DEL RIO, Texas — Two men have been sentenced to more than 29 years in federal prison for their roles in a smuggling operation that led to the deaths of two illegal aliens, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Texas.
Jerry Lee Anderson, a 29-year-old from Spring, and Orlin Wilfredo Padilla-Murillo, a 25-year-old illegal alien from Honduras, were sentenced this week following a multi-agency investigation into a failed smuggling event in October 2022. The incident resulted in a single-vehicle crash that killed the load driver and two illegal aliens, and seriously injured two others, all confirmed to be from Mexico, according to court documents.
The investigation, led by ICE Homeland Security Investigations agents out of Del Rio, identified Anderson and Padilla-Murillo as co-conspirators. Their phone numbers were found on the phones of several co-conspirators involved in failed smuggling events. In one such event, the Galveston County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Border Patrol stopped a pickup truck on August 20, 2022, that was concealing 11 illegal aliens. Another incident on August 25, 2022, involved the discovery of 10 illegal aliens inside a recreational vehicle near Brackettville…