The United States Homeland Security agency has arrested two men connected to a human smuggling scheme on railway border crossing between the U.S. and British Columbia.
Court documents from the U.S. Attorney’s Office show Jesus Ortiz-Plata and Juan Pablo Cuellar Medina are accused of transporting people from Vancouver to Washington State and Oregon — many of whom arrived in B.C. specifically to cross the border.
“These defendants have allegedly been linked to an extremely dangerous smuggling scheme where people are loaded into freight cars on trains travelling from Canada into the U.S.,” said U.S. Attorney Tessa M. Gorman.
“Being locked in a freight train car is dangerous — there is no control over the heat, cold, or ventilation, and people can be injured or killed by shifting freight. In one dangerous instance last August, some 29 people were rescued from a boxcar filled with plastic pellets.”
The Attorney’s Office says since 2022, as investigators encountered non-citizens who had illegally attempted to cross the border, “a phone number later linked to Ortiz-Plata kept coming up as the number the non-citizens were supposed to contact.”
The office said Oritz-Plata was followed to a home in Everett, Wash., where he, Medina and two others were arrested.
“Medina was the resident of the apartment where the men had been staying. Medina was arrested and was identified by one non-citizens as the person who had picked him up after they crossed into the U.S.”
The U.S. Attorney’s Office says Ortiz-Plata and Medina are facing charges including conspiracy to commit illegal transportation of a non-citizen for private financial gain, which it says is punishable by up to ten years in prison and a $250,000 (USD) fine.
More to come.