12:49 PM Mountain Standard Time on Monday, May 19, 2008
Department of Public Safety
KINGMAN - The following is a press release from the Department of Public Safety:
On May 18, 2008 at 10:19 a.m., an Arizona Department of Public Safety (DPS) officer stopped a Ford pickup truck on Interstate 40 at milepost 50 (near Kingman). The vehicle was stopped for a cracked windshield and a failure to yield violation. Upon further investigation of the vehicle 18 undocumented aliens were found inside the truck. Twelve of them were under a rug in the bed of the pickup, six were in the cab.
MGN Online
The Border Patrol was contacted and agreed to place a hold on the subjects in the pickup. The driver was booked for human smuggling and processed into the Mohave County Jail.
“This is yet another indication that the problem of human smuggling is not solely confined to southern and central Arizona. In the last three years, DPS officers assigned to the agency’s Highway Patrol Division have turned over 41,417 Undocumented Aliens to ICE. DPS is on the front lines in this battle to end the scourge of human trafficking in Arizona through IIMPACT as well as the work being done by the men and women of our agency’s Highway Patrol Division,” said Roger Vanderpool, Director of the Arizona Department of Public Safety.