EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A California man who told authorities during a traffic stop in Arizona that five Mexican nationals dressed in camouflage inside his rental vehicle were his relatives has been arrested on migrant-smuggling charges.
A Pinal County, Arizona, sheriff’s deputy patrolling Interstate 10 last Tuesday witnessed a black Mazda CX-50 make a sudden lane change, causing the driver of a semi to slam on the brakes, nearly resulting in a crash. Court records show the deputy turned on his emergency lights and ordered the driver of the black SUV to stop.
The deputy approached the Mazda to cite the driver and noticed several people wearing camouflage clothing trying to lie down inside the vehicle. The driver identified as Davin Wayne Gattis pulled out a California driver’s license and rental documents for the SUV. Records show he told the deputy his three male and two female passengers were family members he planned to drop off in Phoenix.
The deputy placed Gattis in the back of his patrol car and notified the U.S. Border Patrol of a possible human smuggling attempt.
Border agents took the driver and his six “family members” to the Casa Grande, Arizona, Station, where the purported relatives were questioned and fingerprinted. All were citizens of Mexico with no legal documents to be present in the United States. All five Spanish-speakers said they were in no way related to Gattis.
Two agents assigned to the Border Patrol’s Intelligence Unit interviewed Gattis, a U.S. citizen, who repeated the claim that all his passengers were family members. When the agents confronted Gattis with the undocumented migrants’ statements, the Californian allegedly changed his story.
Court records allege he told the agents he “had fallen on hard times financially.” He said he does have a cousin in Arizona and that she offered to pay him $250 to $500 for every migrant he could drive from the border to Phoenix.
A federal complaint affidavit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona quotes Gattis as saying he was instructed to join a WhatsApp online chat group where smugglers sent him a GPS “pin” of where to pick up the migrants in Southern Arizona. He was expecting another “pin” once he came close to Phoenix, but the deputy stopped him before he could get there, records show.
The agents seized Gattis’ cellphone and continue to investigate other possible parties. Gattis remains in custody. His initial appearance in federal court is pending.
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