Since last year, Alberto*, an experienced driver, has been hauling migrants in the trailer of the truck he drives. In this interview, he describes in rarely revealed detail how the clandestine migrant transport business works on the road from Michoacán to Tamaulipas on the U.S. border. His trailer only carries migrants when the cartels ask, otherwise it carries vegetables and fruit.

On December 9, 2021, on a highway in the Mexican state of Chiapas, a trailer truck overturned. It was transporting about 200 people traveling towards the American dream; 56 of them died. Investigating this tragedy, a cross-border journalistic alliance uncovered the story of how organized criminals charge migrants exorbitant fares to stuff them, like merchandise, into these steel boxes leaving a long trail of corruption in their wake. The central corridor of Chiapas, with two main border crossings, is the preferred route for this brutal trafficking of people in trailer trucks. Thousands of migrants from more than twenty countries have traveled north like ghosts. And only when they have accidents or die, they become visible.