Guatemala, Guatemala.– Guatemalan police have arrested seven Guatemalans accused of trafficking 53 migrants from Mexico and Central American countries who died of suffocation in 2022 in Texas after being abandoned inside the back of a trailer in the scorching summer heat.
These are the latest arrests after years of investigation into one of the deadliest attempts to traffic people to the United States. Among the dead were eight minors.
Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez told AP that the arrests came after 13 raids in three departments of the country. They included Rigoberto Roman Mirnado Orozco, the alleged leader of the smuggling ring whose extradition has been requested by the United States. “This is a collaborative effort between the Guatemalan police and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, as well as other national agencies, to dismantle human trafficking structures, one of the strategic objectives of the government of President Bernardo Arevalo to confront the phenomenon of irregular migration,” Jimenez added.
In June 2022, a trailer with 62 migrants was found in a deserted area in San Antonio, Texas, abandoned and without air conditioning; inside were the bodies of 53 people.
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