More than a year after a deadly crash near Del Rio that killed eight migrants, federal authorities in Hidalgo County have arrested a man from El Salvador who they accuse of being the driver of the second vehicle involved in a smuggling attempt that preceded the fatal wreck.
McAllen Homeland Security Investigations special agents on Friday arrested Juan Alonso Barrientos-Quintanilla, 20, who they have charged with knowingly conspiring to transport people in the country illegally resulting in the death of one or more people.
The complaint against Barrientos was available in federal court records Monday afternoon, but the record doesn’t indicate how he ended up in Hidalgo County or whether he was living here.
The circumstances of his arrest are not immediately clear.
But the complaint said he was the driver of a Ford F-150 truck that was in the vicinity of the crash on March 15, 2021. Border Patrol spotted it near the scene.
The Associated Press previously reported that 12 people bailed out of that vehicle and all were rounded up. Border Patrol determined Barrientos’ truck was part of a failed smuggling attempt that involved another pickup truck driven by Austin resident Sebastian Tovar. Tovar’s truck veered into oncoming traffic and hit a white Ford F-150 head-on after a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper tried to stop him.
The eight people who died were passengers in Tovar’s truck, according to the criminal complaint.
Border Patrol agents had actually apprehended Barrientos at the scene of the crash.
However, the criminal complaint said he used an alias and claimed to be one of the 12 people who fled from the Ford F-150, which federal agents now accuse him of driving.
As the federal investigation quietly continued into 2022 with a total of nine people, including Tovar, facing indictment and arrest, special agents now believe Barrientos was not a migrant and had been working during the deadly smuggling event with the rest of the alleged co-conspirators.
The complaint against him said that several members of the smuggling organization involved in the case have identified him as the driver of the Ford F-150.
A “communications analysis” also revealed that Barrientos was communicating with other members of the smuggling organization, according to the complaint.
On Friday, special agents said Barrientos admitted to being the driver of the Ford F-150 during an interview and said he was being paid $500 per person in that vehicle, according to the complaint.
He was the tenth suspect charged in the case. Court records indicate he was scheduled to make a first appearance in McAllen federal court Monday morning in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Nadia S. Medrano.
He will likely be extradited to Del Rio to face more charges levied in the indictment.
