Dad in coma, son dead and 10-year-old daughter missing after migrant boat capsizes; 5 charged

Five Mexican citizens have been charged with participating in human smuggling after a small boat carrying migrants capsized off San Diego on Monday, killing four people including two children, authorities said.

Tragic new details about the deadly smuggling incident came to light Tuesday.

The body of a 14-year-old boy from India was among three recovered following the accident, and his 10-year-old sister remains missing at sea and is presumed dead, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The siblings’ parents were rescued, but the father is now in a coma, and the mother remains hospitalized.

“The drowning deaths of these children are a heartbreaking reminder of how little human traffickers care about the costs of their deadly business,” U.S. Atty. Adam Gordon said in a statement. “We are committed to seeking justice for these vulnerable victims, and to holding accountable any traffickers responsible for their deaths.”

The U.S. Coast Guard received a call around 6:30 a.m. Tuesday reporting that a small panga-style boat with an estimated 16 people on board had overturned just north of Torrey Pines State Beach, said Hunter Schnabel, a Coast Guard public affairs officer.

Bystanders and San Diego lifeguards were able to rescue four people. Three bodies were recovered from the scene, and nine people were initially unaccounted for.

Two of the smuggling suspects — Jesus Ivan Rodriguez-Leyva, 36, and Julio Cesar Zuniga-Luna, 30, both of Mexico — were arrested on the beach, prosecutors said.

They have been charged with bringing in migrants resulting in death, which has a maximum penalty of death or life in prison. Although the death penalty remains legal in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a moratorium on executions, in effect halting them during his tenure.

They are also charged with bringing in migrants for financial gain, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Three additional arrests were made Monday night after Border Patrol agents spotted a car, which had been seen earlier near the accident scene, some 25 miles south in Chula Vista, which is just 10 miles north of the Mexican border. The driver of the vehicle fled the scene.

Agents continued their investigation and successfully stopped two other vehicles involved in the smuggling incident, authorities said. Inside the vehicles, they discovered eight of the nine missing migrants, with the exception of the 10-year-old girl, prosecutors said.

The drivers of the vehicles — Melissa Jenelle Cota, 33, Gustavo Lara, 32, and Sergio Rojas-Fregoso, 31 — were arrested and charged with the transportation of undocumented immigrants, which is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Rojas-Fregoso faced an additional charge for being in the country illegally after having been previously deported in December 2023, prosecutors said. This charge is punishable by up to two years in prison.

“Human smuggling, regardless of the route, is not only illegal but extremely dangerous. Smugglers often treat people as disposable commodities,” Shawn Gibson, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations, San Diego, said in a statement. “Yesterday’s heartbreaking events are a stark reminder of the urgent need to dismantle these criminal networks driven by greed.”

Politics

Migrants make increasingly dangerous journeys to enter California through the coast

Experts say the shift is in response to restrictive border policies that put migrants at increasing danger as they are pushed farther out to the high seas.

Oct. 19, 2021

The smuggling of migrants is a persistent problem along the California coastline and one that often has deadly consequences.

In 2023, at least eight people died when two migrant smuggling boats overturned off Black’s Beach in San Diego County. A year earlier, a man and two women died when a panga boat crashed into rocks at the base of the cliffs of Point Loma in San Diego.

Times staff writer Hannah Fry contributed to this report