EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A U.S. citizen is facing federal conspiracy charges after allegedly fleeing from authorities at 140 miles per hour in a compact car packed with migrants.
The July 10 search for the speeding black Subaru involved several Border Patrol vehicles, an Air and Marine Operations helicopter and all-terrain vehicles that went into the New Mexico desert after the car ran out of gas and its occupants scattered.
The search led them to a Mexican woman with a small child sitting next to a wire fence, and an English-speaking man claiming to have been carjacked.
“The Mexicans jumped me and stole my car,” the man later identified as Michael Thomas Raines told approaching Border Patrol agents, according to a criminal complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico.
The pursuit began around 6:20 a.m. after the Border Patrol’s Tactical Operations Center in Lordsburg, N.M., issued a lookout alert to field agents regarding a black Subaru that drove up to the U.S.-Mexico border and quickly drove back over a road known for migrant and drug smuggling.
Court documents show a Border Patrol agent spotted the Subaru and began making a U-turn when the driver of the vehicle accelerated. The agent called for backup after he lost sight of the fleeing vehicle.
The search led agents to NM Highway 9 and NM Highway 146 in Grant County, where the Subaru was left abandoned on the side of the road.
After the agents detained the woman, the child and Raines, they located two more Mexican nationals in the desert.
Court records show Raines stuck to the abduction story when questioned further by agents at the U.S. Border Patrol Station in Lordsburg. After agents told him witnesses saw him exiting the driver’s side door of the Subaru, he said it was because the passenger’s side door was blocked.
It wasn’t until he gave agents permission to inspect his cell phone that they allegedly found messages instructing him to “Just go straight to Albuquerque (N.M.),” and to pick up migrants for money, court records show.
Separately, agents found out the suspect has a criminal record that includes serving 13 years in prison for premeditated murder. The cell phone also allegedly had videos of Raines shooting firearms and offering guns for sale to others through a secure cell phone app, the complaint alleges.
Records show Raines eventually stated that he “knew the people (he picked up) were illegal” and that he needed money. When agents asked him how fast he was going in an attempt to elude them, Raines allegedly laughed and said he was driving at 140 miles per hour and that he didn’t “attempt” — that he actually “did” elude them and wouldn’t have been caught if the Subaru had not run out of gas.
He faces charges of conspiracy to bring in and harbor aliens. His detention hearing is set for July 17 before Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory B. Wormuth in Las Cruces, N.M.
Read: Read More