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XINHUA

Five men were sentenced to six and a half years in prison each for trafficking 785 undocumented migrants in cargo trucks, the Mexican Fiscal General’s Office said on Wednesday, Jan. 22.

Two of the men were convicted of transporting 396 migrants and three of transporting 389 migrants, the office said in a press release.

All five were arrested in June during an operation on roads in the state of Veracruz.

In the second half of 2019, Mexican authorities arrested 276 people for trafficking migrants with cargo trucks, buses or automobiles, according to a report by the National Immigration Institute.

The mostly Central American migrants fleeing poverty and violent crime were charged up to per person to be taken to the U.S. border, said Mexico’s Interior Secretariat (SeGob).