DPS arrests driver, finds four migrants hidden in Del Rio truck

A tip to a Texas Department of Public Safety trooper led to the arrest of a Houston driver and the discovery of four migrants hidden inside a pickup in a Del Rio hotel parking lot. The stop happened May 10, when troopers located a red Chevy Colorado, identified the driver as Wilber Adonay Serrano Ruiz of Houston, and say he tried to flee before being apprehended.

Troopers found four migrants from Mexico concealed in the truck and turned them over to U.S. Border Patrol. The case added another local example of smuggling activity showing up inside Del Rio’s commercial corridors, not just on remote stretches of the border.

DPS says it continues to confront human smuggling under Operation Lone Star, the statewide enforcement campaign aimed at human smuggling and other cartel-linked crime. The agency has described Del Rio and the Rio Grande Valley as persistent enforcement priorities, and it says troopers, investigators and partner agencies use tips, surveillance, patrols and traffic stops to intercept smuggling loads before they move farther into Texas.

The numbers DPS has cited show the scale of that effort. In September, the agency said troopers had made 9,730 human smuggling arrests since Operation Lone Star launched in 2021, and it said nearly 2,200 charges had been filed for the offense. Those figures reflect a steady enforcement push along South Texas corridors where smugglers often try to blend into ordinary traffic and business areas.

The Del Rio arrest also fits a pattern DPS has highlighted in nearby cases. On May 4, 2024, troopers in Maverick County chased a suspected smuggling vehicle at high speed before two teenage smugglers were arrested and a migrant, Gerardo Jose Ojeda-Montiel, 33, of Venezuela, was identified as wanted for murder out of the U.S. Virgin Islands and referred to Border Patrol. DPS has said other smuggling cases can include evading arrest, stolen vehicles, weapons or migrants who need Border Patrol referral and medical attention.

For Val Verde County, the latest stop is another reminder that smuggling attempts can surface in a hotel lot in the middle of Del Rio and quickly become a broader public-safety problem for local law enforcement and federal agents alike.