When troopers stopped both cars, the people inside tried to get away by running across the highway to avoid being caught. Daniel Pena, from Zapata, Texas, was one of them and was suspected of smuggling drugs.
Then, the police searched his pickup truck and found 15 Mexicans hiding in the back cab and toolboxes.
The other person suspected of smuggling was Mario Gutierrez Zambrano, a Mexican citizen who was in the US illegally. He and Pena were both caught and charged with smuggling people and trying to avoid arrest. The 15 Mexicans were all turned over to the Border Patrol.
This week, DPS troopers stopped two trucks that were moving next to each other on IH-35 in Webb County. When the police stopped the first truck, its driver, Daniel Pena of Zapata, Texas, bailed out and tried to get away.
15 illegal immigrants from Mexico were found squished in toolboxes and the back of the truck. Pena and the driver of the second truck, who was from Mexico and was in the country illegally, were both caught and charged with smuggling people. All 15 of the illegal aliens were sent to the Border Patrol.
Smugglers also take Highway 59 north from Laredo to Houston, which takes about five hours. An Operation Lone Star task team led by Goliad Sheriff Roy Boyd often captures them, according to The Center Square.
Recent attempts to smuggle people were stopped in Roma when agents from the OLS task force caught people they thought were smugglers several hours north of the border.
It was also in Webb County that DPS officers and troopers found 29 illegal foreigners being held in a stash house. When they asked for their phones and IDs, some of them seemed to say they didn’t have any. Each group of men and women was kept in a separate room of the house.
It was found that one of the guys was a member of the Tango Blast Gang. The Border Patrol was told about everyone in the stash house.
29 illegal aliens were found in a Webb County stash house by DPS Special Agents and Troopers. There were 21 men and 8 women from Honduras and Mexico in the group of illegal immigrants. It was found that one of the men was a part of the Tango Blast Gang.
