Truck where migrants were found dead allegedly used poached credentials associated with different vehicle – New York Daily News

The truck in which dozens of migrants were found dead late Monday reportedly had U.S. and Texas Department of Transportation registration numbers on the cab that are associated with another vehicle.

The bodies of at least 46 people were found on Monday inside the tractor-trailer amid scorching temperatures in San Antonio, Texas. Another 16 people, including 12 adults and four children, were hospitalized, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said.

By Tuesday morning, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said the death toll had risen to 50, among them 22 Mexican nationals, seven Guatemalan nationals and two people from Honduras. The tragedy is believed to be one of the deadliest smuggling incidents in modern U.S. history.

According to state records obtained by the Washington Post, the numbers printed on the rig involved are associated with a man from Alamo, Texas. However, his son-in-law, Isaac Limon, said his family’s Volvo hasn’t been anywhere near the southwest side of San Antonio, but instead has been hauling grain for the past week in another part of Texas.

“It was a perfect setup. The truck is here. I’m looking at it right now,” Limon told the Post, adding that his father-in-law is still shaken up over the ordeal. “Sad to say, but he’s a bit of a victim, too, because people believe it was him.”

It’s not uncommon for smuggling operations to pack large groups of migrants into cargo containers in an effort to sneak them through highway checkpoints run by the U.S. Border Patrol.

Monday’s incident recalled a similar incident that occurred in San Antonio in 2017, when 10 migrants died in a truck packed with a total of 39 people. The driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., a 60-year-old from Florida, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and transporting migrants, and he was sentenced to life behind bars back in 2018.

And in May 2003, the bodies of 19 migrants were found in a sweltering truck southeast of the city.

So far, three people have been taken into police custody in connection with the alleged smuggling operation, none of who have been identified. The names of the victims have also yet to be released.

With News Wire Services