Powerful Guatemalan Family Busted for Smuggling Migrants Who Ended Up Dead

[Judi Lynn]

Most of the victims of a massacre near the US-Mexico border in January last year were migrants being smuggled from the town of Comitancillo, Guatemala.

By Emily Green
February 2, 2022, 7:00am



ANGEL MAURICIO, THE COUSIN OF RIVALDO DANILO JIMENEZ, HOLDING HIS PICTURE ON MARCH 14, 2021 IN COMITANCILLO, GUATEMALA. JIMENEZ WAS ONE OF 16 GUATEMALAN MIGRANTS MASSACRED IN NORTHERN MEXICO IN JANUARY 2021. (PHOTO BY JOSUE DECAVELE /GETTY IMAGES)


One year after the brutal massacre of 16 Guatemalan migrants in northern Mexico, Guatemalan authorities and U.S. Department of Homeland Security agents arrested 10 people, most of them members of a politically-connected family that coordinated the trip.

The lead smuggler, David Coronado, was a 2019 mayoral candidate in the town of Comitancillo, Guatemala, where most of the victims were from. He and nine others are charged with human trafficking, money laundering, obstruction of justice and other crimes.

VICE World News was the first U.S. media outlet to connect Coronado to the massacre, allegedly carried out by Mexican police, just miles from the U.S. border. The killings included one longtime resident of the U.S. and a father of three who had been deported in the mass immigration raids across central Mississippi in 2019.



Photos of the raid show a major operation involving a dozen or more agents and at least one helicopter in Comitancillo, a small indigenous town nestled in the mountains a couple of hours south of Mexico. In addition to Coronado, authorities also arrested his daughter and nephew, and are seeking Coronado’s brother, Ramiro, who served as the town’s mayor from 2012 until 2016, and four others.

More:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7dz93/powerful-guatemalan-family-busted-for-smuggling-migrants-who-ended-up-dead