49 people found hiding in water truck

Border agent spots unlicensed tanker

By Tom Mallory

UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 26, 2008

SAN DIEGO – Forty-nine people being smuggled into the United States were found yesterday packed inside the metal tank of a water truck that a Border Patrol agent noticed near the notorious Smuggler's Gulch.

The truck was coming out of a construction area, its driver apparently trying to blend in, when the agent saw that it didn't have a license plate, said Border Patrol Agent Jason Rodgers.

Rodgers said the agent followed the truck from Monument Road and Hollister Road in an under-the-speed-limit pursuit that ended nearby with the arrest of the driver and a passenger and the discovery of the people crammed inside.

“For someone to actually stuff 49 people inside a tanker like this, even though these criminals are breaking the law anyway, shows a complete disregard for human life,” Rodgers said.

He said most of the 49 people agents found inside the truck's cylindrical water tank were in the first stage of dehydration. Three of the women were pregnant – one eight months, and the others three and five months.

Another woman inside the tank had a dislocated ankle, Rodgers said.