Texas Immigrant Smuggling Suspect Caught

Authorities arrested the suspected leader of an immigrant smuggling operation responsible for an operation last month that led to 19 deaths in a stifling truck trailer, federal prosecutors said Monday.

In announcing the arrest of accused ringleader Karla Patricia Chavez, 25, U.S. Attorney Michael Shelby also unsealed a 58-count indictment naming her and 12 others for their roles in the smuggling mission that ended May 14 when a truckload of immigrants was discovered in a trailer abandoned at a truck stop in Victoria, 100 miles southwest of Houston.

Seventeen immigrants died at the scene, and two others died later.

Chavez was arrested Friday in Honduras, the announcement said.

A group of more than 70 immigrants from Mexico, Central American and the Dominican Republic were being transported in a tractor-trailer from South Texas to Houston when they began succumbing to the stifling heat inside. The driver of the truck, Tyrone Williams, left the trailer in the early morning hours of May 14.

The victims died from dehydration, hyperthermia and suffocation. Among the victims was a 5-year-old boy from Mexico.

Federal prosecutors said Monday that Chavez was arrested trying to enter her native Honduras from Guatemala. Authorities in Guatemala deported her to the United States on Saturday, and U.S. immigration agents arrested her in Houston hours later.

Chavez was scheduled to make her first court appearance later Monday before a magistrate judge.

Also arrested Friday was Claudia Carrizales de Villa, 34, a Mexican citizen who lives in Harlingen. Prosecutors said she was to appear in a Brownsville federal courtroom Monday afternoon.