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WASHINGTON: A federal grand jury indicted 11 people on Friday for allegedly orchestrating a migrant smuggling operation to the United States that ended in the deaths of seven people travelling in a freight car, the Justice Department announced.
From April 2023 through May of this year, the defendants allegedly smuggled undocumented migrants into the US aboard freight trains, charging between $1,500 and $10,000 per crossing, the agency said in a statement.
In the early hours of May 9, the smugglers allegedly loaded at least seven migrants into a Union Pacific freight railcar in Del Rio, Texas, on the US-Mexico border.
The railcar had no ventilation, while outside temperatures topped 31 degrees Celsius.
