Ongoing smuggling operations continue at U.S.-Canada border

By Bethany Blankley
The Center Square

Ongoing smuggling operations continue at the U.S.-Canada border. After alleged offenders are arrested and charged by federal immigration officers, they are being indicted and prosecuted.

Ongoing border crimes are being committed in the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Swanton Sector, which reported a record number of illegal border crossers during the Biden administration, The Center Square exclusively reported. The sector includes all of Vermont, six upstate New York counties, and three New Hampshire counties.

Under the Trump administration, Border Patrol agents continue to arrest Mexican smugglers operating in Canada, Iranians, weapons smugglers and human smugglers using an Indian reservation. In recent years, the greatest number of illegal border crossings reported at the U.S.-Canada border were in upstate New York, Washington and Vermont, The Center Square reported.

In Vermont, an indictment was unsealed charging two men, Francisco Antonio Luna Rosado, 27, a Dominican national in the country illegally, and Jesus Hernandez Ortiz, 37, a Puerto Rican, with conspiring to smuggle foreign nationals from Mexico and Central and South America into the U.S. from Canada for profit. Luna Rosado was also charged with money laundering involving property derived from smuggling activities.

The smuggling operation involved flying foreign nationals to Canada then guiding them with GPS coordinates on cell phones through a remote area of Canada into northern Vermont, authorities allege. From there, Luna Rosado used a 70-person encrypted chat platform to communicate arranging drivers to pick up illegal border crossers, authorities allege. The drivers then transported them in rented Home Depot vans driving them a few hours from Vermont to New York City, according to the charges.

Swanton Sector Border Patrol Intelligence Unit agents working out of the Newport station and with Homeland Security Investigations officers led the investigation. HSI’s Human Smuggling Unit in Washington, D.C. and CBP’s National Targeting Center International Interdiction Task Force also assisted with the case. It’s being prosecuted in the District of Vermont.

In another case, a grand jury in the Northern District of New York indicted an Indian national, Shivam Lnu, 22, on human smuggling charges accusing him of smuggling Indian nationals from Canada into upstate New York in Clinton County. Both Lnu and those being smuggled were all in the country illegally, according to the charges.

Lnu was arrested after Border Patrol agents attempted to stop two vehicles traveling in tandem near the U.S-Canada border but the drivers accelerated and led a high-speed pursuit instead, authorities said. One driver lost control and the vehicle went off the road; the other was later stopped in Mooers, New York.

The drivers were transporting 12 Indians who’d used WhatsApp messages to coordinate logistics, according to the charges. Lnu was involved in numerous smuggling operations, according to messages reviewed by agents, according to the charges. Texts also included “proof of life photographs and directions to safe houses in upstate New York,” agents allege.

HSI Rouses Point and Border Patrol Burke station agents led the investigation, which is being prosecuted in the Northern District of New York. HSI’s Human Smuggling Unit in Washington, D.C. and CBP’s National Targeting Center International Interdiction Task Force also assisted with the case.

The arrest comes after a record number of Indian nationals, several hundred thousand, illegally entered the U.S. from Canada under the Biden and Trudeau administrations, The Center Square reported.