On Dec. 9, 2021, a trailer truck filled with dozens of migrants overturned whereas dashing on a freeway in Chiapas, in southern Mexico. Fifty-six individuals died and 113 have been wounded.
Earlier this month, on the third anniversary of the accident — one of many deadliest involving migrants in current historical past — authorities in Guatemala and the US arrested six individuals on human smuggling expenses. 5 have been apprehended in Guatemala and one in Texas.
An investigation by Noticias Telemundo, the Latin American Middle for Investigative Journalism (CLIP), ICIJ and native shops in Central America and Mexico revealed in April discovered the smuggling of migrants in vans is on the rise.
The arrests and certain extradition to the U.S. of the 4 arrested in Guatemala are a part of a current development of cross-border regulation enforcement cooperation focusing on human smuggling. After many years of focusing totally on border enforcement and following a file variety of migrants crossing into the U.S. from Mexico in 2023, authorities have more and more shifted their consideration to smuggling networks that assist migrants attain the border.
In a Dec. 9 press convention, saying the arrests, Guatemala’s Minister of Inside Francisco Jimenez credited regulation enforcement brokers in each international locations with “dismantling a legal community” devoted to trafficking individuals to the U.S. Tomas Quino Canil, Alberto Marcario Chitic, Oswaldo Manuel Zavala Quino and Josefa Quino Canil De Zavala have been arrested in Guatemala. Jorge Agapito Ventura was arrested at his home in Cleveland, Texas. The title of the sixth individual is blacked out in an indictment that was unsealed final week. The group, recognized by authorities as “Los Quino,” is accused of recruiting migrants, accumulating fee and transferring them “on foot and inside microbuses, cattle vans, and tractor trailers” to convey them to the U.S. with out authorization.
The suspects have been indicted within the southern district of Texas and federal prosecutors stated they’ll formally request their extradition to the U.S. In a put up on X, Jimenez described 4 of the 5 individuals arrested in Guatemala as “extraditables.”
🚨URGENTE🚨
Desarticulamos estructura de tráfico de migrantes “Los Quinos”. Vinculados a un caso del 2021 en el que 56 migrantes perdieron la vida en Chiapas, MX.
6 capturados, 4 extraditables. ✈️🇺🇸@mingobguate 🤝@Ejercito_GT 🤝 @DHSgov y Mp. https://t.co/UtFQE5izLF
— Francisco Jiménez (@FJimenezmingob) December 9, 2024
“Whereas this crash transpired past our borders, it’s crucial that the pursuit of justice transcends these boundaries,” U.S. Lawyer for the Southern District of Texas Alamdar Hamdani stated in a press launch.
Daniel Richman, a former federal prosecutor in New York and a regulation professor at Columbia College, famous that whereas human smuggling instances are current in comparison with these associated to different types of transnational crime, authorities within the U.S. and overseas have already got a authorized blueprint for prosecuting them.
“The construction of this isn’t precisely regular, however fairly regular if you concentrate on medication,” Richman stated. “The precept of prosecuting people desiring to commit crimes within the U.S. is well-developed, primarily in drug instances, and it’s simply transferable.”
Underneath long-standing extradition treaties with Mexico, Colombia and Central American international locations, the U.S. has convicted a number of the most infamous leaders of drug cartels, from Carlos Lehder in 1987 to Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in 2017. The U.S. has additionally extradited presidents and different high-ranking officers in connection to drug trafficking and corruption instances. Cartels have additionally expanded into human smuggling, which has turn out to be a multibillion-dollar enterprise. In recent times, some have taken over smuggling operations that have been beforehand managed by a unfastened community of smugglers referred to as coyotes or polleros.
In June 2021, after border crossings practically doubled in the course of the first few months of the Biden administration, U.S. Lawyer Common Merrick Garland introduced the creation of Joint Activity Pressure Alpha, which mixed the work of prosecutors and brokers from regulation enforcement companies just like the DEA, the FBI and Homeland Safety Investigations (HSI) to deal with smuggling instances. The Division of Justice would additionally “improve the help supplied to counterparts” in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, “and Mexico to help their efforts to prosecute smuggling and trafficking networks in their very own courts,” Garland stated in a press release on the time.
The arrests in Guatemala and Texas, in addition to current convictions of smugglers, are the results of these efforts, Garland stated in a press release on Dec. 9, 2024. “Since we launched Joint Activity Pressure Alpha (JTFA) greater than three years in the past, we’ve got secured greater than 330 home and worldwide arrests and greater than 275 convictions on smuggling offenses, in addition to vital jail sentences and substantial forfeitures.”
In April, ICIJ and media companions in Latin America, Europe and the U.S. revealed Cargo Vans: a lure for migrants, an investigation that documented practically 19,000 migrants’ journeys to the U.S. border beneath harmful situations.
The investigation, led by Noticias Telemundo and CLIP, discovered that the unlawful use of cargo vans to smuggle individuals throughout Mexico is on the rise, as are accidents and deaths involving migrants and vans. That is occurring because the Mexican authorities, pressured by the US, toughens its insurance policies to restrict the file variety of individuals crossing its territory lately, pushing migrants to hunt extra harmful and infrequently lethal methods to journey.
Reporters regarded into the Dec. 9, 2021 accident, which killed or wounded dozens of Guatemalans in addition to migrants from the Dominican Republic, Ecuador and El Salvador. Reporters interviewed survivors and family members of victims of the December 2021 accident.
Shortly after the accident, authorities from the U.S., Mexico and the international locations of origin of the victims promised to swiftly examine and prosecute the individuals liable for the accident. However reporters revealed that the group met solely twice and couldn’t discover proof of their work or anybody held accountable for the accident in any nation. Though individuals have been arrested in Mexico and the Dominican Republic within the weeks following the incident, nobody has gone to trial.
In a press release despatched to ICIJ, the Mexican Lawyer Common’s Workplace stated the case is ongoing and that three of 4 suspects that have been arrested following the accident stay beneath arrest.
Requested whether or not Mexico would additionally request to extradite the 5 individuals just lately arrested in Guatemala — for the reason that 2021 accident occurred in Mexican territory — the Mexican Lawyer Common’s Workplace stated in its assertion, “if it seems that any of the individuals detained by the governments of the US of America and Guatemala are associated to the occasions investigated in [Mexico], and have an excellent arrest warrant to be fulfilled, if applicable, their extradition will likely be requested.”
In a press launch, the DOJ thanked the authorities in Mexico for his or her help within the current arrests. Though the crash occurred past U.S. borders, the indictment alleges that the suspects used Fb Messenger to distribute written scripts to unaccompanied minors instructing them on what to say in the event that they have been detained by U.S. authorities.
“The U.S. isn’t probably the most pure place for this to be charged by way of abnormal legal regulation practices, that’s true. However there’s an overlay on these practices,” defined Richman, the previous prosecutor. “Right here, I may speculate, it serves the Biden administration to point out that, whereas they’ve sensitivity to migrants’ pursuits, they arrive down onerous on traffickers. That has at all times been a stance of this administration, and this case is in keeping with that. It’s a robust assertion to make earlier than leaving workplace.”
The DOJ declined to reply whether or not it’s cooperating with different international locations whose nationals died within the Dec. 2021 accident and if extra arrests in these international locations are anticipated.
Kenia Castillo, whose son, Rafelin Martinez Castillo, was among the many Dominican migrants who died in the course of the accident, informed ICIJ she is unaware of any efforts of delivering justice to the survivors and their family members.
“Nobody has ever contacted me and it additionally isn’t my precedence, actually,” stated Castillo, who’s now elevating the 5-year-old daughter left by her son. “Justice can be to have my son again however the loss is irreparable … we’re worse off than when he left.”
Justice can be to have my son again however the loss is irreparable … we’re worse off than when he left.
— Kenia Castillo, whose son was killed within the 2021 accident
In his assertion following the arrests in Guatemala, Garland stated the DOJ “will proceed to work throughout companies and throughout borders to cease the scourge of human smuggling.” However it’s unclear if or how a brand new Trump administration will advance these efforts. The incoming president’s immigration plans appear extra targeted on beefing up safety on the border and growing arrests and deportations. In 2019, ProPublica reported that in the course of the first fiscal 12 months of the Trump administration, the variety of new human smuggling investigations launched by HSI dropped 60% as efforts shifted from complicated investigations to detentions and deportations.
Jody García, from Plaza Pública, in Guatemala and Ronny Rojas, from Noticias Telemundo, contributed to this story.
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