A Mississippi man has been sentenced to ten years in jail after being convicted of attempting to smuggle migrants inside a fake Lowe’s truck.
Cezanne Megel Patterson was detained last year near Del Rio in southern Texas while driving what appeared to be a Lowe’s Home Improvement Store delivery truck.
Troopers reported that after checking the truck, they discovered 17 migrants inside a false compartment with no ventilation. Patterson was then charged with smuggling people who were likely to cause significant bodily injury or death, according to Border Report.
“Patterson’s case is the perfect example of the dangerous lengths smugglers will go to when risking human lives for profit,” said DPS South Texas Region Chief Arturo Dela Garza.
A similar incident grabbed headlines in late June, when a truck driver was arrested carrying more than a dozen migrants through New Mexico. Agents discovered a migrant sheltering in the cabin, as well as 12 others in a compartment beneath the flatbed trailer.
In mid-June, nine other people accused of participating in a smuggling operation pleaded guilty to conspiracy counts. They also admitted to hiding individuals and conveying them into the United States.
According to Border Report, the individuals in question operated from at least October 2021 to April 2023. They apprehended illegal border crossers in Luna County, New Mexico. Then they moved them to stash houses and transported them throughout the country, including Virginia and California.
There have been several such sentences recently. Just days prior, a woman pleaded guilty to federal crimes and received a 10-year jail sentence for organizing a failed human smuggling attempt that resulted in the death of a migrant.
In late May, two Texans pled guilty to charging thousands of dollars to smuggle migrants into the United States via Laredo. The two individuals in question, Mac Quese Howard and De Richardson Miller, acknowledged plotting to transport migrants through Laredo, South Texas, according to US Attorney Nicholas Ganjei. During a traffic stop in the state earlier in May, authorities discovered a dozen migrants hiding behind hollow hay bales.
