Man pleads guilty to smuggling in connection with deaths of 8 migrants in Akwesasne

MONTREAL — A dual American-Canadian citizen has pleaded guilty for his role in a human smuggling operation that resulted in the deaths of eight migrants in the St. Lawrence River in 2023.

The U.S. Department of Justice says 35-year-old Timothy Oakes pleaded guilty on Monday to conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, to four counts of alien smuggling for financial gain, and to four counts of alien smuggling resulting in death.

The department says Oakes, who is from the Akwesasne Mohawk territory straddling the Canada-U.S. border, was a key facilitator in the smuggling operation that left a Romanian family of four dead while trying to cross the river to the United States.

A total of nine people drowned after their boat capsized during the trip, including the Romanian couple and their two young children, a family of four from India, and Oakes’s brother, Casey Oakes.