A Mississippi man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of attempting to smuggle migrants inside a fake Lowe's truck.
Cezanne Megel Patterson was arrested last year outside Del Rio, in southern Texas, while driving what appeared to be a Lowe's Home Improvement Store delivery truck.
Troopers said that, after inspecting the truck, they found 17 migrants inside a false compartment without ventilation. Patterson was then charged with smuggling of persons with the likelihood of serious bodily injury or death, Border Report recalled.
"Patterson's case is the perfect example of the dangerous lengths smugglers will go to when risking human lives for profit," said DPS South Texas Region Chief Arturo Dela Garza.
A similar episode made headlines in late June, when a truck driver was caught driving over a dozen migrants in New Mexico. Back then, agents found a migrant hiding in the cabin and 12 more in a compartment under the flatbed trailer.
In mid June, nine other people accused of being part of a smuggling ring pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges. They also admitted to harboring people and transporting them further into the United States.
The people in question operated between at least October 2021 and April 2023, according to Border Report. They took people who crossed the border unlawfully and picked them up in Luna County, New Mexico. Then they took them to stash houses and transported them further into the country, including to Virginia and California.
There have been several such sentences in the past weeks. Just days before, a woman who led a failed human smuggling attempt that ended up with a dead migrant pleaded guilty to federal charges, getting 10 years in prison.
In late May, two Texans pleaded guilty to charging thousands of dollars to smuggle migrants into the U.S. through Laredo. The men in question, Mac Quese Howard and De Richardson Miller, admitted to conspiring to transport migrants through Laredo, in South Texas, U.S. Attorney Nicholas Ganjei said. Earlier in May, a dozen migrants were found hidden inside hollow hay bales following a traffic stop in the state.
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