Did you get a load of immigrant compartments outfitted inside a Santa Ana man's black Mercedes-Benz? The ones a stuck man and unconscious woman had to be pulled out of?
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Robert J. Lopez has the scoop in the Los Angeles Times.
The unidentified driver, who is a U.S. citizen, was arrested on smuggling charges, and his Mexican immigrant passengers are now material witnesses against him.
He tried to drive from Mexico into the U.S. Saturday via the Otay-Mesa Port of Entry east of San Diego, where detector dogs alerted Homeland Security officers to the areas on either side of the car between the front wheels and doors.
Hidden inside the
compartments were an unconscious 26-year-old woman, who was revived and treated for a four-inch burn on her leg, and a sweaty 39-year-old man, who had to be helped out of the fetal position and back onto his feet.
Mercedes' motto is “the best or nothing.” The driver and his secret riders definintely got the latter.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.