Five Mexican nationals are facing charges after a small boat carrying over a dozen people capsized off the coast of San Diego, killing three passengers, including a 14-year-old boy from India, the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of California announced Tuesday.
The boy's parents and two others were hospitalized following the human smuggling event, prosecutors confirmed in a news release. Nine other migrants were missing from the boat and were presumed dead, but authorities later located eight of them in Chula Vista, nearly 30 miles away from Del Mar, where the boat was found. A 10-year-old Indian girl, the boy's sister, remains missing, prosecutors said.
"The drowning deaths of these children are a heartbreaking reminder of how little human traffickers care about the costs of their deadly business," U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said in a statement.
The Consulate General of Mexico in San Diego on Tuesday confirmed that two of the deceased and two of the people hospitalized are Mexican nationals.
Two of the five alleged traffickers, Jesus Ivan Rodriguez-Leyva and Julio Cesar Zuniga-Luna, were arrested on Monday at the beach where the overturned boat washed ashore, according to prosecutors. They were charged with Bringing in Aliens Resulting in Death and Bringing in Aliens for Financial Gain, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
Prosecutors said the other three suspects — Melissa Jennelle Cota, Gustavo Lara and Sergio Rojas-Fregoso — were arrested late Monday night after Border Patrol agents in Chula Vista identified a vehicle seen at a beach in Del Mar and investigated. While the driver of said vehicle fled, officers located two other vehicles involved and found the missing migrants, according to prosecutors.
Cota, Lara and Rojas-Fregoso were charged with Transportation of Illegal Aliens. Prosecutors said Rojas-Fregoso had been previously deported on Dec. 19, 2023.
It wasn't immediately clear if the suspects had attorneys who could speak on their behalf.
It was unclear where the boat was coming from before it flipped about 35 miles north of the Mexico border, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer Chris Sappey told The Associated Press. He said similar vessels were commonly used by smugglers.
In 2023, eight people were killed when two boats capsized off the San Diego coast.
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Kiki Intarasuwan