A 57-year-old San Antonio man is behind bars in Webb County after a trailer stolen from a Laredo tire shop turned up on Interstate 35 during a stop that also uncovered eight migrants hidden in the vehicle he was driving. James David Bursott was booked into the Webb County Jail on July 17 on a property theft charge, with his bond set at $10,000, according to jail records.
The trailer at the center of the case, a white 2022 Great Dane box trailer belonging to Rapido Transfer, had been dropped off for repairs at a business in the 1100 block of Beltway Parkway days before it vanished, according to Laredo Morning Times. Surveillance footage showed a white tractor arriving at around 11 p.m. on December 28, 2025, and driving off with the trailer attached, the paper reported. A Rapido Transfer employee reported the theft three days later.
The trailer resurfaced on January 5, when a U.S. Border Patrol agent encountered a white Volvo tractor pulling it near mile marker 32 on I-35, according to the same report. Bursott was identified as the tractor's driver and was detained along with eight migrants found during what Laredo police describe as a human smuggling attempt. The Texas Department of Public Safety notified an investigator that day that the trailer had been recovered and later provided contact information for the Border Patrol agent involved.
Layers of Fake and Stolen Plates
The rig was dressed up to avoid easy identification. The Volvo tractor displayed both Mexican and Texas license plates, with the Texas tag appearing damaged or tampered with. The trailer itself carried Maine plates that, per Webb County investigators, returned as stolen — a detail that El TEJANO notes illustrates how smugglers layer stolen and mismatched tags across multiple states to disguise commercial equipment moving through the border corridor.
Laredo police did not receive the Border Patrol report as part of their theft investigation until March, months after the January stop, and investigators later obtained a warrant for Bursott's arrest connected specifically to the stolen trailer. He was arrested on that warrant in July, roughly six months after the trailer had already been recovered, El TEJANO reports.
Theft Charge Only — For Now
Bursott was ultimately charged with theft of property valued at $2,500 or more but less than $30,000, a threshold that under Texas Penal Code Section 31.03 makes the offense a state jail felony, according to legal analysis from Saputo Toufexis. That charge carries a punishment range of 180 days to two years in a state jail facility and a fine of up to $10,000. Notably, El TEJANO reports that the Laredo Police Department's current charge against Bursott covers only the stolen trailer itself and does not include any charge tied to the January human smuggling stop, leaving open whether state or federal prosecutors will pursue smuggling charges separately.
That distinction matters because of how differently Texas treats the two offenses. If prosecutors were to bring a state smuggling of persons charge under Texas Penal Code Section 20.05, Bursott would face a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison under Senate Bill 4, which took effect in February 2024, according to The Texas Tribune. That is a steep escalation from the roughly 15-month average sentence historically handed down in federal alien smuggling cases involving first-time offenders, according to a criminal defense analysis from the Law Office of Genaro R. Cortez. As of Wednesday afternoon, Bursott remained in custody, per jail records.
A Familiar Route Through the I-35 Corridor
The stop that snared Bursott happened near the Border Patrol's traffic inspection facility at mile marker 29 on I-35, a 15-acre checkpoint north of Laredo with dedicated lanes for commercial tractor-trailer inspection and canine teams, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection. It is a route smugglers have returned to repeatedly. In May, Texas DPS troopers running Operation Lone Star stopped a truck near mile marker 28 in Webb County and found 20 undocumented migrants hidden in its sleeping berth, according to FOX 26 Houston. The following month, DPS troopers and Border Patrol agents rescued 39 migrants from a commercial trailer along Highway 281 in South Texas after the vehicle caught fire during a high-speed pursuit, CBS News reported — a reminder of the physical dangers authorities say come with sealing people inside freight trailers.
Commercial trailer theft itself has also drawn increased attention from local investigators. In July, Laredo police arrested a 50-year-old suspect accused of stealing 10 leased cargo trailers following an investigation by the department's Auto Theft Task Force, according to FOX RGV. Nationally, supply chain intelligence firm Overhaul reported that U.S. cargo theft incidents rose 49% year-over-year in the first half of 2024, with average losses per incident climbing 83% to $115,230, FreightWaves reported. Just a day before Bursott's case came to light, Hoodline reported on a Carrizo Springs bust that freed 22 migrants trapped beneath a flatbed trailer that had also originated near Laredo, underscoring how frequently stolen and disguised trailers are turning up in smuggling attempts across the region.
