The Daily Mail has revealed an illegal migrant smuggling operation that’s getting much less attention than the U.S. southern border.

The outlet claims a New Jersey-based illegal migrant gang is conducting the scheme for $6,000 per individual to sneak migrants into the country from the Canadian border.

Unsurprisingly, it gets even worse.

Court filings reportedly indicate ringleaders were busted by authorities on multiple occasions.

However, authorities released the smugglers and they continued to operate.

The ringleaders have allegedly moved anywhere from dozens to hundreds of migrants into the United States from the “scarcely-guarded border between between Quebec and Vermont.”

Daily Mail reports:

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.

“With the huge asylum-seeker concentrations and with all of those people crossing the border and with the huge increase in the amount of enforcement that is going on on the southern border, it is probably, if you have an option, a lot easier to try to get in without inspection across the Canadian border,” said Philip Kasinitz, a professor of immigration studies at the CUNY Graduate Center,” according to the New York Post.

More from the New York Post:

In June, Elmer Bran-Galvez, allegedly a driver for the smuggling ring, was stopped by border agents in Franklin, Vermont transporting four illegal immigrants, telling authorities he was paid around $1,800 for each illicit passenger — but was not charged, according to the outlet.

Last year, more than 10,000 migrants were busted trying to get into the US from Canada illegally, nearly five times the 2022 figure — an indication of the massive rush across the northern border, the outlet said.

Two of the New Jersey gang’s ringleaders — Jhon Reina-Perez, 34, and Victor Lopez-Padilla, 35 — were finally arrested by federal authorities, but it hasn’t stopped the flow of migrants.

Reina-Perez, a Colombian national, crossed the US southern border in Texas in April 2022 and was released pending “immigration proceedings” but failed to check in with authorities and was busted again in October of that year — only to be released again.

Lopez-Padilla, who is from Guatemala, crossed into the US in Arizona in June 2019 and was also released pending future proceedings, leaving him and his accomplices free to run the smuggling scam.

According to the Daily Mail, Lopez-Padilla may have ties to jailed narcotrafficker Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, the alleged co-ringleader making several references to the drug kingpin on his Facebook account.

Despite now finally being in custody, a third cohort, identified as Guatemalan national Simon Jacinto-Ramos, remains on the loose and running the operation.

NewsNation reports:

 

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