A federal indictment ties a Guatemalan national and several alleged smugglers to the 2021 tractor-trailer wreck that killed more than 50 people, injured over 100 and exposed the deadly toll of cartel-driven human smuggling. This article lays out the arrests, the charges, the international investigation and the broader law enforcement effort known as Joint Task Force Alpha and Operation Take Back America. The facts show a coordinated criminal enterprise accused of recruiting migrants, coordinating transport and putting lives at risk. The case highlights the justice system responding to a border crisis that has claimed dozens of lives.
Authorities arrested 41-year-old Daniel Zavala Ramos, also known as Dany ZR, in Boquerón, Guatemala on August 7 and surrendered him to U.S. custody on October 21. He is scheduled to appear before U.S. Magistrate Judge Diana Song Quiroga in Laredo as federal prosecutors move forward with charges tied to the December 9, 2021 crash. That tractor-trailer was packed with at least 160 people, many of them Guatemalan, and included unaccompanied children among the dead and injured.
The indictment names five other defendants who were arrested in coordinated actions on December 9, 2024 in Guatemala and the United States. Those arrests involved Tomas Quino Canil, Oswaldo Manuel Zavala Quino, Josefa Quino Canil De Zavala and Alberto Marcario Chitic, all taken into custody in Guatemala, and Jorge Agapito Ventura, arrested in Cleveland, Texas. All six are now in federal custody pending further proceedings on serious charges stemming from the crash.
Federal prosecutors accuse the defendants of conspiring to bring illegal aliens into the United States, actions that allegedly placed lives in jeopardy and caused serious bodily injury and death. Court papers describe a smuggling network active from October 2021 through February 2023 that recruited migrants, collected payments and moved people by foot, microbuses, cattle trucks and tractor-trailers. The indictment alleges the scheme included tactics such as providing migrants with scripts to use if detained, and that unaccompanied minors were at times part of the operation.
If convicted, the defendants face the maximum federal penalties, including life in prison and potential fines up to $250,000. Those penalties reflect the gravity of the allegations: more than 50 people dead, over 100 wounded, and dozens of families left grieving. Prosecutors are treating this as a major transnational smuggling case with criminal consequences that match the human cost of the crash.
The investigation was a multinational effort led by Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations and its Counter Proliferation Investigations Group in Washington. HSI offices in Guatemala and Mexico, HSI’s Human Smuggling Unit, and HSI teams in Houston and Laredo all played substantial roles, alongside Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center and Border Patrol units. Local law enforcement and federal partners, including enforcement and removal teams and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas, also contributed to the work that produced the indictment and extraditions.
The Department of Justice’s Office of International Affairs helped secure arrests and extraditions, with Guatemalan and Mexican prosecutors providing critical support. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Jennifer Day and Mary Lou Castillo are leading the prosecution with Senior Trial Attorney Danielle Hickman from the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section. The case shows how international cooperation and targeted criminal prosecutions can dismantle smuggling networks that operate across borders.
This prosecution is part of Joint Task Force Alpha, a partnership elevated to focus on cartels and transnational criminal organizations that drive human smuggling across Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama and Colombia. JTFA combines resources from U.S. Attorneys’ Offices along the southwest border, Justice Department components and major federal law enforcement agencies to go after organizers, leaders and facilitators of smuggling operations. The task force reports tangible results: hundreds of arrests and convictions and significant jail sentences and asset forfeitures tied to alien smuggling cases.
Officials say JTFA has secured more than 420 domestic and international arrests, resulted in over 370 U.S. convictions and produced more than 315 significant jail sentences, along with forfeitures of substantial assets. This case is also folded into Operation Take Back America, which the Justice Department describes as a nationwide initiative marshaling DOJ resources to repel illegal immigration, eliminate cartel networks and protect public safety. Prosecutors and investigators frame these efforts as necessary to disrupt the criminal businesses that profit from smuggling people across the border.
Editor’s Note: The Schumer Shutdown is here. Rather than put the American people first, Chuck Schumer and the radical Democrats forced a government shutdown for healthcare for illegals. They own this.
