Border Patrol agents at the Falfurrias checkpoint found a woman from El Salvador hidden inside an exterior fuel tank of a flatbed truck Thursday.
The discovery resulted in the arrest of Kevin Nava, who was charged with transporting people in the country illegally.
Nava was scheduled to make a first appearance in a Corpus Christi federal court Monday.
He arrived as a passenger in the yellow flatbed work truck, which was driven by his girlfriend. She was not charged with a crime and claimed no knowledge of the smuggling attempt.
During primary inspection, however, she told Border Patrol agents that she and Nava had driven down from Houston on Wednesday to visit her mother in Mission — a story she later changed, according to the complaint.
As the questioning progressed, the agent became suspicious because the pair was in a work truck, not dressed for work and a welder on the truck had no cables.
“The welder also looked inoperable, and he noticed that it was not bolted down to the flatbed and only held down with a strap,” the complaint said.
A Border Patrol K-9 conducting a free-air sniff alerted to the exterior fuel tank and the agent referred the couple to a secondary inspection, according to the complaint.
An agent then noticed a gap between the flatbed and fuel tank and when he peered in with a flashlight, he discovered the woman hiding under the tank.
“Agents who were assisting could not lift the fuel tank because of its immense weight, so a forklift was utilized to lift the tank,” the complaint said.
Authorities also noted in the complaint that the fuel tank was not bolted down or even strapped to the flatbed.
During an interview, Nava’s girlfriend told agents Nava picked her up in Houston the previous night and the two drove to an unknown person’s house in Mission before traveling to a 7-Eleven near the border, according to the complaint.
She said she went into the convenience store to use the bathroom and when she went back, she saw Nava talking to unknown people.
Then they drove north.
She told agents she was driving because Nava did not have a driver’s license and she had no knowledge of the woman in the fuel tank.
Nava also told agents that his girlfriend didn’t know about the woman in the fuel tank. He said he was going to be paid $1,000 for taking her to Houston, according to the complaint.
