https://nypost.com/2022/06/28/texas-migrant-truck-was-covered-in-spices-to-hide-odor-of-50-dead-bodies/

Texas migrant truck was covered in spices to hide odor of 51 dead bodies

Chilling new details emerged Tuesday in the Texas border horror that left at least 51 migrants dead — including how victims stuffed in a truck were allegedly sprinkled with steak seasoning to mask their odor.

A law-enforcement official told the Texas Tribune that many of the estimated 100 people jammed into the tractor-trailer in San Antonio appeared to have been covered in spices to cover up the odor during the human-smuggling tragedy.

A cry for help coming from the 18-wheeler found abandoned on the southern outskirts of town Monday evening led to the discovery of “stacks of bodies’’ inside the vehicle, which had apparently been made to look like a properly registered truck in an effort to evade detection.

The rig was “cloned,” said the owner of a local Alamo-based trucking company to the San Antonio Express-News — painted to match one of his own, right down to copying his legal vehicle’s Department of Transportation registration number.

“Our reefer [refrigerated trailer] is sitting right in the yard,” Felipe Betancourt Jr., who owns Betancourt Trucking with his father, told the paper. “That one in San Antonio is not our trailer.”

While the truck in San Antonio was made to look like a refrigerated truck, “There was no visible working AC unit on that rig,” said San Antonio Fire Chief Charles Hood.