PIO jailed for five years in America for smuggling foreigners including Indians

Washington: A 61-year-old Indian has been jailed in the US for five years for smuggling foreigners, including a majority of Indians, into America, the Department of Justice has said.

Yadvinder Singh Sandhu pleaded guilty early this year, saying he personally assisted around 400 aliens to unlawfully enter the US between 2013 and 2015, according to the Department of Justice statement. The human smuggling carried out by him resulted in at least one death and endangered the lives of many, it said.

Sandhu, charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico on March 15, 2017, used multiple names including Yadvinder Singh Bhamba, Bhupinder Kumar, Rajinder Singh, Robert Howard Scott and Atkins Lawson Howard.

According to admissions in Sandhu's plea agreement, since 2013, he had a leadership role in a human smuggling conspiracy operating out of the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Puerto Rico, India and elsewhere.

He also oversaw and directed co-conspirators operating out of the Caribbean.

Sandhu and other members of the conspiracy made flight arrangements for foreign nationals to travel from India through other countries including Thailand, the United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Iran, Panama, Venezuela, Belize and Haiti to the Dominican Republic.