Guatemalan Human Trafficker Gets 30 Years for Role in 2022 Deadly Migrant-Smuggling Conspiracy

A federal judge in Texas sentenced a human trafficker from Guatemala to 30 years in prison for his role in setting up a deadly 2022 human smuggling attempt that killed 53 migrants who were stuffed in a hot trailer in South Texas. Law enforcement officials arranged his extradition to the United States so he could face the charges.

This week, 39-year-old Ramon Miranda Orozco went before a U.S. federal judge who sentenced him to 30 years in prison on human smuggling conspiracy charges resulting in deaths. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Miranda pleaded guilty on July 2 and had been in U.S. federal custody since his extradition from Guatemala in March.

Breitbart Texas reported on the incident, which took place in June 2022, when a group of cartel-connected human smugglers stuffed dozens of migrants into a trailer and had it driven from Laredo to San Antonio. Due to South Texas’ extreme weather during the summer, the temperatures inside the trailer quickly climbed, and the migrants began to suffocate. Photographs released by federal prosecutors revealed scratch marks on the truck’s wall made by the migrants as they tried to get some air inside the hot truck.

As part of the investigation into the organization behind the deadly smuggling case, authorities were able to track down Miranda, who had made the travel arrangements from Guatemala to the United States for several migrants in that truck, including two who died. Court documents revealed that Miranda admitted to having made the travel arrangements for some of the victims who died in the case.

The practice of stuffing migrants inside trailers was rather common during the Biden era, when human smuggling organizations were taking advantage of the overwhelmed U.S. border security system that had a large number of its agents processing asylum cases instead of stopping drug and human trafficking organizations.

This led to certain criminal organizations, like the Gulf Cartel and the Cartel Del Noreste faction of Los Zetas, to focus more on human smuggling and asylum cases rather than drugs due to the high profits and minimal risks involved.

 Ildefonso Ortiz is an award-winning journalist with Breitbart News Foundation. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Brandon Darby and senior Breitbart management. You can follow him on Twitter and on Facebook. He can be contacted at Iortiz@breitbart.com. 

Brandon Darby is the managing director and editor-in-chief of Breitbart Texas. He co-founded Breitbart News Foundation’s Cartel Chronicles project with Ildefonso Ortiz and senior Breitbart management. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can be contacted at bdarby@breitbart.com.