Officials: More than 30 trucks stolen from Austin area recovered
Bastrop home was used for holding immigrants, prepping trucks, officials say.


By Isadora Vail
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Published: 10:38 p.m. Tuesday, April 27, 2010


More than 30 stolen pickups from the Austin area were recovered this month around Texas, and officials say they were used to smuggle immigrants from Mexico into the U.S.

Detective Brent Mullinix of the Austin Police Department's auto theft interdiction unit said several law enforcement agencies worked together to search for the stolen trucks. He said they found nine pickups and 31 Mexican immigrants at a small house in Bastrop County off of FM 812 near Red Rock.

Mullinix said that one man picked up at the home could be a smuggler but that it is hard to tell because all of them are undocumented and the immigrants are still being questioned.

"It was a staging house, meaning there were very little amenities," Mullinix said. "The house was just to bring the immigrants here."

He said that when authorities reached the rented home, it appeared that the immigrants had arrived that day. No children were in the home.

Mullinix said the trucks' back seats and consoles were removed so as many people as possible could fit inside. He said the trucks targeted were Ford F-250 or F-350 series, champagne-colored or white with extended cabs. Authorities say those trucks can navigate rocky South Texas terrain far from highways and out of sight of Border Patrol agents.

Inside the home, Bastrop, Round Rock, Williamson County and Austin authorities found dozens of seats and personal effects from the stolen trucks. Mullinix said other trucks stolen from Austin had been found along the border since the bust two weeks ago.

Austin police began tracking the number of stolen Ford trucks recovered in South Texas and along the border in April 2009 after noticing the frequency with which they were being found in the region.

Mullinix said that after the pickups were stolen, they were driven to Mexico, where immigrants who paid half an asking fee were smuggled across the border. Once they got to Bastrop, they paid the remaining fees before they could leave, he said.

No one had been charged in the incident as of Tuesday, and all 31 people found in the home were in the custody of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Mullinix said.

ivail@statesman.com; 445-3763

http://www.statesman.com/news/local/...in-634671.html