The Guatemalan police arrested a man on Wednesday who was wanted for extradition by the United States, accused of leading a network linked to the death of 53 migrants in 2022 in a truck trailer.
The Ministry of the Interior indicated on the social network X that Rigoberto Miranda, 47, was detained after a dozen raids in the western department of San Marcos, bordering Mexico.
The “captured extraditable” is the “leader” of the “Los Orozcos” gang, dedicated “to trafficking migrants to the United States,” the institution added. Six other members of the “dismantled” group were arrested, although no further details were given.
The prosecutor’s office and the army also participated in the operations, as well as U.S. agents from Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), according to the Ministry. Meanwhile, the Guatemalan prosecutor’s office specified on X that during the twelve raids, “cash, phones, and vehicles” were also seized.
Those arrested are accused of the crimes of illegal trafficking of persons and illicit association, it detailed. “The prosecutor’s office initiated the investigation ex officio on June 27, 2022, after the United States authorities reported the discovery of at least 50 immigrant bodies” inside a trailer “on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas,” it added.
Four Mexicans have been arrested for their alleged participation in the death of the 53 migrants from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador. According to U.S. authorities, the migrants died from hyperthermia and acute dehydration while traveling in a trailer without ventilation. Only 11 survived.
When the traffickers opened the trailer doors at the end of a nearly three-hour journey to San Antonio, 48 migrants, including a pregnant woman, were dead. Sixteen were taken to hospitals, but five of them died.
Those arrested could face life sentences.
