September 21, 2012 10:02 PM
By JACQUELINE ARMENDARIZ/ The Monitor

McALLEN — The leader of an immigrant smuggling ring received eight years in prison this week after an immigrant drowned while trying to swim across the Rio Grande in 2010, authorities said.

The organization led by Rio Grande Valley resident Mario Alberto Salinas Gonzalez, 30, was responsible for the immigrant’s death, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Homeland Security Investigations said in a statement.

In January, Salinas-Gonzalez went before Chief U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa and pleaded guilty to one count of causing the death of an illegal alien while being transported within the United States.

Salinas was arrested for smuggling about 10 people when HSI received a request to investigate in August 2010, according to the statement.

When CBP arrested Salinas Gonzalez, witnesses said the group he transported fled and tried to swim across the river back into Mexico.

The witnesses said they feared for the safety of the immigrants when they were seen struggling in hazardous flood waters and thought one of them may have drowned, the release said.

Another witness, who was part of the group being smuggled, helped HSI identify the drowned victim.

Salinas-Gonzalez was formally charged with human smuggling in September 2010. More than a year later in Nov. 2011, a federal grand jury issued a superseding indictment that charged him with five counts of human smuggling.

Salinas-Gonzalez remains in custody and is set to be transferred to a federal prison.

Immigrant drowning leaves man 8 years in prison | prison, years, drowning - Brownsville Herald