Leader of Deadly San Antonio Tractor-Trailer Smuggling Ring Sentenced to Life in Prison
On June 27, 2025, in a federal court in San Antonio, a city in Bexar County, Texas, U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia sentenced Felipe Orduna-Torres, a leader of a human smuggling organization, to life in prison and a $250,000 fine, and his top coordinator, Armando Gonzales-Ortega, to 1,050 months in prison and a $250,000 fine. The sentencing fell exactly three years after the smuggling run in which 53 migrants died inside a sweltering tractor-trailer.
The Justice Department said the organization illegally brought adults and children from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico into the United States between December 2021 and June 2022. Orduna-Torres, 30, was a leader and organizer, and Gonzales-Ortega, 55, was a coordinator. The two shared routes, guides, stash houses, trucks and trailers to consolidate costs and maximize profit. In March, a federal jury found both men guilty of three counts related to transporting aliens within the United States resulting in death, causing serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy.
At least 64 people, including eight children and one pregnant woman, were loaded into the trailer for the June 27, 2022 run. Trial evidence showed that some defendants, including Orduna-Torres, knew the trailer's refrigeration unit was malfunctioning and was not blowing cool air to the migrants inside. When the tractor-trailer completed its roughly three-hour journey to San Antonio and the doors were opened, 48 migrants were already dead or died on site, including the pregnant woman. Sixteen people were taken to hospitals, five of whom died. The dead totaled 53: 47 adults and six children.
The court also ordered Orduna-Torres to pay a $96,000 money judgment and forfeit one 2008 Volvo semi-tractor, one 1995 Phoenix trailer, one 2015 Cadillac Escalade, one 2017 Ford F-350 Super Duty truck and $59,445.50. Five other defendants in the case have pleaded guilty and are scheduled to be sentenced in November and December.
"These criminals will spend the rest of their lives in prison because of their cruel choice to profit off of human suffering," said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. Craig Larrabee, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in San Antonio, called it the deadliest human smuggling operation in U.S. history and said human smuggling is not a service but a deadly criminal enterprise.
(Source: U.S. Department of Justice)
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于圣安东尼奥的美国联邦法院 John H. Wood Jr. 大楼。Toohool 摄，CC BY-SA 4.0，经 Wikimedia Commons。 / Photo: The John H. Wood Jr. United States Courthouse in San Antonio. Photo by Toohool, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
