them hot to the touch, stacked on top of one another. Others were lying on the pavement or in nearby brush.

The deadly three-hour journey from the Mexican border to San Antonio began with 64 people, of which only 11 would survive. The vehicle was made to look like a refrigerated truck, but in fact had no working air conditioning, according to court filings. Temperatures in the trailer were said to have reached 150 degrees.

“As the temperature inside the trailer rose, chaos ensued,” reads a May 2024 indictment filed against three of suspects. “Some [of the migrants] screamed and banged on the walls for help. Others kicked and clawed at the sides of the trailer attempting to escape. Most eventually passed out, unconscious.”

The driver, identified as 45-year-old US citizen Homero Zamorano Jr., was found hiding in the vicinity and arrested after at first claiming he was one of the survivors. Zamorano was allegedly high on meth when he was caught.

Driver Homero Zamorano Jr. at first tried to pass himself off as a victim, but was quickly found out by investigators. (Reuters)

“SAPD Officers were led to the location of an individual that was observed hiding in the brush before running to abscond from responding citizens,” the criminal complaint against Zamorano states. “At the location, SAPD officers encountered and detained Homero Zamorano Jr… Zamorano Jr. was escorted to a local hospital for medical evaluation.”

But when HSI agents reviewed security video of the tractor trailer passing through an immigration checkpoint, the complaint says they saw Zamorano “matched the individual from the surveillance footage and was wearing the same clothing.”

Zamorano was arrested and charged with one count of alien smuggling resulting in death.

In the aftermath, Gustavo Garcia-Siller, the archbishop of San Antonio, told the New York Post, “It’s so hard for us here to think that people are people, that we are part of a larger reality, humanity... They’re people. They have families. They have suffered enough to make that kind of a trip to the United States with hope to connect with family and to live a more dignified life. These are the poor, the neglected.’’

Zamorano, whose attorneys did not respond on Thursday to a request for comment from The Independent, remains detained as he awaits trial. If convicted, he faces life in prison.