(The Center Square) – Texas Department of Public Safety officers working in Gov. Greg Abbott’s border security mission, Operation Lone Star, continue to apprehend human smugglers at the border.
Smugglers are being apprehended multiple ways, by DPS brush teams and by troopers performing traffic stops and vehicle inspections. Nearly all offenders are military aged men who also seek to evade capture, authorities say.
In Brownsville, a DPS brush team arrested a 17-year-old male smuggling guide who DPS said was responsible for leading several foreign nationals across the Rio Grande River from Mexico to illegally enter Texas between ports of entry. DPS troopers and drone operators found him hiding inside a shed at the border.
DPS charged Luis Alberto Torres, from Matamoros, Mexico, with felony human smuggling and he was transported to the Cameron County jail.
“Torres has a history of over 90 apprehensions for drug, human, and exotic monkey smuggling,” DPS said.
In a separate three-day operation, a DPS brush team in the Rio Grande Valley arrested seven human smuggling foot guides, all Mexican nationals. Also in a separate operation, they arrested another Mexican citizen, Gabriel Gutierrez-Perez, after he was seen being picked up by a human smuggler while crossing the Rio Grande River on a jet ski. DPS later discovered that he was wanted in Florida for allegations of sexual assault on a child, child molestation, and sexual battery on a child. He also had a full extradition warrant.