Four people were arrested in connection with the discovery of two stash houses in Edinburg and Donna that housed a total of 24 undocumented immigrants, according to a criminal complaint.

The suspects are accused of harboring and transporting the immigrants at residences throughout Hidalgo County, according to a Thursday news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Rigoberto Esteban Perez-Cruz, 37, of Edinburg, and Mexican national Mirza Garcia-Zapata, 37, were arrested Tuesday. Enrique Gonzalez, 57, of Weslaco, and Mexican national Erick Vallejo-Zapata, 21, were arrested Thursday morning following a raid at a home in Weslaco that the criminal complaint identified as Gonzalez’s home.

Channel 5 News cameras were rolling as federal officers executed the search warrant early Thursday morning at a home on the 2400 block of Esperanza Street.

According to the criminal complaint, Perez-Cruz was arrested after a deputy with the Hidalgo County Sheriff’s Office conducted a traffic stop on Perez-Cruz’s vehicle after he left a residence in Edinburg.

A federal search warrant was later executed at that Edinburg residence, where 21 undocumented immigrants were found. 

At the same time, federal agents also executed a search warrant at a Donna residence being rented by Garcia-Zapata where three other undocumented immigrants were found, the complaint added.

According to the complaint, one of the immigrants said he had also been to Gonzalez’s Weslaco residence where Gonzalez took the immigrants’ cell phones and “wanded them with a metal detector” before they were transported to the stash house in Edinburg.

Perez-Cruz was identified as the caretaker of the Edinburg stash house. Vallejo-Zapata was identified as one of the men transporting the immigrants. 

The immigrants are from the countries of Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, Ecuador and India, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Nine of the immigrants face charges of illegal reentry into the country, and an additional 10 are charged with illegal entry into the country.

Perez-Cruz and Garcia-Zapata remain in federal custody and are due back in court on Aug. 26. Vallejo-Zapata and Gonzalez are due in court on Friday morning.

If convicted, Gonzalez, Vallejo-Zapata, Garcia-Zapata and Perez-Cruz face up to 10 years in federal prison and a possible $250,000 maximum fine.