Smuggler sentenced in death of two undocumented immigrants

Reporting from San Diego — A 43-year-old man from Hawthorne was sentenced Tuesday to seven years in federal prison for the 2014 deaths of two undocumented immigrants being smuggled across the U.S. border at San Ysidro.

Nicholas George Zakov admitted that he was to be paid $3,500 to bring the two across the border in the trunk of his 2012 Dodge.

Instead, Tarcisio Casas-Blanco, 28, and Jose Aurelio Quiroz-Casas, 20, died of hyperthermia and mechanical asphyxiation.

Zakov, in pleading guilty, said he kept driving despite hearing the two scream to be let out of the trunk on a hot summer day.

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The two were found by U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers when Zakov’s car was pulled over for inspection after an X-ray scan found something suspicious in the trunk.

The two men, from the Mexican state of Guanajuato, were found unresponsive in the trunk. They were rushed to a local trauma center, where they were pronounced dead.

“Smugglers show a callous and extreme disregard for the well-being of their customers because this crime is all about money,” U.S. Atty. Laura Duffy said.

Zakov, a U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty in San Diego federal court to alien smuggling for financial gain and alien smuggling resulting in death. Zakov said he partnered with three smugglers in Mexico and was instructed to drive to a Denny’s restaurant in Chula Vista where he would receive his payment.

In the San Diego area, authorities have found several bodies of migrants over the years who had been dumped by smugglers after crossing the border and finding they had died, prosecutors said.

In 2004, a screaming child in Calexico was pulled from the hidden compartment of a Honda in 120-degree heat. In 2003, 19 immigrants died after suffocating inside a tractor-trailer in South Texas.

Twitter:@LATsandiego