Noel Mercado, Alien Smuggling, Texas 2024

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – In a shocking case of human trafficking, a 48-year-old man from Jonesboro, Arkansas, has been sentenced to federal prison for unlawfully transporting four illegal aliens.

Noel Mercado was found guilty on two counts of alien smuggling on March 11 after a less than two-day trial. The jury deliberated for less than 30 minutes before delivering the guilty verdict.

U.S. District Judge David S. Morales ordered Mercado to serve 36 months in federal prison, to be immediately followed by three years of supervised release. The court considered evidence showing that two individuals had been bolted inside a pickup truck’s wheel well.

In handing down the sentence, the court called the offense circumstance egregious and said the smuggled individuals had been ‘treated like trash.’

The incident occurred on the evening of January 5, when Mercado approached the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint in a Ford F-350. Authorities noticed his jaw shaking and a stuttered response to questions, prompting a K-9 alert and a referral to secondary inspection.

An x-ray scan revealed two individuals hidden in bolted wheel well compartments and two more inside the auxiliary fuel tank. All four were illegal aliens from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala, with no authority to be in the United States.

Mercado claimed he had traveled to the Rio Grande Valley to trade baseball cards and other collectibles, but the jury did not believe his claims and found him guilty as charged.

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