Month: March 2023

Authorities said that least eight people are dead and a search for at least seven victims was underway Sunday after a suspected human smuggling operation ended after two boats crashed off the San Diego coast late Saturday night.

James Gartland, chief of the lifeguard division in San Diego, said ‘this is one of the worst maritime smuggling tragedies that I can think of in California, certainly here in the city of San Diego.’ Gartland said a woman called 911 at about 11:30 p.m. Saturday, saying she was on a panga boat with 15 people aboard that made it to the shore at Blacks Beach. The caller said another panga (small fishing boats with outboard motors often used for smuggling operations) had capsized, and eight people were in the water. Officials from San Diego Fire and Rescue said Sunday that authorities are searching for what they believe are seven additional victims

Officials from the San Diego fire and police departments, Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Coast Guard and state and local lifeguards were among those who responded to the scene. The capsized boat was located about 800 yards north of Black Gold Road in La Jolla. According to the information shared by San Diego Fire and Rescue, the first group of lifeguards found the victims on a patch of dry sand along with two overturned panga boats and several lifejackets and fuel barrels. Coast Guard Petty Officer Eddie Berrios confirmed eight people had died and teams were searching for at least seven more. Officials said some or all of the remaining passengers could have escaped via the beach about 15 miles north of downtown San Diego.

The incident was one of the deadliest migrant smuggling operations ever in the area. San Diego Fire-Rescue deputy chief of operations Daniel Eddy said there was a long debris field on Black’s Beach, which is jointly owned by the city and the state. Pangas, frequently used in smuggling operations, often come ashore along the wide stretch of sand that’s also known as Torrey Pines City Beach and Torrey Pines State Beach.

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Authorities confirm that three women have been missing for two weeks after traveling from Texas to Mexico for a shopping trip.  According to missing person posters posted by the Local Commission for the Search of Persons in the Mexican state of Nuevo León, the three women — Dora Alicia Cervantes Saenz, 53, Marina Perez Rios, 48, and Maritza Trinidad Perez Rios, 47 — have been missing since Feb. 25. The Associated Press reported that Saenz is a friend of the Rioses, who are sisters.

Peñitas Police Chief Roel Bermea said that two of the women are from Peñitas, a Texas town on the U.S.-Mexico border. Peñitas police started looking into the three women’s disappearance after the husband of one of the missing women contacted the department. Bermea said tha the three women left on Feb. 24 to go to a flea market in Montemorelos, a city in Nuevo León. The chief said that after several days with no contact, his investigator contacted the FBI “to see what they could do.”  Said Bermea: “We did contact the FBI to let them know the ladies were considered missing .. but not much we can do ourselves” in a missing persons case in another country. The FBI confirmed in a statement they are aware of the matter.

According to the Attorney General’s Office of Nuevo León, U.S. authorities have not intervened in the search because the women are not American citizens; they are Mexican nationals living in the U.S.  The Attorney General’s Office of Nuevo León said in a statement that drones, all-terrain vehicles and canines have been deployed in the search, with search operations being carried out daily. Investigators are hoping to coordinate the search with authorities in the neighboring state of Tamaulipas as the women’s families believe “that the event occurred there.”  Authorities said that the women were traveling in a green mid-1990s Chevy Silverado. Anyone with information is urged to contact the FBI or the Peñitas Police Department at 956-581-3345.

Editorial credit: Dmitrijs Kaminskis / Shutterstock.com