CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Two juveniles are in custody after leading Rockport police on a highspeed chase as part of an illegal migrant smuggling operation.
Rockport police had their hands full just after midnight with a caravan of migrant smugglers who wouldn't stop along the Highway 35 bypass.
3NEWS acquired dashcam footage that showed the high speed pursuit which reached 100 miles per hour. Three trucks, which were all suspected to be loaded with migrants, were spotted speeding.
Officer Jessie Aguilar tried to get the vehicles to pull over. When they didn't, he called for backup and continued following the group as they eventually split up.
Aguilar chased the vehicles down along Fulton Beach Road where some of the migrants bailed out and started running.
One woman from Mexico was eventually captured. The driver and the front seat passenger who were taking the migrants to Houston were just 16 and 15-years-old.
Rockport Police Chief Greg Stevens said he thinks there was a reason the teenagers were used in this case.
"Using juveniles, kids believing that they're not going to get in any trouble or at least as much trouble as an adult," he said. "It's easy to convince a juvenile with just a meager amount of compensation to participate in this."
The woman from Mexico told authorities she paid a man by the name of Ramiro Lopez Jr., $4,000 to be taken across the border and then picked up on the U.S. side near Reynosa.
The two young men who were moving the migrants north are facing a number of charges and are in the juvenile lockup in San Patricio County.
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