A Colombian asylum seeker who lives in Saint-Hyacinthe would have specialized in the clandestine smuggling of Mexican migrants, according to American justice, which wants his extradition.
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Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar is accused by American justice of having organized several clandestine crossings between Canada and the United States, one of which was recently fatal.
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Romain Schué (View profile)Romain Schué
At the wheel of a red SUV on September 1, Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar drove four Mexican nationals on the small road of Montée Glass, in Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle.
This route is well known to Canadian authorities since it runs parallel to the Canadian-American border and connects the famous Roxham Road to the ' ;Highway 15, which leads to New York State.
According to our information, this sector is regularly used by migrants who wish to go clandestinely to the United States by taking, on foot, the neighboring woods and fields.
This is where the body of Fritznel Richard, a Haitian who wanted to leave Canada, was found on January 4, 2023. This man died of hypothermia.
However, at the end of summer, neither the driver , Uribe-Tobar, nor his passengers had time to leave their vehicle to reach the woods. Arrested by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) agent who verified their identity and status in Canada, they were finally able to leave.
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A few hours later, the same four Mexicans tried their luck again. The success was short-lived. As soon as they crossed, they were arrested by American agents.
This information appears in court documents filed in the Superior Court of Quebec, which must rule on an extradition request made by the United States. At their request, Uribe-Tobar was arrested by the RCMP in late December before being remanded in custody in a Montreal prison.
According to his lawyer, this 35-year-old father, originally from Colombia, arrived in Canada about 18 months ago to seek asylum before settling in an apartment in Saint- Hyacinthe, on the South Shore of Montreal.
Uribe-Tobar poses a danger to the public.
A quote from Extract from a summary of the facts presented by the American justice system
D' after American justice, Uribe-Tobar would be involved in several clandestine crossings. The Americans also suspect him of being behind the fatal crossing of Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores last month.
The body of this Mexican national was found on December 14 by American police in the Great Chazy River, near the village of Champlain.
According to the testimony of Samuel Métivier, a Canadian gendarme, which Radio-Canada was able to obtain, Uribe-Tobar was seen on December 11 alongside the future victim, who was pregnant. It was on this day that Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores was dropped off a stone's throw from the border.
Uribe-Tobar was then using the same car, which had already been intercepted on September 1, writes the RCMP agent, who also gives details on how Vasquez-Flores and Uribe-Tobar came into contact.
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Photo album: Jaime Garcia
According to these court documents, Uribe-Tobar is active on TikTok under the pseudonym Jaime Garcia. It was after seeing an ad on this account that Vasquez-Flores' husband contacted him to bring his wife to the United States.
As already revealed by Investigation, several criminal networks which sometimes have links with Mexican cartels use social networks to promote their illegal crossing offers. During our research, we then spotted a multitude of ads and videos from Jaime Garcia coming from the same profile identified by the American justice system.
Since last summer, according to our findings, this man also offered his transportation service on a private Facebook group intended for Mexicans living in Montreal.
We have a departure this week for Plattsburgh, he wrote on September 6, for example. Fast and secure, he specified several times, adding photos of American and Canadian flags or even images of New York.
In these advertisements, Jaime Garcia regularly indicated several telephone numbers with area codes for the Montreal region and Mexico. One of them appears in the evidence intended for the Superior Court of Quebec. This telephone number would also be directly linked to Uribe-Tobar, according to the Société de l'assurance automobile du Québec, specifies the accusing party.
Using his own profile, he also published photos of himself, his loved ones and even a gun.
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A photo of Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar released by American justice.
Targeted by three counts in the United States linked to human trafficking, Uribe-Tobar requested, according to American justice, 2500 $US to Ana Karen Vasquez-Flores's husband, Miguel Mojarro-Magana, to take his wife to the United States.
[Mr. Mojarro-Magana] saw an advertisement for passages from Canada to the United States on TikTok, reads a summary of the facts.
Different text messages, with a number linked to Uribe-Tobar according to court documents, were subsequently exchanged between the two men. Jaime Garcia describes a journey, without a guide, lasting between two and a half to three hours, depending on the speed at which you walk, before sending the numbers of a bank account in an American bank .
During his partner's crossing, Mojarro-Magana also asked his interlocutor for news. She is crossing, friend, he got as an answer. U.S. authorities believe that at this point Uribe-Tobar was remotely directing Vasquez-Flores, who was eventually found lifeless by officers from the Clinton Sheriff's Office on December 14.
Incarcerated in Bordeaux prison and present by videoconference at the Montreal courthouse on January 12, Uribe-Tobar did not say a word during a short hearing attended by relatives, including his pregnant wife, who was in tears on the benches of the court.
His representative, Luc Trempe, obtained a postponement of the examination of this extradition request until February 23, the time to examine the American evidence.
It's a very difficult humanitarian and human situation for everyone at the moment.
A quote from Luc Trempe, lawyer for Jhader Augusto Uribe-Tobar
His client, who speaks neither French nor English, would be in a bit of shock. We didn't even talk about the facts. Before denying anything, we will see the whole thing, he explained later in the corridors of the courthouse.
We know that in the United States, the sentences are more serious, underlines his lawyer. He risks deportation [to his country of origin].
Teilor Stone has been a reporter on the news desk since 2013. Before that she wrote about young adolescence and family dynamics for Styles and was the legal affairs correspondent for the Metro desk. Before joining Thesaxon , Teilor Stone worked as a staff writer at the Village Voice and a freelancer for Newsday, The Wall Street Journal, GQ and Mirabella. To get in touch, contact me through my teilor@nizhtimes.com 1-800-268-7116
