As the migrant crisis reaches boiling point and divides cities and states, DailyMail.com can reveal another border scandal occurring right under Americans’ noses.
These are the faces of a prolific people smuggling gang run by undocumented migrants who started sneaking into the US illegally in 2019 and are now offering passage to others by bringing them in from Canada for $6,000-a-head.
Several have been running the gang from New Jersey, where they settled after being released by ICE.
To date, they have moved dozens if not hundreds of migrants into the US using secretive tactics to sneak them across the scarcely-guarded border between between Quebec and Vermont.
Astonishingly, the gang was able to continue operating despite being caught red-handed multiple times.
US authorities have arrested and charged two accused ringleaders who are both undocumented migrants.
A third alleged leader remains at large in Canada, where authorities say they have no powers to detain him.
Despite snaring two of the ringleaders, individuals linked to the gang have continued to smuggle migrants across the border.
Prosecutors have linked the ringleaders to at least five foiled smuggling incidents in Vermont which brought ‘at least 25 migrants’ into the country. Runners have confessed to Border Patrol investigators that many more illegal crossings went undetected.
The gang’s sophisticated operation – and the astonishing decision to release smugglers even after they were caught in the act – can be revealed by DailyMail.com amid a sharp increase in illegal crossings at the Canadian border.
There were 10,021 arrests for illegal crossings at the border with Canada in 2023, more than five times the number in the previous year. The majority of incidents took place in and around the Vermont area where the gang operated.
Analysts believe the route has become increasingly popular among wealthier migrants who want to avoid the more chaotic and dangerous conditions on the southern border. The northern border also faces a disproportionately high number of crossings by people on the United States terror watchlist, official figures reveal.
SMUGGLING GANG RUN BY ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS
The gang’s US operations were led in New Jersey by Jhon Reina-Perez, 34, and Victor Lopez-Padilla, 35.
Both men are undocumented migrants who entered the US illegally across the southern border and were allowed to remain in the country pending immigration proceedings.
Reina-Perez is a Colombian national who illegally crossed from Mexico into the US near El Paso, Texas, in April 2022, court filings reveal.
He was processed then released into the United States ‘pending immigration proceedings’, but failed to comply with a condition that he check in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.
Six months later in October 2022, Reina-Perez was detained again. This time, he was arrested near the Canadian border in Vermont while acting as a suspected ‘foot guide’ to five other people who had just crossed the northern border illegally.
Despite the circumstances, Reina-Perez was released again after telling Border Patrol agents he ‘intended to live in the state of Washington’, according to an affidavit. The document added that following his release, Reina-Perez ‘again failed to check in with ICE as a required condition of his release’.
Read more at: dailymail.co.uk