Illegal Alien and Guatemalan National Extradited to the U.S. Admit to Roles in 2021 Alien Smuggling Mass Casualty Event in Chiapas, Mexico

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Press Release
Press Release
An illegal alien from Guatemala and a Guatemalan national have pleaded guilty to human smuggling charges related to the crash of a tractor-trailer packed with at least 160 illegal aliens which resulted in the deaths of more than 50 people, including unaccompanied children, and injured over 100 more. These two defendants are part of a group of six who were charged in this case. Five of six defendants have now admitted to their role in a conspiracy to bring illegal aliens from Guatemala into the United States.
Agapito Jorge Ventura, 34, and an illegal alien from Guatemala, and Oswaldo Manuel Zavala Quino, 26, a Guatemalan national extradited to the United States in 2025, acknowledged that they conspired with other smugglers to smuggle and transport illegal aliens, both adults and unaccompanied minors, from Guatemala through Mexico to the United States.
“This crime shows that human smugglers care only about profiting from their crimes, not about the illegal aliens they transport and the life-and-death risks to which they expose them” said Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. “These defendants worked together to exploit vulnerable people by breaking the immigration laws of this country, with deadly consequences that followed. Robust border enforcement avoids deadly results like this. The Criminal Division will continue to pursue those who put profit over people and ensure our nation’s immigration laws are enforced.”
“With today’s guilty pleas, five defendants charged in this case have now been held accountable for one of the deadliest human smuggling tragedies in recent memory,” said U.S. Attorney John E. Marck for the Southern District of Texas. “These defendants treated more than 150 people as cargo, packing them into a tractor-trailer for profit with total disregard for human life. The Southern District of Texas will continue to hunt down smugglers wherever they hide, because there is no place on earth safe enough to escape justice for the lives lost on that Chiapas roadside.”
“This case underscores U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations’ (HSI) relentless pursuit of transnational criminal organizations that profit from the exploitation of vulnerable individuals,” said Acting Executive Associate Director John A. Condon of HSI. “The guilty pleas of these defendants send a clear message: those who orchestrate and facilitate dangerous human smuggling operations — placing lives at grave risk — will be held accountable. HSI remains committed to working with our domestic and international partners to dismantle these criminal networks, protect our borders, and uphold the rule of law.”
Aliens paid Ventura, Zavala Quino, and their co-conspirators to be smuggled into the United States, with Ventura coordinating from the Houston area. During the previous administration’s policy to parole illegal aliens into the United States, Ventura also facilitated the release of Guatemalan aliens who were smuggled illegally into the United States from U.S. immigration authorities, to include unaccompanied minors. Ventura provided his coconspirators, including Zavala Quino, with falsified scripts and instructions to provide to adults and unaccompanied minors on what to say to immigration officials if apprehended to secure their release. Ventura would also provide a person who would falsely pose as a relative of the apprehended alien to gain the alien’s release.
On Dec. 9, 2021, Ventura, Zavala Quino, and others arranged for the aliens they were smuggling to the United States to be loaded into a tractor trailer that was to transport them through Mexico. Over 150 illegal aliens, including adults and unaccompanied minors, were crammed into the trailer. The vehicle ultimately crashed north of the Guatemala/Mexico border near Tuxtla Guiterrez, Chiapas, Mexico, resulting in deaths and serious bodily injury.
Ventura and Zavala Quino pleaded guilty to conspiracy to bring and attempt to bring an illegal alien to the United States, placing life in jeopardy, causing serious bodily injury, and resulting in death. They will be sentenced on Oct. 6 and each face a maximum penalty of life in prison. A federal district judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
Daniel Zavala Ramos, Josefa Canil De Zavala, Alberto Macario Chitic, Tomas Quino Canil, and Oswaldo Manuel Zavala Quino, were extradited from Guatemala in 2025 to face charges. Authorities arrested Jorge Agapito Ventura, 33, at his residence in Cleveland, Texas, in December 2024.
Zavala Ramos, 42, pleaded guilty on April 7. Canil De Zavala, 44, and Macario Chitic, 33, pleaded guilty on June 11.
HSI’s Washington, D.C. Field Office investigated the case in partnership with HSI Guatemala and HSI Mexico. Valuable assistance was provided by HSI’s Human Smuggling Unit in Washington, D.C.; HSI Houston; HSI Laredo; U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s International Interdiction Task Force; U.S. Border Patrol; Liberty County Constable, Precinct 6; Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Houston; U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Texas; and the Criminal Division’s Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance, and Training. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided significant assistance in securing the arrests and extraditions of the defendants. Guatemalan prosecutors from the Office of Public Ministry and Mexican prosecutors from the Republic of Mexico’s Federal Prosecutions Office, with the support of law enforcement officials from both countries, were also instrumental in furthering the investigation.
Senior Trial Attorney Danielle Hickman of the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mary Lou Castillo and Jennifer Day for the Southern District of Texas are prosecuting the case, with substantial assistance from HRSP Latin American Specialist/Historian Joanna Crandall.
The investigation and charges are supported and prosecuted by Joint Task Force Alpha (JTFA), the Department’s lead effort in combating high-impact human smuggling and trafficking committed by cartels and Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs). A highly successful partnership between the Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), JTFA investigates and prosecutes human smuggling and trafficking and related immigration crimes that impact public safety and border security. JTFA’s mission is to target the leaders and organizers of Cartels and TCOs involved in human smuggling and trafficking throughout the Americas. The Attorney General has elevated and expanded JTFA to target the most prolific and dangerous human smuggling and trafficking groups operating not only in Mexico and the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, but also in Canada, the Caribbean, and the maritime border, and elsewhere. Led by the Criminal Division’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section and supported by the Money Laundering, Narcotics and Forfeiture Section, the Office of International Affairs, and the Office of Enforcement Operations, among others, JTFA has dedicated Assistant U.S. Attorneys from the Southern District of California; District of Arizona; District of New Mexico; Western and Southern Districts of Texas; Southern District of Florida; Northern District of New York; and District of Vermont. JTFA also partners with other USAOs throughout the country and supports high-priority cases in any district. All JTFA cases rely on substantial law enforcement resources from DHS, including ICE/HSI and CBP/BP and OFO, as well as FBI and other law enforcement agencies. To date, JTFA’s work has resulted in more than 464 domestic and international arrests of leaders, organizers, and significant facilitators of alien smuggling and/or trafficking; more than 414 U.S. convictions; and more than 360 significant jail sentences imposed, and forfeitures of substantial assets.
This case is also part of Operation Take Back America, a nationwide initiative that marshals the full resources of the Department of Justice to repel the invasion of illegal immigration, achieve the total elimination of cartels and transnational criminal organizations, and protect our communities from the perpetrators of violent crime.