The Kentucky Sentate gavel rests on the wooden sound block in the Kentucky Senate chambers before the first day of Concurrence began at the state Capitol in Frankfort, Ky. March 13, 2025.
San Diego, California – Federal prosecutors have charged a Mexican national believed to be the captain of a smuggling boat that capsized off Imperial Beach over the weekend, leaving four people dead in rough, late-night surf. The tragedy — one of the deadliest maritime smuggling incidents along the San Diego coast this year — has renewed attention on the risks migrants face and the willingness of smuggling networks to gamble with human lives.
David Alfonso Barrera Nunes was arrested Saturday morning and charged Tuesday with bringing in migrants resulting in death and bringing in migrants for financial gain. Both charges carry significant prison time. A detention hearing is scheduled for Friday before U.S. Magistrate Judge David Leshner.
Another man on board, 33-year-old Luis Enrique Barreto Goitia, was also charged. Prosecutors say Barreto Goitia had been repeatedly removed from the United States — most recently on Nov. 3 — and entered illegally again aboard the ill-fated vessel.
According to a federal complaint, Border Patrol first detected the small boat around 11:30 p.m. on Nov. 14 as it crossed the maritime boundary from Mexico. Agents reached Imperial Beach roughly an hour later, in time to find the panga overturned in six-foot waves, with people fighting to survive in the churning surf.
Nine people were believed to have been aboard. Four died. Five others were rescued, detained, or both — and transported to local hospitals.
The survivors’ accounts paint a harrowing picture. One man trapped inside the boat’s small cabin described finding a shrinking pocket of air as the vessel rolled and filled with water. He did not know how to swim, he told agents, and believed he would drown. Only after Border Patrol agents flipped the boat upright was he able to claw his way out. Disoriented and exhausted, he somehow reached the shoreline, where agents pulled him to safety.
Passengers told investigators the boat’s engine failed well before the capsizing, prompting some to beg the captain to turn back. According to multiple witnesses, the captain refused, insisting he could reach shore without power — even as the vessel spun helplessly in the waves.
The complaint alleges Barrera Nunes was the second person to reach shore after the capsizing. Witnesses told agents he made no attempt to help the others still struggling in the surf.
One survivor, who had reluctantly joined the trip to accompany his granddaughter, described an especially wrenching ordeal. As the boat began to roll, he said, the captain ordered everyone to jump. The vessel capsized before they could react. Both he and his granddaughter were trapped beneath the hull. He managed to free her, pushing her toward the water’s surface, but remained stuck himself, his leg impaled by a piece of metal. He believed he would die there, he said, until rescuers pulled him free.
The victims who have been identified are Bartolo Baltazar Baltazar, Epifanio Molina Bravo, and Hector Lopez Lopez. A fourth person has not yet been identified.
Federal officials responding to the tragedy did not mince words.
“Bad weather, rough seas, a dangerous and overloaded vessel — these were all risks smugglers were willing to disregard,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon said. “We will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law.”
San Diego Sector Chief Patrol Agent Justin De La Torre echoed that message, calling the smuggling organization’s decisions “truly inexcusable.”
HSI Acting Special Agent in Charge Kevin Murphy added: “This tragic incident underscores the callous disregard smugglers have for human life.”
For now, the focus remains on the survivors — and on the four people who never made it home.
