A truck driver who federal agents claim was caught with 35 illegal immigrants in his truck is now facing human smuggling charges. U.S. Border Patrol agents working at a checkpoint about 80 miles north of the river arrested Muchiri Rayheed Rhodes this weekend, after they found 35 illegal immigrants hiding in his tractor trailer, court records obtained by Breitbart Texas revealed.
Rhodes had driven to the checkpoint and was sent to a secondary inspection area after a police dog alerted the agents about something suspicious in the trailer. When the truck was reviewed at the inspection area, agents found 35 illegal immigrants from Guatemala and Mexico sitting in the trailer.
Once in custody, Rhodes told the agents that he had travelled from Corpus Christi to the McAllen area, where he met with a woman named Maria, who took his wallet after spending the night with him. Looking for money in order to get back home, Rhodes said he found a man who paid him to drive a trailer with an unknown load, agents with Homeland Security Investigations said in their criminal complaint.
The story given by Rhodes didn’t match with the testimony given by some of the illegal immigrants, who claimed to have seen Rhodes loading people from the side of the road into his trailer, and ordering people around in a warehouse.
Earlier this week, Rhodes went before U.S. District Judge Jason Libby, who ordered him held without bond, and asked for three of the illegal immigrants to be temporarily held as material witnesses in the case.
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