Man suspected of driving truck in Texas migrant-smuggling incident that left 53 dead was high on meth, lawmaker says

• The man accused of driving the truck carrying migrants into Texas was on meth, a lawmaker said.
• Rep. Henry Cuellar and a law-enforcement official made the claim to several media outlets.

A man accused of driving the truck involved in a tragic migrant-smuggling incident in San Antonio, Texas, that led to 53 people's deaths was high on meth, a lawmaker said.

Reuters spoke with Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas, who said the US Customs and Border Protection briefed him about the incident. Cuellar's district includes part of San Antonio. He said he was told that Homero Zamorano Jr., a Texas native whom authorities have identified as the driver of the truck where dozens of bodies were found, had methamphetamines in his system when arrested.

Reuters separately cited an anonymous CPB official as saying Zamorano had been high on meth, though the outlet said it couldn't independently verify the claim. The Washington Post also reported that two unnamed officials had said Zamorano was high on the drug.

Cuellar said the 18-wheeler truck where the dead and dying people were found had passed through a highway checkpoint without being checked, the Post reported.

"The truck was waved through because the traffic was backing up," Cuellar told the Post.

"There's an issue with manpower and they don't have the right or same technology at checkpoints that they do at ports of entry," Cuellar said, per the Post. He added that criminal organizations engaged in smuggling had learned to "clone," or disguise, trucks to look like FedEx, UPS, and Border Patrol vehicles.

The US Attorney's Office for the Western District of Texas said in a statement that Zamorano had tried to hide in the brush to avoid being detected by law-enforcement officers.

"At the scene, San Antonio Police Department officers discovered multiple individuals some still inside the tractor trailer, some on the ground and in nearby brush, many of them deceased and some of them incapacitated," the statement said.

"SAPD officers were led to the location of an individual, later identified as Zamorano, who was observed hiding in the brush after attempting to abscond," the statement added.

The attorney's office said four men — Zamorano, Christian Martinez, Juan Claudio D'Luna-Mende, and Juan Francisco D'Luna-Bilbao — had been charged over the incident. Zamorano was charged with one count of smuggling resulting in death and faces up to life imprisonment or the death penalty if convicted.

At least 40 men and 13 women, believed to be migrants secretly crossing into the US from Mexico, have died after being found in and near abandoned semi-truck on Monday.