A pair of U.S. citizens, allegedly working for a teenage migrant smuggler from Juarez, Mexico, have been arrested following a law enforcement pursuit that spanned two states.
In New Mexico, the pursuit started when U.S. Border Patrol agents were monitoring a busy smuggling corridor in Santa Teresa. On Sunday, they noticed a silver Ford F-150 driving near some bushes and coming to a stop. The agents observed multiple individuals hastily emerging from the brush and swiftly climbing onto the pickup.
According to court records, the vehicle swiftly executed a U-turn and accelerated along the Pete Domenici Highway, which connects Santa Teresa to El Paso, Texas.
A trooper from the Texas Department of Public Safety made an attempt to pull over the F-150 as it crossed the state line, but the driver refused to stop. As Texas and border agents closed in on the vehicle, the driver eventually came to a stop at the intersection of Conley Road and Lynch Lane.
The driver was seen wearing red sweatpants, and a group of people got out of the pickup truck and scattered. Border agents caught two individuals who confessed to being foreign nationals unlawfully in the United States.
While patrolling the area, the agents became aware of a Nissan Pathfinder that was exhibiting suspicious behavior by repeatedly circling the vicinity. Shortly after, they came across the same vehicle at a gas station, now with an additional occupant. Interestingly, among the occupants was a teenage boy sporting red sweatpants.
During the investigation at a Border Patrol station, the two adult males observed in the Pathfinder admitted that they were hired by the teenager. They claimed that the teen contacted them and asked them to meet at a gas station in order to transport migrants. Gabriel Torres, one of the defendants, mentioned that the teen called him and informed him that he had been intercepted by U.S. law enforcement. The teen requested to be picked up from his hiding place in someone’s backyard.
According to a complaint affidavit filed on Monday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Torres discovered that the teenager was involved in smuggling migrants and approached him for employment in Juarez. The affidavit further claims that Torres provided the teenager with an F-150 to transport migrants in New Mexico, while he and his alleged accomplice, Cesar Zepeda Guzman, waited in the Nissan.
Torres and Zepeda have been detained on charges of conspiring to transport illegal immigrants. The fate of the supposed smuggler in red sweatpants remains unknown at this time.
In another incident that took place in southern New Mexico, Doña Ana County Sheriff’s deputies were serving an eviction notice at a residence in Las Cruces on Monday. As they approached the house, a significant number of individuals fled from the premises, prompting the deputies to contact the Border Patrol for assistance.
During the interview with investigators, Galan reportedly admitted that he had been receiving payments from a smuggling organization. His role was to transport migrants from El Paso to a residence in Las Cruces. Once there, he would wait for another person to take over and transport the migrants to an unknown destination.
Galan will be appearing at a detention hearing on December 9th in a federal courtroom in Las Cruces. He is facing charges of conspiracy and transportation of illegal aliens.
