According to a federal agency, roughly 75 trucks are reported as clones each year. They’re painted to match and have the cloned truck’s federal ID numbers put on the door. This activity is used by smugglers as in the recent case in San Antonio where 53 migrants died inside the tractor-trailer of a cloned truck. According to Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, cloning allows these cloned trucks to get through border inspections. To cut down on this, McCraw stated there there will be checkpoints at unnamed ports of entry.
John Esparza, president and CEO of the Texas Trucking Association, said, “How would you even know your truck was being cloned unless something bad happened? They can confirm the number that are caught, but there’s no way to confirm how many are out there.”
Steve McCraw, director of the Texas Department of Public Safety, stated, DPS “will create and implement a checkpoint strategy beginning immediately where they will begin targeting trucks like the one that was used where these people perished.”
