SAN DIEGO –
Forty-nine people being smuggled into the United States were found yesterday packed inside the metal tank of a water truck that a Border Patrol agent noticed near the notorious Smuggler's Gulch.
The truck was coming out of a construction area, its driver apparently trying to blend in, when the agent saw that it didn't have a license plate, said Border Patrol Agent Jason Rodgers.
Rodgers said the agent followed the truck from Monument Road and Hollister Road in an under-the-speed-limit pursuit that ended nearby with the arrest of the driver and a passenger and the discovery of the people crammed inside.
“For someone to actually stuff 49 people inside a tanker like this, even though these criminals are breaking the law anyway, shows a complete disregard for human life,” Rodgers said.
He said most of the 49 people agents found inside the truck's cylindrical water tank were in the first stage of dehydration. Three of the women were pregnant – one eight months, and the others three and five months.
Another woman inside the tank had a dislocated ankle, Rodgers said.
“Who knows where this tanker was headed,” Rodgers said, adding that the alert agent might have saved lives.
He said all received medical evaluations and treatment. The next step is to try to determine what country each person came from, then deport them.
Rodgers said that aside from its hatch on the top, the truck had a second hatch cut into the underside of the tank.
The agent noticed the 1983 Mack truck on the dirt road that leads from Smuggler's Gulch and onto Monument Road near Hollister Street, south of Imperial Beach, about 9:30 a.m., Rodgers said.
Smuggler's Gulch has long been known for cross-border smuggling of people and drugs, Rodgers said.
The agent tried to pull the truck over, but its driver continued east on Monument Road to Dairy Mart Road, and then onto northbound Interstate 5.
Rodgers said the driver left I-5 at L Street, and the truck apparently broke down a block east of the freeway near Industrial Street. The driver and passenger tried to run before Border Patrol agents captured them.
It isn't unusual to have smugglers use something like a construction project to mask their activities, Rodgers said.
“They act like construction workers when construction is going on. They act like bicyclists (amid other off-road bicyclists). They try to blend in, so agents have to be extra observant of this.”
Breaking News Team: (619) 293-1010; breaking@uniontrib.com
