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Canadian authorities announced on Thursday that they had dismantled a vast migrant smuggling network accused of having transported hundreds of people from Canada to the United States for a year.
The network charged thousands of dollars to migrants, who had already arrived in Canada but came from elsewhere, and helped them get to the United States by crossing the St. Lawrence border river, the RCMP said.
The events took place from July 2022 to June 2023, according to the authorities.
Several deaths
Some migrants may have lost their lives while trying to cross the border at night, police said.
“Many foreigners from all over the world come to settle in North America, desperately looking for a better life,” said Inspector Etienne Thauvette, of a special unit fighting cross-border crime.
“Transnational criminal networks exploit this desperation to take advantage of these men, women and families, without regard for their well-being,” he added.
Among the suspects aged 21 to 51, there are two people from the indigenous community of Akwesasne, whose territory extends on both banks of the St. Lawrence near Cornwall, between the province of Ontario and Quebec in Canada and New York State in the United States.
In March 2023, eight people, including two children, died in a swamp on the Akwesasne reserve. They were from two different families, one Romanian-Canadian and the other Indian, and were trying to get to the United States.
