A little more than a month after a concerned citizen told Border Patrol that they suspected a ranch house in Edinburg was being used as a stash house, two men are under arrest after agents discovered 27 people in the country illegally on the property.
That tip came into the agency on Dec. 1 and resulted in the Monday arrests of Mexican citizens Francisco Javier Ramirez-Ramirez, who was born in 1986, and Fredi Guadalupe Cazarez-Medina, who are charged with transporting and harboring people in the country illegally.
The men were arrested after Border Patrol agents who were conducting surveillance on the ranch house followed them and watched them leave the location in a white Chevrolet Traverse and travel to a restaurant, according to a criminal complaint.
Border Patrol then requested assistance from the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office and deputies, along with agents, followed the vehicle to a business parking lot in Edinburg where they approached the men, who both admitted to being in the country illegally, federal authorities say.
Investigators asked Ramirez about his involvement in smuggling and he told agents he picked up one person and said five others were staying at the property, according to the complaint.
Casarez, who was asked the same, told agents he had accompanied Ramirez to pick a person up and said there were 15 to 20 people at the ranch house, according to Border Patrol.
The agents gained consent to search the property and the suspects provided a gate code.
“As agents and deputies approached the house, several individuals were seen running away from the property and into the brush,” the complaint stated.
Border patrol caught three of nine people who ran from the house and discovered an additional 24 people inside the residence, according to the complaint.
Both men are being temporarily held without bond pending detention and probable cause hearings scheduled for next week, court records indicate.
