A truck driver is facing serious charges related to human smuggling after a dozen people were discovered hidden inside his flatbed trailer during a traffic stop in New Mexico.
At 12:25 a.m. on June 25, 2025, U.S. Border Patrol agents were conducting a late night surveillance operation on I-10 near Deming, New Mexico, when they spotted a “suspicious” semi truck hauling an unloaded flatbed trailer, “a known tactic used by Transnational Criminal Organizations to smuggle contraband and illegal aliens into the United States.”
Border Patrol followed the truck because it took an “irregular route commonly used to bypass a Border Patrol checkpoint,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Mexico.
After witnessing the truck “slow down drastically and begin to swerve, as if the driver was paying more attention to the Border Patrol Agents behind him than the road in front of him,” a traffic stop was conducted on New Mexico State Road 26 at mile marker 11.
A search of the vehicle uncovered 12 people from Guatemala, Ecuador, and Mexico hidden in compartments within the flatbed trailer and one person hiding inside the cab.
The truck driver, Maryland resident Jarol Wilberto Arroyo-Cerin, 40, was arrested and “admitted to repeatedly transporting illegal aliens for financial compensation, instructing them to hide under the flatbed.”
According to a criminal complaint, “Arroyo-Cerin openly admitted that he was approached by a known associate at a truck stop in Alburquerque, New Mexico and was offered a job to transport contraband with his commercial vehicle, to which he later agreed to transport illegal aliens and admitted to transporting illegal aliens for the known associate multiple times prior and stated he would be financially compensated per illegal alien.”
Arroyo-Cerin is charged with conspiracy to illegally bring, transport, hide, or encourage unauthorized immigrants to enter or stay in the United States.
If convicted, he faces up to ten years in prison.
He will remain in police custody until his trial.
