A 57-year-old San Antonio man is behind bars in Webb County after a trailer stolen from a Laredo tire shop turned up on Interstate 35 during a stop that also uncovered eight migrants hidden in the vehicle he was driving. James David Bursott was booked into the Webb County Jail on July 17 on a property theft charge, with his bond set at $10,000, according to jail records.
The trailer at the center of the case, a white 2022 Great Dane box trailer belonging to Rapido Transfer, had been dropped off for repairs at a business in the 1100 block of Beltway Parkway days before it vanished, according to Laredo Morning Times. Surveillance footage showed a white tractor arriving at around 11 p.m. on December 28, 2025, and driving off with the trailer attached, the paper reported. A Rapido Transfer employee reported the theft three days later.
The trailer resurfaced on January 5, when a U.S. Border Patrol agent encountered a white Volvo tractor pulling it near mile marker 32 on I-35, according to the same report. Bursott was identified as the tractor’s driver and was detained along with eight migrants found during what Laredo police describe as a human smuggling attempt. The Texas Department of Public Safety notified an investigator that day that the trailer had been recovered and later provided contact information for the Border Patrol agent involved.
Layers of Fake and Stolen Plates
The rig was dressed up to avoid easy identification. The Volvo tractor displayed both Mexican and Texas license plates, with the Texas tag appearing damaged or tampered with. The trailer itself carried Maine plates that, per Webb County investigators, returned as stolen — a detail that El TEJANO notes illustrates how smugglers layer stolen and mismatched tags across multiple states to disguise commercial equipment moving through the border corridor…