Mexico arrests 12 over Texas deaths

Victims included a five-year-old boy

Special agents in Mexico have arrested 12 suspected human traffickers in raids across four states.

The detainees are being linked to an operation to smuggle illegal Latin American immigrants into the US in May which led to 19 deaths.

They were found dead or dying from suffocation and heat exhaustion inside a crowded trailer parked near the Texan town of Victoria.

Mexican prosecutors have issued a further 25 warrants in connection with the case which is said to be the worst in US history.

We have struck a positive blow against one of the most important smuggling gangs in the country Santiago Creel Mexican interior secretary

News of the arrests was broken by Mexico's Interior Secretary Santiago Creel and Attorney General Rafael Macedo de la Concha.

More than 70 migrants were inside the airless trailer at the time and survivors and relatives of victims helped police find key suspects, they said.

Those arrested include Eliseo and Ismael Peralta, brothers from the central state of Guanajuato, who are believed to have organised a bus trip which took the migrants up to the Mexican side of the border.

One of the brothers has been linked by the FBI to a people-smuggling gang allegedly headed by Karla Patricia Chavez, a 25-year-old Honduran deported to the US last month for her suspected part in the deaths.

"All of you already know, we don't have to tell you the magnitude of the tragedy here," said Mr Creel.

"But in less than three months we have struck a positive blow against one of the most important smuggling gangs in the country."