Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) announced on Thursday that it had broken up a major international human smuggling ring.

This comes following an investigation that began in 2022 after the Cornwall Regional Task Force discovered a human smuggling group that was smuggling immigrants from Canada to the US. The RCMP alleges that between July 2022 and June 2023, the group smuggled hundreds of migrants through the sparsely patrolled border along the St. Lawrence River t0 the US and that dangerous night-time crossings led to the death of some migrants. 

“Typically, the people being smuggled would be picked up and brought to either a hotel or residence close to the St. Lawrence River,” RCMP investigator Etienne Thauvette said. “From there, they would be driven to the water’s edge day or night and then directed onto a waiting boat. Smugglers would transport them across the river in any kind of weather with little regard for any risks to the lives of everyone on board.”

The RCMP has charged eight suspects from Ontario and Quebec for their participation in the group. These include two people from the Indigenous border community of Akwesasne, the same location where a family of four Indians and a family of four Romanians drowned last year trying to cross into the US. 

Border smuggling in this region has become increasingly popular. From 2022 to 2023 6,925 would-be migrants from 79 countries were apprehended by US Border Patrol agents in the Swanton sector, which encompasses the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec, a year-on-year increase of 550 percent.