Prison term for man involved in deaths of three migrants

SAN DIEGO

A man who helped recruit a driver to smuggle three Chinese migrants who were later found dead inside the trunk of a car parked in a San Diego neighborhood was sentenced Monday to three years and five months in federal prison.

Saad Ali Awan pleaded guilty last year in federal court to charges related to human smuggling.

Prosecutors say Awan placed helpwanted ads on Craigslist to enlist drivers to transport people who had been smuggled across the U.S.-Mexico border.

A man who responded to the ads, Neil Edwin Valera, smuggled three Chinese nationals — including a woman and her 15-year-old son — across the border in 2019, according to federal prosecutors.

Their bodies were discovered Aug. 11, 2019, after San Diego police responded to a report of a foul odor and blood dripping from the car, parked in the Bay Terraces neighborhood.

Prosecutors said the victims died due to asphyxiation and heat while inside the trunk of Valera’s BMW.

Video footage showed the BMW — registered to Valera — crossing into the United States at the San Ysidro Port of Entry two days before the bodies were found.

Valera pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.

According to a sentencing memorandum from Awan’s defense attorney, R. Deke Falls, Awan asked Valera to drive people who had already crossed the border to Los Angeles, but Valera refused.

He later passed Valera’s phone number on to a Mexican-based trafficker referred to in court documents as “Alex,” who contacted Valera and offered him money to smuggle drugs, Falls wrote.

As Valera was driving across the border, he heard sounds coming from the trunk and realized people were inside the car, according to the attorney.

Falls said that, like Valera, Awan had no knowledge that people would be smuggled inside the car and that his only role was giving Valera’s phone number to “Alex.”