Arrests Made in 2021 Crash That Killed Over 50 Migrants

Five people in Guatemala and one in Texas were arrested on Monday on human smuggling charges linked to one of the deadliest traffic accidents involving migrants in recent history, U.S. and Guatemalan officials said.

On Dec. 9, 2021, a truck carrying at least 160 migrants overturned near Tuxtla Gutiérrez, the capital of Chiapas state, in southern Mexico. The authorities reported at the time that the truck was speeding when it overturned on a sharp curve. The trailer crashed into a pedestrian bridge and nearby construction, resulting in more than 50 deaths and injuring more than 100 people.

Many of the migrants were Guatemalan.

On Monday, Guatemalan authorities, at the request of the United States, arrested four people in Guatemala who were part of a human smuggling ring, according to U.S. prosecutors. Those taken into custody were: Tomas Quino Canil, Alberto Marcario Chitic, Oswaldo Manuel Zavala Quino and Josefa Quino Canil De Zavala.

A fifth Guatemalan, Jorge Agapito Ventura, was arrested at his home in Cleveland, Texas, prosecutors said.

A sixth person was also arrested, Guatemalan authorities said, though the person’s name was blacked out in the unsealed U.S. indictment.

The arrests occurred on the three-year anniversary of the accident.

The five named Guatemalans were indicted in the Southern District of Texas and charged with conspiracy to bring undocumented migrants to the United States and placing those migrants in jeopardy, causing serious injury and death, according to the indictment.

The accused recruited migrants, collected payments and arranged for their transportation — by foot, inside microbuses, cattle trucks and tractor-trailers — to the United States from around October 2021 to February 2023, the indictment said. U.S. prosecutors also said that the smugglers provided written scripts to unaccompanied minors on what they should say if they were detained by U.S. immigration authorities.

“Human smugglers prey on desperate people,” Nicole M. Argentieri, the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said in a video statement. “They act with callous disregard for their safety, putting them in peril and at risk for their safety and their lives.”

Ms. Argentieri said that U.S. prosecutors will formally request that Guatemala extradite the accused to the United States.

The popular migrant route through Chiapas borders Guatemala and has seen a rise in violence in recent years because of clashes between criminal groups. Kidnappings, extortion and violence, whether from criminal groups or corrupt Mexican officials, make the journey particular perilous for migrants, who often pay smugglers to get them to the U.S.-Mexico border.

Nearly 950 migrants died or went missing in the Americas this year, according to the International Organization for Migration.

Francisco Jiménez, Guatemala’s interior minister, told reporters at a news conference on Monday that the people arrested were part of a now-dismantled human trafficking ring called Los Quinos. He said it had operated for years and made “millions.”

“Human traffickers are a very serious scourge for Guatemala,” Mr. Jiménez said.

He said that the movement of migrants to the United States in unsafe conditions leads to tragedies such as the one in Chiapas three years ago or in South Texas in 2022, in which 53 migrants died in the heat while trapped in a tractor-trailer. (In August, U.S. and Guatemalan authorities made several arrests in that case.)

“Our migrants, our people looking for a better future,” Mr. Jiménez said, “find a lethal future.”

Though the crash in Mexico transpired beyond the United States border, Alamdar Hamdani, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Texas, said that “it is imperative that the pursuit of justice transcends those boundaries.”