{"id":145148,"date":"2026-01-31T06:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/145148\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T06:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T06:29:12","slug":"sa-area-woman-sentenced-to-11-years-in-prison-ordered-to-pay-nearly-1m-in-deadly-human-smuggling-operation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/145148\/","title":{"rendered":"SA-area woman sentenced to 11 years in prison, ordered to pay nearly $1M in deadly human smuggling operation"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A San Antonio-area woman was sentenced to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay nearly $1 million for her role in a deadly human smuggling<\/a> operation, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Western District of Texas. <\/p>\n

Erica Aracely Carmona, 36, was part of a smuggling operation that spanned from the Eagle Pass area to San Antonio. She coordinated smuggling operations with co-conspirators in Mexico and directed the other members regarding payments and driver coordination, according to federal officials. <\/p>\n

A driver who was part of the human smuggling operation was transporting a trailer that had undocumented immigrants from a home in Eagle Pass to San Antonio on May 25, 2021. One of the people in the trailer was near death when the trailer arrived at its destination and died about an hour later, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Co-conspirators dumped the person\u2019s body into a ditch that was a few miles away from a Von Ormy property that belonged to Carmona and was used as a drop-off location. <\/p>\n

The Bexar County Sheriff\u2019s Office found the body along with the person\u2019s ID card five days later, on May 30, 2021. <\/p>\n

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) found that Carmona bought the property with the intent to smuggle people with proceeds from the criminal operation, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office said. <\/p>\n

HSI found messages between Carmona and her co-conspirator, Evan John Herrera, following his arrest. <\/p>\n

Federal authorities discovered the operation smuggled more than 500 undocumented immigrants and generated over $4.7 million between January 2021 and July 2022. <\/p>\n

The people being smuggled were initially in custom-made \u201ctow-behind\u201d trailers. Federal investigators said the operation then started using a false compartment inside that could hold up to 40 people, but was stopped by law enforcement on the first smuggling attempt. <\/p>\n

Carmona was arrested on Aug. 23, 2022. She pleaded guilty on Dec. 19, 2022, and was sentenced in January 2026 to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay $955,350.<\/p>\n

Her co-conspirator, Herrera, was sentenced to more than 12 years in prison with credit for time served and ordered to pay $955,350 on May 28, 2025. <\/p>\n

Miguel Angel Rivera, another co-defendant, was sentenced to 18 years in prison with credit for time served. <\/p>\n

Pedro Luis Martinez-Jaquez and Jose Eduardo Rodriguez Moreno, two others involved in the operation, will be sentenced in March 2026, according to the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN ANTONIO \u2013 A San Antonio-area woman was sentenced to 11 years in prison and ordered to pay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5125,18397,54675,1829,82,84,83,60846],"class_list":["post-145148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-antonio","tag-eagle-pass","tag-hsi","tag-human-smuggling","tag-ice","tag-san-antonio","tag-san-antonio-headlines","tag-san-antonio-news","tag-von-ormy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}