Five Mexican nationals have been arrested for alleged human smuggling activities in San Diego that resulted in the deaths of at least three illegal immigrants, including a 14-year-old boy from India, whose 10-year-old sister is missing at sea and presumed dead.
The dramatic ordeal began after a panga boat, or small open-air fishing boat, carrying the illegal immigrants overturned at sea off the San Diego coastline on the morning of May 5.
Initially, nine people were thought to be missing, but search efforts by the U.S. Coast Guard led to their rescue, including the parents of the deceased boy and missing girl.
“The drowning deaths of these children are a heartbreaking reminder of how little human traffickers care about the costs of their deadly business,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said.
After being arrested on May 5 at the beach, Julio Cesar Zuniga Luna and Jesus Juan Rodriguez Leyva were charged on Tuesday, May 6, with bringing in aliens resulting in death and bringing in aliens for financial gain.
In the United States, human smuggling that results in death is a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death or life in prison.
Melissa Jenelle Cota, Gustavo Lara, and Sergio Rojas-Fregosa, who were in vehicles observed at the scene of the maritime smuggling incident, were arrested and charged with transportation of illegal aliens. Rojas-Fregoso was previously deported from the United States back to Mexico on Dec. 19, 2023.
“We are committed to seeking justice for these vulnerable victims, and to holding accountable any traffickers responsible for their deaths,” Gordon said.
Court records show that law enforcement officials recovered three bodies of the deceased after bystanders and San Diego lifeguards engaged in rescue efforts around an overturned panga boat at Del Mar beach on May 5.
Among the deceased were two men from Mexico, one of them an 18-year-old, according to the Mexican consulate. The younger man’s 16-year-old girlfriend, whose lungs had filled with water, survived and has been hospitalized.
Pangas are known to depart from the Mexican coast in the middle of the night to accommodate migrants who are willing to engage in the illegal, risky pathways that smugglers offer, which can involve traveling by sea since the land borders, such as the border with California, are currently heavily guarded.
“Human smuggling, regardless of the route, is not only illegal but extremely dangerous,” Shawn Gibson, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, said. “Smugglers often treat people as disposable commodities, leading to tragic and sometimes deadly consequences, as we saw in this case.”
The defendants had not contacted Mexican authorities for legal help by press time, according to the Mexican consulate.
