CHP MAIT investigate the scene where an SUV was carrying 25 people collided with a semi-truck killing 13 on Highway 115 near the Mexican border on March 2, 2021 in Holtville, California. All the back seats had beens stripped form the vehicle. The passengers in the SUV ranged in age form 15-53.(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)
A Mexican man pleaded guilty Tuesday to coordinating a smuggling effort that left 13 people dead when their overloaded SUV was struck by a big-rig after crossing the border into California two years ago.
Jose Cruz Noguez, 49, of Mexicali, entered pleas in federal court to a charge of conspiracy to bring in undocumented migrants and three counts of bringing in undocumented migrants for financial gain, the U.S. attorney's office said in a statement. He faces at least 15 years in prison when he is sentenced in June.
Prosecutors said Cruz organized a smuggling run on March 2, 2021, in which dozens of people were crammed into two modified sport utility vehicles that were driven into the United States through a breach cut in the international boundary fence.
Get top local stories in San Diego delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC San Diego's News Headlines newsletter.
One SUV, a GMC Yukon carrying 19 people, caught fire for unknown reasons on a nearby interstate after entering the U.S. Everyone escaped the vehicle and all were taken into custody by the Border Patrol, authorities said.
The other vehicle, a Ford Expedition carrying 25 people, was driving through California’s agricultural Imperial Valley when it was broadsided by a tractor-trailer hauling two empty trailers at an intersection near Holtville, about 125 miles east of San Diego, authorities said.
California
The crash killed 13 people, including the driver, and left the rest with injuries, many of them major. A 15-year-old girl was among the injured.
Cruz was taken into custody after another suspected smuggler was arrested at a California border station two weeks after the crash.
Froylan Cortez Avalos, 49, of Mexicali also was charged in the case but remains a fugitive.
