Accused smugglers linked to 12 people in hot truck under investigation by Homeland Security

Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Accused smugglers linked to 12 people in hot truck under investigation by Homeland Security 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

Three suspects accused of leaving 12 people in a sweltering hot truck in Houston were already under investigation by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and may be part of a much larger human smuggling conspiracy, a prosecutor told a Houston judge Tuesday.

The judge doubled the bail for two women charged with human trafficking to $600,000 each after prosecutors said they were a flight risk.

Prosecutor JoAnne Musick said in court that Priscila Perez Beltran, 21, and Adela Alvarez, 26, have been under scrutiny by federal authorities since a recent bust in Corpus Christi.

"They've both been on Homeland Security's radar for some time," Musick said in court.

She said investigators fear both women, who are from El Salvador, may flee the country or go back to human trafficking if released from jail.

State District Judge George Powell agreed and doubled the $100,000 for each of the women's three cases. If the two made bail, they would still remain behind bars on detainers issued by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Senior prosecutor Ruben Perez said the move to raise the bail done in an abundance of caution as prosecutors continue to investigate how many people could be involved.

The two women, and Nelson Cortes Garcia, 27, were arrested after a Houston police officer on patrol Sunday found 12 people banging to get out of a locked sweltering truck in a west Houston parking lot.

Beltran told authorities she had helped the other two suspects sneak people into the United States in the past, a prosecutor said Monday at Cortes Garcia's court hearing.

Cortes Garcia remains in the Harris County Jail on $300,000 bail and an ICE detainer.

Prosecutors said they would also ask that his bail be doubled next time he appears in court.

At a magistrate hearing late Monday, prosecutors said Beltran was the muscle behind the operation, saying she kept Cortes Garcia and Alvarez from being ripped off by those they smuggled.

Alvarez admitted to bringing her aunt and uncle into the United States states without documentation on a separate trip, the prosecutor said.

Officers with the Houston Police Department found a ledger that had names and dollar amounts, which Alvarez said were names of people and the fees they paid to be taken into the United States, the prosecutor said.

Neither Beltran, Cortes Garcia, nor Alvarez are U.S. citizens, according to court documents.

Prosecutors said they believe all three are from El Salvador. Alvarez is believed to have a work permit, known as a green card, and Beltran is believed to be an unlawful permanent resident, prosecutors said Tuesday.

The 12 people they are believed to have smuggled into the country did not appear to be citizens and likely entered the country without legal documentation, said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore. They were from countries including El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico.

Beltran, Cortes Garcia and Alvarez were each charged Sunday with two counts of human smuggling likely to cause injury or death and one count of human smuggling involving a minor.

Their charges were elevated from a third-degree to a second-degree charge because one of the people they are believed to have smuggled was a minor and because all 12 of their victims were placed in serious harm, said Musick, an assistant district attorney for sex crimes and human trafficking.

Houston police officers arrested the trio Sunday afternoon at a strip mall at 7636 Harwin, off the Westpark Tollway.

After canvassing a strip mall's parking lot, the patrol officer heard the dozen trapped people - 10 men, one woman and a 16-year-old girl - banging on the walls of an unventilated truck trying to attract attention. The temperature inside of the truck reached 100 degrees, investigators said Monday.

The officer remove the lock to free the people who had been trapped inside for about 12 hours with no food and a dwindling water supply.