Guatemalan police arrest seven for 2022 migrant trailer deaths

Police arrested seven members of the Los Orozcos gang including alleged ringleader Rigoberto Orozco, Guatemala’s Interior Minister Francisco Jiménez said on Wednesday.

All seven allegedly participated in a human trafficking operation resulting in the deaths of 53 migrants outside San Antonio, Texas in June 2022. The alleged human traffickers are accused of leaving 67 migrants in a trailer without air conditioning. By the time authorities opened the trailer hours later, all but 14 of the group had died from asphyxiation.

Weren’t some people already charged with their involvement in this? U.S. authorities brought charges against four individuals within days of the incident and later apprehended two of them. Guatemalan police arrested a total of 12 individuals for extradition to the United States, including Orozco and 10 people other people wanted for crimes related to drug trafficking, according to the translation of a Wednesday statement. Officers raided San Marcos, Jalapa, and Huehuetenango, according to the statement. Authorities in Guatemala worked with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to make the arrests, Interior Minister Jiménez said.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about House Republicans alleging the Biden administration released dozens of potential terrorists into the United States after initially detaining them at the Southern Border.