A 48-year-old man from Jonesboro, Arkansas, has been sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for illegally transporting four illegal aliens, according to U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei.
Noel Mercado was found guilty of two counts of alien smuggling after a jury deliberated for less than 30 minutes.
U.S. District Judge David S. Morales also ordered Mercado to serve three years on supervised release after his prison sentence. During the hearing, the judge emphasized the heinous nature of the conduct, saying that two people were chained inside a pickup truck’s wheel well and “treated like trash.”
On the evening of January 5, Mercado approached the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint in a Ford F-350 and nearly passed it. Authorities saw his jaw twitching and stuttering responses to interrogation. A K-9 unit alerted to the car, prompting a secondary investigation. An x-ray scan discovered two people hiding in bolted wheel well compartments and two more in the auxiliary gasoline tank. All four were illegal aliens from Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala who had no right to be in the United States.
At trial, Mercado said that he went to the Rio Grande Valley to trade baseball cards and other collectibles and that he was unaware of the hidden individuals. The jury, however, rejected his assertions and convicted him as guilty as charged.
“As we continue our successful campaign to secure the border, human smugglers are going to get increasingly desperate,” said Ganjei. “No matter how creative they think they are in their methods, our law enforcement partners are always one step ahead.”
According to the news statement, Mercado will stay in detention pending his transfer to a Federal Bureau of Prisons facility. Customs and Border Protection conducted the investigation, while Assistant United States Attorneys John Lamont and Ashley Pruitt prosecuted the case.
This case is part of Operation Take Back America, the Department of Justice’s broad program to target illegal immigration and transnational criminal organizations.