Trucker claims he didn’t know 18 immigrants were in his cab

By Editor | August 21, 2024

Frio SO begins investigation

Law enforcement investigators have begun examining a case in which a truck driver may have been contracted to drive a vehicle used in smuggling undocumented immigrants.
Frio County sheriff’s deputies have confirmed that 18 adult and child passengers had been packed into the sleeper cab of a freighter that was subject to a traffic stop on Monday, August 12.
Officers encountered the vehicle traveling north on the interstate shortly before 8 p.m. and learned that the 18-wheeler had been reported by the Laredo Police Department as a stolen vehicle. The driver, identified as San Antonio resident Alfonso Araujo, 33, was arrested at the scene.
It was during the initial roadside interview with the driver, however, that deputies heard what they are describing as a strange tale involving the freighter and its cargo of undocumented immigrants.
According to the officers’ report, Araujo said he had taken the driving job after seeing a social media post calling for anyone willing to pick up a freight truck near San Antonio.
Araujo said he had agreed to do the job and that he had been collected by a man known only to him as “Chris,” and taken to a truck stop where the freighter had been parked.
The man also claimed that he was in the driver seat of the tractor-trailer rig when he reached for his medicine bag and saw shoes protruding from the sleeper area of the cab. It was then, he claimed, that he became aware there were passengers in the vehicle.
The sheriff’s office has confirmed that the 18 undocumented immigrants who had been crammed into the confined quarters of the rig included three teenagers.
The suspect faces a state jail felony charge for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle and 18 third-degree felony counts of smuggling of persons. Charges for smuggling persons under the age of 18 may be enhanced to second-degree felonies. Furthermore, prosecutors are able to charge smuggling offenses as second-degree felonies if they have evidence showing that the operation was undertaken for financial gain.
Local officers have voiced skepticism over Araujo’s claim that he was unaware of the freighter’s human cargo, given the circumstances of his apparent contract to drive the truck and that he was sharing a two-seater extended cab with 18 people.
“These types of operations have become far too common,” Chief Deputy Peter Salinas said last week. “We are being assisted by Department of Homeland Security investigators in hopes that recovered evidence may lead to more people involved and hold them accountable. We will continue to fight to keep our county borders free of these criminals and the crimes that often follow with them.”