A convicted fentanyl dealer deported last year from the U.S. recently found his way into Canada and then hired a human smuggler who moved him across the border into Vermont, court records show.
Luis Edison Capellan-Ortiz, from the Dominican Republic, was arrested by U.S. Border Patrol on Oct. 20. They said they found him hiding in the woods about four kilometres from the Quebec-Vermont border.
Capellan-Ortiz allegedly ran into the woods after border agents disrupted a suspected human smuggling run involving him, three other people and a black Honda Pilot SUV with New York plates that tried to pick the group up along Route 105 in Vermont, according to U.S. federal court records.
“Capellan-Ortiz claimed that he was threatened by another man in his country, feared for his family’s lives, and left the Dominican Republic [for] Canada to illegally enter the U.S.,” said the court record, a criminal complaint filed with the U.S. Federal Court, District of Vermont.
During the interrogation, Capellan-Ortiz also said he paid someone named Ricardo $2,000 US to smuggle him into the U.S. through the forests between Quebec and Vermont.
A 2018 Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) narcotics probe using informants, surveillance and phone intercepts, led to Capellan-Ortiz’s arrest and conviction for fentanyl dealing in New Jersey, according to court records. He was deported to the Dominican Republic from the U.S. in May 2023.
Human smuggling from Canada to U.S. rising sharply
Southbound human smuggling activity over the Canada-U.S. border between eastern Ontario, Quebec, New York State and Vermont has risen sharply over the past two years.
U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended over 19,000 individuals, from 97 different countries, through this area over a 12-month span ending Oct. 2, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection statistics.
That number is more than total apprehension throughout this same area over the previous 17 fiscal years combined, according to Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia, who is in charge of the region, which is known as the Swanton Sector.
Human smuggling is a lucrative business, with some organized crime groups charging on average between $1,500 to $6,000 US per person on trips that often begin in Toronto or Montreal, then head through borderland areas of rivers, farmlands and forests.
Some journeys turn fatal. This past December, Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores, a 33-year-old pregnant Mexican woman, was found dead near Champlain, N.Y., after crossing the U.S. border from Canada.
The RCMP announced in June it had taken down an international smuggling ring allegedly connected to the St. Lawrence River drowning deaths of two families — one from India and the other from Romania — in March 2023. Both families were being smuggled into the U.S.
U.S. officials have dismantled a human smuggling operation bringing Latin Americans from Canada into the U.S. — a ‘lucrative market’ for many organized crime groups on both sides of the border, an RCMP official says.
Man had possession, trafficking convictions
Capellan-Ortiz was arrested on the morning of Oct. 20, after a U.S. Border Patrol agent began tailing a black Honda Pilot at about 9:30 a.m. because it was passing through a border area that had recently seen a lot of human smuggling activity.
The agent tailed the SUV for about five kilometres until he saw it stop, then witnessed a group of four individuals run from a forested area toward the vehicle. The agent flashed his patrol lights and sirens and three of the individuals surrendered, but Capellan-Ortiz fled into the brush to hide until he was apprehended.
A records check soon revealed that Capellan-Ortiz had been convicted of possessing and conspiring to traffic more than 400 grams of fentanyl and was sentenced to 41 months by the U.S. Federal Court, District of New Jersey. According to the court documents, the HSI investigation showed that Capellan-Ortiz was supplying fentanyl, cocaine and heroin to a street-level dealer in Perth Amboy, N.J.
CBC News reached out to Immigration Minister Marc Miller and Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc for comment, but did not hear back before the deadline.
A spokesperson for LeBlanc said in an emailed statement that the minister “regularly discusses issues related to human smuggling networks at the Canada-U.S. border” with the U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security. The statement said the RCMP’s work to disrupt the group linked to the deaths in the St. Lawrence River was an example of cross-border co-operation between law enforcement.
“People who violate the integrity of our border and put the lives of vulnerable people at risk will be held to account,” said the statement from spokesperson Gabriel Brunet.
MP Tom Kmiec, the Conservative critic on the immigration, refugee and citizenship file, says Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government has “broken the immigration system” and left the country “vulnerable to criminals seeking to take advantage of it.”
Kmiec says the Liberals have failed to stem the flow of guns from the U.S., allowed alleged ISIS-inspired militants into the country and allowed internationally-fuelled auto theft to skyrocket.
“And now we learn a convicted fentanyl trafficker evaded Trudeau’s broken systems, putting Canadians at risk,” said Kmiec, in an emailed statement.
U.S. federal court records also revealed that two U.S. citizens were paid in fentanyl to smuggle individuals by boat from Ingleside, Ont., across the St. Lawrence River, to Massena, N.Y.
A U.S. farmer shows CBC News how an overwhelming number of migrants are crossing over illegally from Quebec through his land, even after the recent arrest of a suspected terrorist in Ormstown, Que., put a spotlight on border security.
U.S. Border Patrol agents arrested the two on the evening of Oct. 29 after they were found in “visible distress” by an island on the St. Lawrence River while trying to move two people from the U.K. into the U.S.
Elected U.S. officials along border areas have voiced concerns about the increase in human smuggling originating in Canada. The issue has also been raised by U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, along with former Republican primary candidates Nikki Haley and Vivek Ramaswamy.