Another Failed Smuggling Operation With Tragic Consequences

"It costs $2500 America[n], it is worked through Montreal and they are left in the city of Plattsburgh, NY."

"Well, look, truth is the only certain thing in life is death, but we are effective."

"She  is crossing, friend. Silence."

"Bro, hello, I think she got wet or turned off her cellphone." 

"I told them what happened and that she is pregnant."

"They are activated, friend."

Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar, Colombian living in Quebec; human smuggler 

RCMP officers unwrap a new warning sign for asylum seekers on the border at Roxham Road from New York into Canada Saturday March 25, 2023 in Champlain, New York. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Miguel Mujaro-Magana, living in the United States came across a video on TikTok that advertised crossings from Canada to the United States. There was a phone number to call, the area code identified suburbs near Montreal. He texted to enquire about the possibility of smuggling his wife, in Canada, through to the United States. This was December 7, 2023, winter had firmly set in. 

 

The  texted conversations took place in Spanish, perhaps a reassuring measure of relief to Miguel, anxious to have his wife join him in the United States. That she was pregnant was an additional spur of concern over the venture to illegally smuggle her from Canada to the U.S. "How much do they walk bro", he asked in his concern over the advanced pregnancy of his wife, Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores. Two and a half  hours, was the response, depending on the alacrity of the walker. "And is it safe?" asked the husband.

 

Northern New York on December 11, 2023 was in the throes of winter, with a heavy, wet snowfall forecasted, and temperatures hovering around freezing. Mojarro-Magana arranged a money transfer          as his wife was collected, initiating the process of smuggling her into the U.S. Ana Karen took a photo of the red GMC Terrain SUV with a Quebec license plate that had arrived to pick her up, and forwarded it to her husband.

 

Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar, a 37-year-old Colombian national, pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to smuggling and conspiracy charges for trafficking a woman who drowned in a Clinton County river. Will Waldron/Times Union 

She sat there in the vehicle at an Esso gas station in St.Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec, about seven kilometres north of the American border, while the smuggler awaited proof that her husband had sent the required  payment Three minutes after proof in the form of a photograph of a JP Morgan Chase deposit receipt, was received at 2:38 p.m., the money deposited to a chequing account, they were on their way,  heading south toward the Canada-U.S. border.

 

The short trip saw Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores cross two kilometres west of the Champlain border crossing station, with the smuggler monitoring her walking progress through her shared phone location. She was directed to the bank of the Great Chazy River near the intersection of Perry Mills Road and Missile Base Road in Champlain, New York. Walking, she texted her husband as well as the smuggler. The river, she was told was 'wadable' regardless of the weather.

 

"I'm very nervous" her husband texted to the smuggler on being advised that his wife was crossing successfully. Ana Karen was directed by Vasquez-Flores: "Get off further ahead, at your right hand side. There is a wall that slows down the river", he messaged her at 6:17 p.m. A message that failed to deliver. Investigators later theorized that this was the point in her journey where frigid water swept her away. Fifty minutes passed, and hearing nothing from her, the smuggler messaged her husband of the lack of communication.

 

A view of the Great Chazy River in Champlain, a town at the Canada-U.S. border between the state of New York and Quebec, on Jan. 22, 2025. (Carlos Osorio/Reuters)

 

That night Mujarro-Magana desperately watched and waited for his wife. "Are  your people waiting for her there?" he asked the smuggler. "And you can't search?" he urged. The plan worked out was for Mojarro-Magana to meet up with his wife following her crossing at the McDonald's in Champlain, N.Y. When no news of her whereabouts ensued and he was notified her phone battery was exhausted he contacted U.S. Border Patrol Agents advising them of  his search for his wife.

 

Footprints in the snow were found by law enforcement officials, that led into the river. Her body was found on December 14, 2023 in the river at the village of Champlain; cause of death determined to be asphyxia as a result of drowning.

 

Two months earlier the RCMP had encountered Uribe-Tobar in a red GMC Terrain SUV on a road in Quebec some 1.4 kilometres from the U.S. border, driving four Mexican passengers. Driver and passengers were released, and shortly afterward, the same four Mexican nationals illegally crossed he border in the middle of the night and were subsequently apprehended by U.S. authorities.

 

It was that traffic stop, however, that later assisted in connecting Uribe-Tobar with the vehicle used to smuggle Ana Karen toward and across the U.S. border, with its tragic consequences. Quebec car insurance records were used to connect Uribe-Tobar to the phone number in arranging the failed crossing. Uribe-Tobar pleaded guilty as charged in the illegal smuggling case that ended in the death of a pregnant woman. His sentencing is to take place in February of 2026. 

 

An RCMP officer looks over the border between Quebec and New York state in St. Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., an area near where Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores entered a river and subsequently drowned. Photo by Christinne Muschi /THE CANADIAN PRESS