On May 5, a panga boat capsized on Torrey Pines State Beach at around 6:30 a.m., resulting in at least three dead and four hospitalized. United States Customs and Border Protection’s investigation found that the boat’s drivers were transporting Indian and Mexican migrants to the U.S.
Some occupants’ belongings were found on the beach around the panga boat, including Indian passports. Bystanders and San Diego lifeguards responded to the initial wreckage, rescuing four individuals who were then hospitalized. They also recovered three bodies — a 14-year-old boy, 18-year-old Marcos Lozada-Juarez, and a third unidentified man. The hospitalized individuals include the 14-year-old boy’s mother and father, the latter of whom is in a coma.
An additional nine migrants who were part of the group were unaccounted for. Border Patrol agents later identified and stopped two offshore loading vehicles involved in the smuggling event, locating the boating crew and eight of the nine missing migrants. The one person still missing is the 10-year-old daughter of the hospitalized parents. The Department of Justice has presumed her dead.
“The drowning deaths of these children are a heartbreaking reminder of how little human traffickers care about the costs of their deadly business,” said Adam Gordon, attorney for the Southern District of California. “We are committed to seeking justice for these vulnerable victims, and to holding accountable any traffickers responsible for their deaths.”
The Department of Homeland Security defines human trafficking as “involv[ing] the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act.” There is no definitive evidence to suggest that these migrants were being trafficked.
Two of the men allegedly involved, Mexican citizens Julio Cesar Zuniga Luna and Jesus Juan Rodriguez Leyva, were arrested on Monday and charged with “bringing in aliens for financial gain resulting in death.”
The drivers of the offshore loading vehicles — Mexican citizens Melissa Jenelle Cota, Gustavo Lara, and Sergio Rojas-Fregosa — were also arrested and charged with the “transportation of illegal aliens.” Rojas-Fregoso had previously been deported on Dec. 19, 2023.
CBP, who is leading the investigation, did not respond to The UCSD Guardian’s request for comment.
Leslie Yang • May 17, 2025 at 11:52 pm
What a horrible loss! This is racism at work. The border is virtually closed to migrants and asylum seekers, so for most people there’s no way to get to the US without hiring a smuggler. (A smuggler, as the article points out, is *totally distinct* from a human trafficker, though politicians deliberately confound the two.) The poorer you are, the more dangerous your smuggling conditions. Officials engage in gaslighting when they condemn smugglers without also condemning the policies and conditions that created the need for their services. Smugglers are a symptom, not the root cause of this atrocity!