(Montreal) New York State authorities are seeking the extradition of a Colombian man living in Quebec, who has been charged with illicit trafficking in connection with the death of a migrant who attempted to cross illegally from Canada to the United States. United last December.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of New York has charged Jhader Aguusto Uribe-Tobar, 35, with three counts of human trafficking in connection with the death of Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores.
Mme Vasquez-Flores, 33, who was pregnant, was found in the Great Chazy River near Champlain on December 14. Two days earlier, her husband had alerted a U.S. Border Patrol agent that she had not come out of the woods as expected.
US authorities say Jhader Aguusto Uribe-Tobar advertised his services on TikTok, under a pseudonym, and charged the woman and her husband $2,500 to guide her by text message as she crossed the border alone.
Court documents filed by New York authorities in Quebec Superior Court allege that her husband, Miguel Mojarro-Magna, contacted the TikTok account and was told that the trip to the United States, which included crossing the waterway, could take up to three hours.
During the exchange of messages on the social network, Mr. Mojarro-Magna was allegedly told that Mr.me Vasquez-Flores would be directed to the border with his cell phone, and also that he was not using a guide, that he was working in another way.
In response to the extradition request, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) arrested Mr. Uribe-Tobar at his home in Saint-Hyacinthe, in Montérégie, at the end of December. He appeared at the Montreal courthouse on December 28 and is expected to return to court on January 12.
The RCMP referred all questions about the case to U.S. authorities.
Court records indicate Mr. Uribe-Tobar was arrested by RCMP in September near the U.S. border with four Mexican nationals, but was released. The four Mexicans were arrested after crossing the border the next day.
U.S. authorities have noted an increase in the number of people crossing into Canada illegally, particularly Mexican nationals who find it an easier way to enter the country than crossing the border into Mexico. and the United States.
In mid-December, the week that U.S. Border Patrol agents found M’s bodyme Vasquez-Flores, they also rescued two other people in the woods who had entered the country from Canada.
Most migrants who attempt to make the journey on foot are unprepared for the cold, police say. Last year, several migrants died trying to reach the United States.
“You can’t walk through the north woods in tennis shoes and hope everything’s going to be OK,” Maj. Nicholas Leon of the Clinton County, New York, Sheriff’s Office said Friday.
In January 2023, Fritznel Richard, 44, a Haitian, was found frozen to death in a wooded area near Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec. Police said he was trying to cross the border into the United States. He probably died of hypothermia and his friends said he was unable to obtain a work permit in Canada and wanted to reunite with his wife in the United States.
In late February, José Leos Cervantes, 45, from Aguascalientes, Mexico, collapsed and died shortly after crossing the U.S. border from Quebec on foot.
On the other hand, the Akwesasne Mohawk police are still investigating the drowning of eight people, including two children under the age of three, whose bodies were pulled from the St. Lawrence River in March. The migrants – an Indian family of four and a Romanian family of four – were attempting to illegally enter the United States from Canada.
Note to readers: In the previous version of this text, La Presse Canadienne erroneously reported that Mme Uribe-Tobar was found in the Chazy River. In reality, it was the Great Chazy River.