A Laredo man will spend more than five years behind bars after pleading guilty to smuggling over 100 illegal aliens, 13 of them children, as part of a dangerous trafficking operation that could have ended in tragedy.
Juan Manuel Aguirre, 49, was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison, followed by three years of supervised release, after Judge Keith Ellison reviewed his history of repeated human smuggling offenses and the risks posed to those he packed inside the trailer, according to a July 22, 2025, press release.
On December 2, 2024, federal authorities saw individuals being loaded into a white trailer from a Laredo warehouse. When officers pulled the truck over, which Aguirre was driving, they found 101 people inside: men, women, and children as young as 13, crammed into a locked trailer with no ventilation. Many reported difficulty breathing and said they feared for their lives. Allegedly, the doors even had to be pried open with a bolt cutter.
The illegal aliens, who came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and Cuba, were being transported in what prosecutors described as a “sealed, locked, dark, and unventilated trailer” conditions that could have quickly turned fatal.
“Human smuggling is an incredibly dangerous enterprise, and it requires the trafficker to care absolutely nothing about the lives and safety of those they transport,” said U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei in a recent statement. “Fortunately, there were no deaths in this case, but the underlying facts indicate that several of those transported had difficulty breathing and feared for their life. The Southern District of Texas will make sure that all human smugglers pay a serious price for their callousness.”
Aguirre pleaded guilty to the smuggling conspiracy earlier this year on February 6, and will remain in custody until he is ultimately transferred to a federal Prison facility.
However, a very similar case recently resulted in the deaths of dozens of people.
Two men involved in a horrific illegal alien smuggling operation that left 53 people dead in a sweltering tractor-trailer were sentenced in a separate case last month, as previously reported by DX.
Felipe Orduna-Torres, 30, described as the ringleader, received a life sentence, while his co-conspirator, 55-year-old Armando Gonzales-Ortega, was sentenced to 83 years. Both men were also fined $250,000.
The tragedy unfolded on June 27, 2022, when smugglers abandoned a trailer in San Antonio packed with 64 illegal aliens, including eight children and a pregnant woman. The trailer’s cooling system wasn’t working, and by the time it was opened, 48 people had already died. Sixteen were rushed to hospitals, but five more died shortly after.