48 immigrants found in tanker truck
© 2009 The Associated Press
March 31, 2009, 12:03AM

Laredo, Texas — Border Patrol agents found 48 illegal immigrants inside the tank of a modified fuel truck after the driver plowed through a ranch fence near Laredo.

The immigrants found in the tank Saturday are being processed for deportation.

Border Patrol spokesman Chuck Prichard said in a story in Monday's online edition of the San Antonio Express-News that a fan was rigged up at one end of the tanker but he wasn't certain what type of cooling effect it would have had.

The immigrants apparently climbed inside the modified tanker through a hatch cut into the bottom of the tanker.

The driver suddenly turned off the road and ran through the fence before trying to run away, authorities said. The driver and a passenger were caught trying to run away.

Nineteen immigrants died in May 2003 while being smuggled in the back of a sweltering tractor-trailer rig that was abandoned near Victoria. Seventeen died in the truck and two more died later at the hospital.

A dispatcher at a Border Patrol office in Laredo said he could not comment Monday night.

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/6350898.html