Man Sentenced For Human Smuggling Via Plane To Texas
MCALLEN (CBSDFW.COM/AP) — A Mexican man has been sentenced to prison for trying to smuggle illegal immigrants onto a charter flight bound for San Antonio from a Texas border airport.
U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa in McAllen sentenced 39-year-old Jorge Luis Gallegos Avila of Tampico, Mexico, to 16 months in prison.
Court records say U.S. agents last June 20 found five illegal immigrants trying to board the charter flight at McAllen-Miller International Airport, about 15 miles from the Mexican border. Gallegos, who had dropped the immigrants off at the airport, was also in the country illegally.
Prosecutors say Gallegos kept the immigrants at stash houses in the area before taking them to the airport that day. He pleaded guilty in August to conspiring to harbor, conceal and shield illegal immigrants and was sentenced Wednesday.
(©2012 CBS Local Media, a division of CBS Radio Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
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