SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — A U.S. District Court judge in Sioux City has sentenced a Californian for hauling illegal immigrants across the country.

The Sioux City Journal says 24-year-old Maurelio Diaz-Alfonso, of Riverside, Calif., had pleaded guilty in March. He was sentenced on Tuesday to 13 months in prison.

Diaz-Alfonso was arrested after a traffic stop on Interstate 29 near Onawa in western Iowa. A state trooper who pulled over the sport utility vehicle Diaz-Alfonso was driving searched it and found 12 people inside. They were illegal immigrants.

Diaz-Alfonso later told federal agents that he was paid to drive his passengers from Mesa, Ariz., to Minnesota, Wisconsin and New York.