PHOENIX — Editor's Note: The above video is from an earlier broadcast.
A 41-year-old man was sentenced this week to 63 months in federal prison after a smuggling operation last summer through the desert ended in a fatality.
Rafael Almanza-Guillen of Mexico was sentenced Wednesday in a Phoenix courthouse after he pleaded guilty to unlawfully bringing an illegal alien into the U.S., according to the U.S. Attorney's Office of Arizona.
The defendant was paid in August 2021 to bring three undocumented citizens from Mexico into Arizona. Almanza-Guillen led the three individuals on foot through the hot desert and the group eventually ran out of food or water.
Prosecutors say the average temperature that day was 106 degrees, resulting in the stranded migrants getting sick. One of them later died of hyperthermia due to exposure to extreme heat.
Border Patrol agents stationed out of Yuma rescued the other migrants.
The migrant's death was only one of several that were reported during what was a particularly deadly summer in Arizona's deserts.
The remains of 127 migrants were recovered during the first half of 2021, according to Humane Borders, a nonprofit that tracks migrant deaths in Arizona.
The first six months of 2021 recorded more deaths than the whole of 2017, which reported the discovery of 123 human remains.
For his involvement in this deadly case, Almanza-Guillen will be placed on supervised release for five years after completing his prison sentence.
Earlier this week, a Tucson man was convicted for another smuggling case connected to Arizona. Benjamin Gallegos, 24, was sentenced to four years in prison for helping to smuggle people into Arizona from Central America, prosecutors said.
Gallegos was originally charged in 2018 for his crimes, but he was a fugitive until his arrest in 2021.
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