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A federal grand jury in Del Rio has indicted 11 people accused of participating in a migrant-smuggling operation that resulted in seven deaths in May, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas announced Friday.
Six migrants were found dead inside a shipping container at a Union Pacific rail yard in Laredo. A seventh was found dead near railroad tracks in San Antonio.
The Webb County Medical Examiner’s Office previously identified five of the six people found in Laredo: a 29-year-old woman, a 45-year-old man and a 56-year-old man from Mexico, and a 14-year-old boy and a 24-year-old man from Honduras.
The medical examiner determined the 29-year-old woman died from hyperthermia. The causes of death had not been confirmed for the others, but officials said extreme heat was likely responsible for all six deaths.
The indictment describes the container as locked from the outside, unable to be opened from within and lacking ventilation or a cooling system. Prosecutors said outside temperatures ranged from 88 to 92 degrees.
It alleges smugglers used bolt cutters to remove a lock before loading the migrants into the container in Del Rio.
The train traveled to San Antonio, where smugglers opened the container and found the migrants in distress before fleeing. One migrant was removed and left near the railroad tracks. The other six remained inside as the container continued to Laredo, where a Union Pacific employee discovered their bodies May 10 after seeing a leg sticking out of the container.
Prosecutors allege the defendants and others operated a human-smuggling organization from at least April 2023 through May 12, 2026. The organization allegedly used cargo trains to transport migrants farther into the United States after bringing them across the border from Mexico.
Migrants or their relatives paid smugglers between $1,500 and $10,000, according to prosecutors.
The defendants include residents of Del Rio and Eagle Pass, as well as citizens of Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Each is charged with one count of conspiracy to transport migrants resulting in death and one count of aiding and abetting their transportation. If convicted, each could face up to life in federal prison.
