EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A law enforcement pursuit spanning two states has led to the arrest of a pair of U.S. citizens allegedly working for a teenage migrant smuggler from Juarez, Mexico.
The pursuit began in New Mexico, as U.S. Border Patrol agents monitoring a busy smuggling corridor in Santa Teresa on Sunday saw a silver Ford F-150 drive near some bushes and stop. The agents saw several individuals rush from the brush and quickly climb onto the pickup.
Court records show the vehicle made a quick U-turn and sped along the Pete Domenici Highway leading from Santa Teresa to El Paso, Texas.
A Texas Department of Public Safety trooper attempted to stop the F-150 when it crossed the state line, but the driver failed to yield. With Texas and border agents closing in, the driver came to a stop at the corner of Conley Road and Lynch Lane.
Records show the driver wearing red sweatpants and several individuals exited the pickup and dispersed. Border agents apprehended two individuals who admitted to being foreign nationals illegally present in the United States.
The agents noticed a Nissan Pathfinder with two occupants suspiciously circling the area. Minutes later, they again encountered the vehicle at a gas station, this time with three occupants, including a teenage boy wearing red sweatpants.
The three were taken into Border Patrol custody. Under questioning at a Border Patrol station, the two adult males spotted in the Pathfinder allegedly stated they were hired by the teen to meet at a gas station and transport migrants. One defendant identified as Gabriel Torres stated the teen called him to say he had been intercepted by U.S. law enforcement and requested to be picked up from his hiding place in someone’s backyard.
A complaint affidavit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas alleges Torres learned that the teenager was an active migrant smuggler and reached out to him for work in Juarez. The complaint alleges Torres facilitated the F-150 to the teenager to pick up migrants in New Mexico while he and an alleged co-conspirator named Cesar Zepeda Guzman waited in the Nissan.
Torres and Zepeda are being held on charges of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens. There was no immediate word on what happened to the alleged red sweatpants smuggler.
In a separate case also originating in southern New Mexico, Doña Ana County Sheriff’s deputies serving an eviction notice at a home in Las Cruces on Monday called the Border Patrol after a large number of individuals ran from the house when they approached.
Law enforcement agents rounded up those who fled; border agents arrived and determined seven were unauthorized to be in the U.S. An eighth individual was identified as Jesus Antonio Galan, a Mexican national with a valid border crossing card.
In an interview with investigators, Galan allegedly stated he was paid by a smuggling organization to transport migrants from El Paso to the home in Las Cruces, where he waited for another individual to pick them up for transport to an undisclosed final destination.
Galan faces charges of conspiracy and transportation of illegal aliens. He is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing Dec. 9 in a federal courtroom in Las Cruces.
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