EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – An Arizona resident is facing federal felony charges thanks to an inopportune incoming cellphone call as he was being questioned by Border Patrol.
Border agents on Feb. 1 stopped a blue Ford Focus driven by David Rene Martinez, a U.S. citizen, along Naco Highway near Bisbee, Arizona. The agents had spotted unauthorized migrants going into a Bisbee neighborhood less than 200 yards from the border wall. Their cameras tracked the Focus going into the neighborhood at 4:42 p.m., and coming out and heading for the highway a few minutes later.
Court records show the agents followed the car and ordered the driver to stop. The agents asked Martinez if anyone else was in the vehicle and he said no. As they were conducting the interview, the agents heard a cellphone ringing in the trunk of the vehicle.
According to a criminal complaint filed on Feb. 2 in U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, the agents asked Martinez to open the trunk of the car and he consented but then claimed the trunk would not open. The agents asked if he could lower the backseats to peek at the trunk, and Martinez allegedly said, “Oh, shit” when the person in the trunk became visible, records show.
Border Patrol agents determined the hidden passenger, Mixsael Solano Castaneda, was an unauthorized migrant from Mexico. Solano told agents his uncle paid to have him smuggled into the United States, and that he was told to approach a house in Bisbee until someone came to pick him up. The migrant told agents a blue four-door sedan approached the home and the driver told him to get into the trunk of the vehicle.
Martinez is facing a charge of transporting illegal aliens for profit. The Tucson, Arizona, resident is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Eric J. Markovich on Feb 20 at U.S. District Court in Tucson.
Records show Solano is being held by the government as a material witness in the case.
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