Smuggling Deaths in Trunk: Recruiter Faces Life Behind Bars

San Diego, CA – Eduard Ervemac Saavedra, a 44-year-old Peruvian national, has pleaded guilty to charges related to the deaths of two unauthorized immigrants who perished in the trunk of a car at the San Ysidro Port of Entry in August 2014.

According to court documents, Saavedra enticed Nicholas George Zakov, 43, to smuggle undocumented aliens into the United States with the promise of $3,500 cash. After recruiting Zakov, Saavedra arranged for two Mexican citizens, Tarcisio Casas-Blanco and Jose Aurelio Quiroz-Casas, to be hidden in the trunk of Zakov’s Dodge Challenger in Tijuana, Mexico.

On August 12, 2014, Saavedra directed Zakov to enter the United States through the San Ysidro Port of Entry with Casas-Blanco and Quiroz-Casas remaining in the trunk, exposing them to rising temperatures with little ventilation. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers later discovered Casas-Blanco and Quiroz-Casas unresponsive inside the Challenger’s trunk. Medical attention was immediately sought for the two, but they died a short while later of hyperthermia and mechanical asphyxiation.

Zakov, a U.S. citizen, previously pleaded guilty to alien smuggling charges for his role in the deaths of Casas-Blanco and Quiroz-Casas and was sentenced to 84 months in prison by U.S. District Judge Anthony J. Battaglia.

The investigation and arrest of Saavedra was the result of the collaboration of Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, San Diego Police Department, and the Baja California State Preventive Police Department.

Saavedra pleaded guilty to two counts of encouraging and inducing illegal aliens resulting in death and two counts of bringing illegal aliens into the United States for financial gain. He faces up to life imprisonment, a mandatory minimum sentence of three years in prison, and a $250,000 fine. Saavedra is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Battaglia on July 25, 2016 at 11 a.m.

MORE FEDERAL CRIME NEWS

Human Trafficking

Tenants' Plight Ignites Parisian Ballroom

Jun 9, 1913

Human Trafficking

Glenview Dairy, LLC, Attempting to Harbor Illegal Aliens, New York 2022

May 7, 2015

Human Trafficking

Clifford Valisto, Transportation of Illegal Aliens for Profit, Arizona 2023

Dec 21, 2023

Human Trafficking

Nileshkumar Patel, Smuggling Foreign Nationals, New Jersey 2014

Mar 21, 2017