WESLACO – A truck driver caught in a deadly human smuggling incident last year was sentenced Tuesday.

Juan Enrique Escobedo-Moreno will spend the following 17 years in prison for trying to smuggle two people in the country illegally across the Falfurrias checkpoint last October.

Border Patrol said the 45-year-old said he was hauling watermelons to Houston and claimed no one was with him.

During a secondary inspection, agents found a Mexican national hiding inside a small closet behind the driver’s seat.

Both men were taken into custody but didn’t say anything about a third person in the truck.

Prosecutors say three days later, authorities discovered another man trapped inside a toolbox. They say a latch prevented him from getting out.

Escobedo-Moreno is waiting to be transferred to a federal prison.

He will also have to serve three years of supervised release following his prison term.