US, Guatemala say they dismantled smuggling ring tied to Texas migrant deaths

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Authorities in the United States and Guatemala said on Thursday they dismantled a human-smuggling network with ties to the deaths of 53 migrants on a sweltering truck in Texas in 2022.

At the request of the U.S. government, Guatemalan law enforcement arrested on Wednesday Rigoberto Ramon Miranda-Orozco, who is charged in the United States with conspiring to smuggle four migrants who wound up on the tractor-trailer, including three who died.

Miranda-Orozco, 47, was charged in federal court in Texas in February, but the indictment was made public on Wednesday, court records show. He has not yet entered a plea.

Guatemala's interior ministry identified Miranda-Orozco, known as "Rigo," as the alleged leader of a smuggling group called "Los Orozcos."

Six others were arrested and will be charged in Guatemala, according to U.S. and Guatemalan authorities.

Agents from Guatemala's anti-narcotics agency and the attorney general's office participated in police raids that spanned the regions of San Marcos, Jalapa and Huehuetenango as part of the investigation, police from that country said in a statement.

Fourteen people have now been charged over the Texas incident, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said. Dozens of migrants from Mexico, Guatemala and Honduras were found in an abandoned tractor-trailer with malfunctioning air-conditioning on a hot June day about 160 miles (250 km) north of the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Over the past two years, the Justice Department has worked methodically to hold accountable those responsible for the horrific tragedy in San Antonio that killed 53 people who had been preyed on by human smugglers," Garland said in a statement.

Miranda-Orozco charged migrants, or their families and friends, about $12,000 to $15,000 to facilitate travel through Mexico and then into the United States, according to U.S. authorities.

The charges were brought as part of a task force launched by the United States in 2021 to combat human smuggling in Mexico and Central America as the Biden administration seeks to address the "root causes" of migration. 

(Reporting by Andrew Goudsward in Washington and Sofia Menchu in Guatemala City.)