Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) troopers arrested a man near the border in Del Rio, Texas on Friday for his alleged involvement in the smuggling of a 5-year-old girl from Mexico into the US.
Texas DPS said a trooper stopped a Dodge pickup truck in Del Rio after receiving information that Border Patrol had caught a man carrying a child across the Rio Grande.
Texas DPS spokesman Lt. Chris Olivarez told Fox News that the 5-year-old girl was taken across the border, loaded into another smuggler’s vehicle and taken to a hotel.
Troopers tracked the pickup truck until they eventually pulled the truck over and made a traffic stop.
During the stop, troopers learned that the 5-year-old girl was from Mexico and had recently been smuggled into the United States.
The trooper also matched the girl’s image in surveillance footage to the girl in the pickup truck.
While asking the girl questions in Spanish, she pointed to the young man’s bow, which was also seen in the recorded footage.
The girl’s mother, Dolores Lopez, was also in the truck at the time of the traffic stop.
Texas DPS said the mother is a temporary resident of North Carolina and originally from Mexico.
Lopez told troopers that she discovered a trafficking organization on the Internet and agreed to smuggle her daughter into the United States for $8,000.
Troops eventually arrested the smuggler, identified as Roman Ibarra Rojo of Mexico. Rojo was charged with trafficking in a person under the age of 18.
Texas DPS said Rojo confessed that he was going to be paid $1,000 to smuggle the 5-year-old girl into the United States.
Olivarez said Rojo was previously arrested on trafficking charges in 2022.
Lopez and her daughter were referred to the U.S. Border Patrol with a recommendation to charge the mother with child endangerment.
It will be up to the district attorney whether to prosecute the mother or not.
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