Trucker sentenced for smuggling 71 folks after telling officers he was hauling ‘pig meat’
A Texas-based truck driver has been sentenced to federal jail on fees associated to human trafficking after he was caught transporting dozens of individuals in a refrigerated trailer.
On April 27, truck driver Denny Fuentes, 48, was ordered to serve 15 months in federal jail, based on the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace for the Southern District of Texas. The jail time period is to be instantly adopted by three years of supervised launch.
Fuentes pleaded responsible to transporting undocumented aliens in September 2022.
Fuentes was arrested on June 15, 2022, after approaching a Border Patrol checkpoint in Webb County, Texas, in a semi truck pulling a refrigerated trailer.
“[Fuentes] slowly approached the first business lane on the Border Patrol (BP) checkpoint in Webb county, however authorities needed to order him to cease. At preliminary inspection, he displayed nervous habits, and his lips have been trembling. Fuentes advised authorities he was “hauling pig meat.” He supplied his passport and a manifest for merchandise requiring transport at no increased than 45 levels. Nonetheless, the trailer temperature was set at 56 levels,” officers stated.
Officers searched the trailer and found 71 folks together with 5 minors inside enclosed steel trailer. Temperatures outdoors have been round 100 levels and it was almost 80 levels contained in the trailer.
Throughout the listening to, the courtroom heard that the 71 people have been locked contained in the trailer and that that Fuentes put everybody who was within the trailer at risk of hurt.
The case was investigated by Homeland Safety Investigations.
