Man pleads guilty in federal court after Mexico crash killed migrants

Summary

Daniel Zavala Ramos entered a guilty plea in federal court in Laredo, Texas, acknowledging his role in an attempt to smuggle migrants without documents to the United States that resulted in a deadly truck crash in Mexico in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The plea was entered in the U.S. District Court in Laredo, where Ramos, 42, pleaded to a single felony count, the DOJ said.

The government said the charge involved conspiring to bring migrants from Guatemala through Mexico to the United States and placing lives in jeopardy while causing serious injury and deaths. Ramos faces a possible sentence of life in prison, the DOJ said in its announcement of the plea.

Prosecutors said the crash occurred on a highway leading toward the Chiapas state capital, about 160 miles (260 kilometers) from Guatemala’s border and roughly 1,400 miles (2,300 kilometers) south of the Mexican border with Texas. Authorities said the semitrailer struck the support base for a pedestrian bridge, causing the tractor-trailer to overturn and the freight container to collapse.

According to authorities, at least 160 migrants were packed into the truck, and at least 53 people were killed in the crash while more than 100 were injured. The Justice Department statement said the deaths included unaccompanied children, and it said video footage at the time showed dead and injured migrants in a jumbled pile inside the collapsed container.

Court records show Ramos was one of six Guatemans charged over the crash, and he was the first to be convicted. The other five defendants are scheduled for a final pretrial conference on June 3, according to those records.

The DOJ said the smugglers conspired to move migrants from Guatemala through Mexico to the United States for payment. It also said that in cases involving unaccompanied children, defendants would provide scripts of what to say if they were apprehended, and that authorities alleged the operation involved moving migrants on foot and in microbuses, cattle trucks and tractor trailers.

The Justice Department also said authorities alleged the group used Facebook Messenger to request and deliver identification documents to migrants to help them enter the United States. Ramos’ attorney did not immediately return an email seeking comment on Wednesday evening, according to the report of the plea.