Overview
- On July 1, a Del Rio federal court sentenced 44-year-old Richard Rindeikis to 120 months in prison after he pleaded guilty in February to one count of conspiracy to transport illegal aliens.
- Border Patrol agents at a Carrizo Springs checkpoint discovered 25 migrants from Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico locked inside the closed hatches of a tanker trailer during a November 18 inspection.
- Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Border Patrol led the probe, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Duarte conducted the federal prosecution.
- U.S. Attorney Justin R. Simmons praised Border Patrol’s intervention for preventing a potential tragedy, and ICE HSI Special Agent Craig Larrabee denounced the concealment tactic as inhumane.
- The conviction advances Operation Take Back America’s strategy by engaging OCDETF and Project Safe Neighborhoods to target cartel-affiliated migrant smuggling networks.