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Juan Claudio D’Luna-Mendez and Juan Francisco D’Luna-Bilbao have been charged with “possession of a weapon by an alien unlawfully in the United States,” according to criminal complaints filed Monday, the same day the migrants were found. Authorities were able to locate the men after responding to the truck incident, according to the affidavit.
“Officers investigated the Texas registration plate on the truck and found a residence in San Antonio, Texas as the truck’s registered address with Texas motor vehicle records,” the affidavit says.
The San Antonio Police Department set up surveillance at the residence “and observed a Ford F-250 leaving the residence with a single Hispanic male at the wheel.” The man was identified as D’Luna-Bilbao, who had a firearm in the console, according to the affidavit.
In the same house, authorities saw another truck whose driver, a younger man, was identified as D’Luna-Mendez.
Investigation
Both men are Mexican citizens residing in the US illegally, according to affidavits. CNN has not been able to determine if either has an attorney.
Authorities were alerted to the scene just before 6 p.m. Monday when a worker in a nearby building heard a cry for help, Police Chief Bill McManus said. The worker found a trailer with the doors partially open and saw deceased people inside, he said.
The truck passed through a checkpoint north of Laredo, Texas, on Monday, said U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, who represents a district that includes Laredo and San Antonio, which are about 150 miles apart. Cuellar spoke Tuesday with Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and has been in contact with the US Border Patrol, he told CNN.
Felipe Betancourt Jr., co-owner of Betancourt Trucking and Harvesting in Alamo, Texas, told CNN Tuesday that the semi used the same federal and state identification numbers as one of his vehicles. He said images of the truck show it displayed his company’s federal Department of Transportation number and the Texas DOT identification numbers of one of his trucks. This was first reported by the San Antonio Express-News.
Betancourt said the truck in San Antonio, which is the same color as his red Volvo semi, is not owned by his company. A search of the US DOT and Texas DOT numbers posted on the truck found in San Antonio showed that the numbers had been registered to Betancourt’s company.
“We are not tied to that truck at all,” Betancourt said. “We don’t know who owns that vehicle.”
The death toll includes migrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras, according to a federal law enforcement official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Victim
The medical examiner’s office has potentially identified 34 of the 51 victims, Bexar County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rebeca Clay-Flores said during a news conference Tuesday. The county medical examiner has also asked neighboring county medical examiner offices for help due to the high number of victims.
Forty-eight people died at the scene and two died in hospitals, the federal law enforcement official told CNN on Tuesday, noting that the number of victims is preliminary.
Sixteen people — 12 adults and four children — were taken alive and conscious to medical facilities, San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood said at Monday night’s news conference.
“This is the worst human smuggling event in the United States. This shines a light on how dangerous human smuggling is,” said Craig Larrabee, Acting Special Agent in Charge of San Antonio Homeland Security Investigations.
“In the past, smuggling organizations were family-owned. They are now organized and linked to the cartels. So you have a criminal organization that does not take into account the safety of migrants. They are treated like commodities instead of people,” he told CNN in a phone interview.
The discovery came as US federal authorities launched what they described as an “unprecedented” operation to disrupt human smuggling networks amid an influx of migrants across the US-Mexico border.
Three people have been taken into custody and are in police custody, although their connection to the situation is unclear, Police Chief Bill McManus said at a news conference Monday night. It is not clear if the two accused men are part of the three people arrested.
