Police announced on Friday that they “surprisingly” discovered more than 90 people crammed into a house in Houston, southern USA, and opened an investigation into migrant smuggling.

“We were informed last night that someone might have been kidnapped and we worked all night to get a place and an arrest warrant,” said Darren Edwards, a police official in the great city of Texas.

“We had a big surprise when we entered,” he said during a press conference in front of a two-story house located in a residential area.

Inside, police found more than 90 people, all of them of adulthood, including five women. “The conditions weren’t so bad,” Edwards said, although some complained that they hadn’t eaten in a few days.

“We believe that this is a migrant smuggling case,” he said.

With some residents losing their sense of smell and others suffering from a fever or severe cough, police suspect COVID-19 cases. So they decided to leave the group there, pending instructions on health precautions to follow.

The United States is facing a peak in illegal crossings on its border with Mexico, with 172,000 people arrested in March, a level not seen in 15 years.