11 human smugglers face life in prison after leaving migrants in a 92-degree train car
When a border smuggling operation goes south, leaving people sealed inside an unventilated steel box during peak summer heat is about as horrifyingly incompetent as it gets.
A trafficking ring had been smuggling people across the border inside freight train cars. During a stop in San Antonio on a 92-degree day, the smugglers opened one of the unventilated shipping containers and realized seven people inside were dying of severe heatstroke.
So what did they do? Instead of calling emergency services, they dumped one body by the railroad tracks, locked the container back up, and fled the scene. The train then rolled right along to Laredo with the remaining victims still locked inside.
The entire operation unraveled the next day when a Union Pacific yard worker spotted a human leg sticking out of the boxcar. Federal prosecutors have now caught nine of the eleven ring members, and everyone involved is staring down potential life sentences in federal prison.
Human life was traded for quick cargo cash, only for the whole scheme to fall apart because nobody bothered to check if a steel box had basic ventilation.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
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