(St. Stephen, New Brunswick) A 43-year-old local woman, Savita Singh, and three men have been arrested by Royal Canadian Mounted Police for allegedly operating an organized human smuggling ring.
Singh and Vaughn McLuskey, 71, were arrested in New Brunswick. Alleged co-conspirators Mohammed Habib-Yusef, 53, and Ravindra Hariprasad, 36, were arrested in Ontario.
The four face charges of criminal conspiracy to violate immigration laws. They were expected to appear in St. Stephen Provincial Court Thursday. [...]The Guyanese nationals reportedly intended to join drug and prostitution operations in the U.S. They will now be processed by Canada Border Services for eventual deportation. The four suspected human smugglers are scheduled to appear in court later today to enter pleas.
“Human smuggling involves the illegal movement of persons across international borders, with their consent, in exchange for a sum of money,” the RCMP said in a press release. “At this point of the investigation the RCMP have intercepted two migrants from Guyana [that] this group was trying to smuggle into the United States.”
It's noteworthy that Savita Singh has a history of arrests for human smuggling. In September 2005, Singh (aka Singh-Murray) pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to smuggling charges. For her guilty plea, Singh was sentenced to time served, 132 days, in November 2005.
At the time of the 2005 prosecution, court documents indicated that Singh had also previously been implicated in an operation to smuggle Guyanese nationals into Buffalo, N.Y. Therefore, with the latest arrest, Singh has been arrested at least three times in the last four years for human smuggling.
In conclusion, it would be hard to dispute the contention that Canadian and U.S. border enforcement efforts have been totally ineffective at shutting down the Guyana to Canada to U.S. human smuggling pipeline.
Companion post at Diggers Realm.
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