Officials announced that four Guatemalan nationals plead guilty to their involvement in a deadly Guatemala-based human smuggling conspiracy.
Juan Gutierrez Castro, aka Andres, 46, pleaded guilty Wednesday, joining co-conspirators Felipe Diego Alonzo, aka Siete, 39; Nesly Norberto Martinez Gomez, aka Canche, 38; and Lopez Mateo Mateo, aka Bud Light, 43, who all pleaded guilty in July.
According to court documents, the defendants admitted to conspiring with other smugglers to facilitate the travel of large numbers of migrants from Guatemala through Mexico and, ultimately, into the United States.
They charged the migrants and their families approximately $10,000 to $12,000 for the perilous journey.
According to authorities, one of the journeys resulted in the death of a young indigenous Guatemalan woman, who died in Texas in May 2021.
The woman’s family had paid the defendants approximately $10,000 for the journey to the United States. The defendants and their co-conspirators guided her for several days on foot through the desert to Odessa, Texas, where she ultimately died.
The defendants and their co-conspirators dumped her body on the side of a road in Crane County, Texas. The defendants and their co-conspirators then arranged to pay the victim’s family in Guatemala.
Each defendant pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to bring an alien to the United States, resulting in death. They are facing up to life in prison.
As announced last year, extensive coordination between U.S. and Guatemalan law enforcement authorities led to the indictment and arrest of these four defendants and the apprehension of 15 additional co-conspirators in Guatemala.
In March 2023, Guatemalan authorities extradited Diego Alonzo, Martinez Gomez, Mateo Mateo, and Gutierrez Castro to the United States – the first-ever extraditions from Guatemala to the United States on charges of human smuggling resulting in death and the first Guatemalan human smuggling extraditions to the United States in nearly five years.
The indictments, extraditions, and convictions of Diego Alonzo, Martinez Gomez, Mateo Mateo, and Gutierrez Castro, as well as the assistance provided by U.S. authorities to Guatemalan law enforcement, were coordinated under Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA).
JTFA Co-Director James Hepburn of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section (HRSP), Assistant U.S. Attorney Jose Luis Acosta for the Western District of Texas, and Assistant U.S. Attorney John Fedock for the Western District of Texas are prosecuting the case.