Canadian man charged in smuggling scheme that killed family of four

Officials arrested Timothy Oakes for his role in a human smuggling operation that left a family of four dead, according to a Tuesday release from the Department of Justice. Prosecutors charged Oakes, a dual Canadian American citizen, after two parents and their toddler-aged children died while being smuggled into the United States in 2023. Prosecutors charged Oakes with conspiring to engage in alien smuggling, along with four counts of alien smuggling for profit, and another four counts of alien smuggling resulting in death. New Yorkers Dakota Montour, Kawisiiostha Celecia Sharrow, and Janet Terrance had already pleaded guilty to charges for their involvement with the fatal scheme.

How did the operation work? Oakes served as a key leader in an operation that regularly smuggled illegal migrants into New York from Canada by crossing the St. Lawrence River in boats, according to court filings. Oakes regularly charged about $1,000 for every alien ferried across the river with his brother, Casey, to his conspirators in New York. In March 2023, Oakes transported a Romanian family of four to a boat launch where Casey would navigate the family across the river. However, the boat capsized during the crossing, which killed all four members of the family and Casey, according to the DOJ.

Oakes’ arrest came weeks after another pair of convicted human smugglers was sentenced for a human smuggling scheme across the Canadian border that left another family of four dead. Florida resident Steve Shand and Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel were sentenced in May after an Indian family of four froze to death in January 2022 during a botched smuggling operation. A husband and wife with their 11-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son became separated from a larger group while trying to cross the border during a snowstorm, according to a federal complaint against Shand and Patel. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the family frozen the next morning, yards from the border.

Dig deeper: Read my previous reporting on Shand and Patel’s trial and sentencing for more background on their case.