A 49-year-old Indian was sentenced by the US District Court in Seattle to 45 months in prison for hatching a conspiracy to transport and harbour more than 800 Indian citizens into the country using the ride-hailing app Uber. According to the statement released by the US Department of Justice on Wednesday, the accused was identified as Rajinder Pal Singh, aka Jaspal Gill, and added he pleaded guilty in February 2023. As per the court documents, Singh acknowledged that he took in more than $5,00,000 as a key member of a smuggling ring bringing hundreds of Indian Nationals across the border from Canada and then to locations in the mid-west and beyond.
"Over four years, Singh arranged for more than 800 people to be smuggled into the US across the northern border and into Washington State,” said Acting US Attorney Tessa M. Gorman. She termed the conduct not just a security risk for America, but also "subjected those smuggled to security and safety risks during the often weeks-long smuggling route from India to the United States".
The Attorney observed that Singh’s participation in the conspiracy preyed upon the Indian Nationals’ hopes for a better life in the United States while saddling those smuggled with a crushing debt of as much as $70,000.
Court reveals modus operandi
According to records filed in the case, as early as July 2018, Singh and his coconspirators used the ride-share app to transport people who had illegally crossed the border from Canada to the Seattle area. Those records detail how trips beginning near the border in the early hours of the morning, would be split between different rides. For example, one Uber trip would be from the border to Sea-Tac airport, and then minutes later the second Uber trip would be from a nearby airport hotel to an address in Lacey, Washington, owned by Singh’s spouse.
All told, from mid-2018 to May 2022, Singh arranged more than 600 trips involving the transportation of Indian Nationals who had been illegally smuggled into the US.
Once the non-citizens had been smuggled into the US., Singh coordinated with other coconspirators who, using one-way vehicle rentals, would transport these individuals to their ultimate destinations outside Washington State.
17 Uber accounts tied to this smuggling ring
According to the release, the smuggling scheme has been underway since at least 2018. It slowed during the pandemic when Canada was not admitting non-citizens. However as pandemic restrictions were lifted, the smuggling scheme became active again. In all, the investigation estimates that between July 2018, and April 2022, the 17 Uber accounts tied to this smuggling ring ran up more than $80,000 in charges.
In addition to the search of the home in Lacey, law enforcement searched two of Singh’s residences in California. During the search of one of his homes in Elk Grove, California, investigators found about $45,000 in cash as well as counterfeit identity documents. They also found copies of falsified documents that had been submitted to immigration judges in Washington during bond hearings for non-citizens who had been smuggled into the United States by Singh and his coconspirators, but who had been arrested by immigration authorities after illegally crossing the border.
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