Federal Grand Jury Indicts 11 in Del Rio Migrant-Smuggling Case Linked to Deaths of Seven, Including 14-Year-Old

A federal grand jury in Del Rio, Texas, has indicted 11 people in a migrant-smuggling case that prosecutors say led to the deaths of seven migrants, including a 14-year-old, after they were loaded into a sealed shipping container on a freight train in May.

The charges, announced Friday by the Justice Department, stem from a Homeland Security Task Force investigation into what prosecutors allege was a smuggling operation that used cargo trains to move migrants deeper into the United States. The Justice Department said two defendants remained at large Friday: Karina Garcia, 37, of Del Rio, and Seferino Huerta-Casillas, 35, of Mexico.

According to the indictment, the alleged smuggling organization operated from at least April 2023 through May 12, 2026. Prosecutors say that around the end of April, the group began arranging to move at least seven people from Acuña, Mexico, into Del Rio, Texas.

On or about May 9, prosecutors allege, smugglers placed the seven migrants inside a locked, unventilated Conex shipping container on a stationary Union Pacific freight train in Del Rio and sent the train east toward San Antonio. The indictment says the container had no ventilation or cooling, could not be opened from the inside, and was exposed to outside temperatures of about 88 to 92 degrees that day.

When the train reached the San Antonio area, the indictment alleges, smugglers opened the container, found the migrants in distress and fled, leaving one deceased person near the tracks. The train later continued to Laredo, where a Union Pacific worker found six bodies inside the container at a railyard on May 10, according to prosecutors. Early reports focused on those six bodies in Laredo, but investigators later tied the San Antonio-area death to the same smuggling trip, bringing the total alleged death toll to seven.

The dead were identified in the indictment and local reporting as four Mexican nationals and three Honduran nationals. One of the victims was 14 years old. Local medical-examiner reporting said completed autopsies found hyperthermia, or heat stroke, and Webb County Medical Examiner Dr. Corinne Stern said it was highly probable that hyperthermia caused the deaths of the entire group.

One trapped migrant told a relative that “it was getting very, very hot, and that they were having some physical trouble as a result of it,” a message Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar later relayed publicly, according to ABC News.

All 11 defendants are charged with conspiracy to transport migrants resulting in death and with aiding and abetting transport resulting in death under 8 U.S.C. § 1324. The Justice Department said each defendant faces a possible sentence of up to life in prison if convicted.

The department said Mayra Alejandra Huerta, 32, of Del Rio, was arrested May 12 and remained in federal custody. It also said eight other defendants were arrested in a multi-day operation across Central and South Texas before the indictment was announced.

Prosecutors further allege that migrants or their relatives paid the smugglers about $1,500 to $10,000 per person.

Federal authorities say the case reflects a method smugglers have used to bypass interior checkpoints: moving migrants farther inland on freight trains and in sealed containers, a tactic that carries severe heat and suffocation risks in South Texas warm weather. The allegations remain unproven, and the indictment is a formal accusation, not a conviction.