Mexico City, Jan 23 (IANS): Five men were sentenced to six and a half years in prison for trafficking 785 undocumented migrants in cargo trucks, the Prosecutor General's Office said.
Two of them were convicted of transporting 396 migrants and three of transporting 389 migrants, it said on Wednesday, reported Xinhua news agency.
They were arrested in June during an operation on roads in the Veracruz states.
In the later half of 2019, Mexican authorities arrested 276 people for trafficking migrants with cargo trucks, buses or automobiles, according to a report by the National Immigration Institute.
The mostly Central American migrants fleeing poverty and violent crime were charged up to US $5,600 per person to be taken to the US border, said the Interior Ministry.