Human smugglers sent 2 families to their deaths as RCMP closed in, court records show

After the Chaudhari family landed in Montreal on a flight from Winnipeg they walked out the airport doors to a waiting grey minivan allegedly driven by a key player in a human smuggling network that would eventually lead the four Indian nationals to their deaths,  according to court records obtained by CBC News.

RCMP surveillance units picked up the grey Dodge Caravan carrying the family after it took a westbound Highway 401 exit and stopped at an Esso gas station in South Lancaster, Ont. Police watched the family members "briefly enter the store," according to the records filed in Ontario court. 

The minivan, which had a tracking device surreptitiously installed by police, then drove the Indian family to the Martin's Inn in Cornwall, Ont., where, shortly after 9 p.m., on March 23, 2023, surveillance units photographed them entering the motel's office. That night, father Pravinbhai, 49, mother Dakshaben, 45, daughter Vidhiben, 23, and son Mitkumar, 20, stayed in Room 6. 

Six days later, they drowned in the St. Lawrence River, along with four members of a Romanian family that included two Canadian children and the boatman piloting the craft in the failed human smuggling run into the U.S. 

At the time of the river deaths, the RCMP's Integrated Border Enforcement Team was meticulously building a case against the suspected Montreal head of the human smuggling network, Thesingarasan Rasiah, and his alleged main bagman and driver, Joel Portillo, the registered owner of the Dodge Caravan.

RCMP investigators were tracking the movement of Portillo's van and gathering intelligence from foreign nationals detained following smuggling runs intercepted by Canadian and U.S. authorities. 

The court records, affidavits running hundreds of pages long and sworn by an RCMP officer, form part of several filings known as an Information to Obtain (ITO), which are used for securing warrants. 

Limited criminal code tools

The RCMP investigation, which began in the summer of 2022, turned its focus on Rasiah in early 2023 and was still in the midst of gathering evidence at the time of the families' deaths, according to a source with knowledge of the investigation. 

It takes extensive work to build a case for conspiracy charges, one of the few avenues for police to deal with south-bound human smuggling.

RCMP investigators realized in the aftermath of the river deaths that their surveillance had spotted the two families while they were in the hands of the smuggling network, according to the documents. 

Police compared the clothing worn by the Indian family in a news photo with surveillance footage from the Montreal airport, and investigators identified the Romanian family as being on the March 27, 2023, footage from the parking lot of a Cornwall Super 8 motel.

"I believe that these deaths have aggravated the conspiracy charge as a result of this event," stated RCMP Cpl. John Snider, in one affidavit dated April 14, 2023, referring to Rasiah, Portillo and the secondary drivers involved. 

At that point, Snider did not feel investigators had the evidence to support a criminal negligence causing death charge.

But Rasiah and Portillo are both facing multiple charges, including several counts for conspiracy to break a law in the U.S. — specifically the alien smuggling law — which has a comparable Canadian version under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act. 

Both men remain in Canadian custody. Neither have been convicted. Their next court date is scheduled for Feb. 13.

Romanian family charged thousands of dollars

The ITOs provide no additional details on the movements of the Chaudhari family between when they checked into Martin's Inn and when their bodies were pulled from the water. 

CBC News previously reported that the family allegedly paid $100,000 to be smuggled into the U.S. through Canada, and the trip was arranged from India through an intermediary in Canada. The family also moved from a motel to locations where there was no water for showers and little food, according to information provided by Pravinbhai's brother to police in India.

The ITOs reveal that the Romanian family — father Florin Iordache, mother Cristina, and their two Canadian children, daughter Evelin, 2, and son Elyen, 16 months — paid between $10,000 to $15,000 to someone named Babuchi, an "Indian guy" who lived in Canada and "brings a lot of people into the U.S." 

Iordache "saved up his money to pay Babuchi," and his brother lent him $2,000 to help, according to the filing. 

Babuchi used a phone number with a Calgary 403 area code that was also connected to a disrupted March 23, 2023, smuggling run involving Romanian migrants trying to enter the U.S. 

$1.4 million moved through bank accounts

The records allege that from August 2022 to June 2023, Rasiah's network tried to move more than one hundred people in both directions across the Canada-U.S. border. 

Investigators believe about 45 people were successfully smuggled into the U.S. or Canada through that network, while records show that 31 individuals were intercepted by U.S. and Canadian authorities after crossing the border. Canadian authorities stopped 25 people from getting into the U.S. during the same time period, according to the filings. 

Financial data obtained by police revealed that over the same time period, about $1.4 million moved through bank accounts controlled by Rasiah and his wife, who is now deceased. Police also found $384,000 in cash at Rasiah's Montreal residence during a search. 

Investigators say they discovered that Rasiah was plugged into a wider, international human smuggling web that allowed him to bring people into Canada from overseas by first moving them into the U.S. through Mexico.

The majority of the smuggling attempts listed in the ITOs focus on Rasiah's network moving people from Canada into the U.S. The U.S.-bound operations allegedly worked through Portillo, who acted as Rasiah's primary driver and bagman. 

Portillo, carrying envelopes, transported migrants from a suspected stash house on the western outskirts of Montreal to motels in Cornwall, the ITOs allege. In Cornwall, Portillo would hand over envelopes containing cash for secondary drivers pre-arranged by Rasiah, who would then ferry the foreign nationals to Cornwall Island, part of Akwesasne, a Haudenosaunee community that spreads south of Cornwall across the Canada-U.S. border. 

From Lake Ontario, the border cuts through the belly of the St. Lawrence River until it starts running along the southern shore of Cornwall Island and hits its eastern tip. Here, it suddenly veers sharply south and inland. The St. Lawrence River continues, slowly sloping northeast. 

This leaves two eastern portions of Akwesasne territory on the Canadian side wedged between the river to the north and the border to the south — a geography created by an imposed line that severed community and family lands, leaving a jurisdictional grey zone.  

Roads criss-cross this line outside the control of Canadian or U.S. border authorities. 

In decades past, Akwesasne residents used back roads and trails across the border to sell fish and baskets to U.S. buyers to avoid customs duties. Big Tobacco in the late 1980s and early 1990s used the area to smuggle products back into Canada to avoid taxes, laying the foundation for a multimillion-dollar unlicensed tobacco industry in Akwesasne that established smuggling routes that would later be used by Rasiah's network.

Rasiah hired a handful of freelancing local boat pilots to ferry migrants across the water. They launched from specific spots along the southern shore of Cornwall Island, including one waterfront property owned by an Akwesasne resident who allegedly took a cut from the traffic flowing through his land.   

Drivers — allegedly arranged through Rasiah's Akwesasne contacts — would then wait for boats on the other shore to transport foreign nationals to places like Plattsburgh, NY.  

Links to U.S. case

The ITOs link Rasiah and Portillo to three Akwesasne residents — Stephanie Square, Janet Terrance and Dakota Montour — who were charged by U.S. authorities in connection to the March 29, 2023, river deaths, according to a nine-count indictment filed with the U.S. Federal Court for the Northern District of New York.  

The U.S. indictment is the result of a parallel investigation that involved the FBI and was led by Homeland Security Investigations. 

Terrance's black Dodge SUV was captured on video from the Cornwall Super 8 motel two days before the river deaths on March 27, 2023, and seen departing with the Romanian family after they were allegedly transferred to her vehicle from Portillo's minivan, according to the RCMP filings. 

"A male was observed exiting the grey Dodge Caravan's driver side holding the hand of a toddler, and a female exited the passenger side holding what appeared to be an infant in her arms," said the April 14, 2023, ITO.

Terrance was released on conditions in August 2024 and her trial date is set for April 21.

Montour was also allegedly in contact with Rasiah, according to data extracted from his phone and reviewed by the Canada Border Services Agency. The data "confirmed that communications existed between the Montour phone and Rasiah's mobile device … and Rasiah's WhatsApp profile," said the May 24, 2024, ITO. The documents make no reference to dates or frequency of contact.

Montour pleaded guilty on Jan. 23 in U.S. federal court to transporting the Romanian family from Cornwall to Cornwall Island. 

Montour admitted that he was also waiting to pick up both families on the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River that night, according to the plea agreement. The plea agreement states that the death of "the Romanian family, the Indian family and a boat operator" should be an aggravating factor in Montour's sentencing.

Square was allegedly involved in at least one Rasiah-orchestrated south-bound smuggling run and one north-bound smuggling run, according to the ITO filings with Ontario court. 

Surveillance and testimony from an arrested Indian national placed Square in a Cornwall motel room on Jan. 2, 2023, receiving an envelope from an individual in a group of foreign nationals who had gotten it from Portillo.

Later that evening, a group of eight Indian nationals boarded a boat that launched across the St. Lawrence River from Cornwall Island, landing in the Raquette Point area of Akwesasne, which is within the U.S. All were eventually apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol, including the one who handed Square the envelope. This case led the RCMP to turn their sights on Rasiah and the discovery of his alleged stash house based on information from one of the arrested Indian nationals, according to the filings.

On May 2, 2023, in the wake of the river deaths, surveillance captured Square in the passenger seat of a car with four Southeast Asian individuals who had been smuggled into Canada. They were then transferred to Portillo's van. Portillo then allegedly drove the individuals to Rasiah's Montreal home, according to the court filings. 

Square is currently in custody in Quebec facing an extradition request from the U.S., which alleges she was the one who co-ordinated the river crossing that ended in the deaths of the two families. 

The Cornwall RCMP said in a statement that it couldn't comment on specifics in the ITO documents because the matter is before the courts. 

"The RCMP is committed to being transparent and Canadians deserve to know the truth surrounding this issue," said the statement.