An Indian citizen living in Santa Rosa, California has been sentenced by a U.S. District Court in Seattle to six months in prison for conspiracy to smuggle Indian citizens into the U.S.
Sushil Kumar, 35, and three others were indicted in connection with a scheme to smuggle non-citizens across the northern border for profit, according to a press release from Acting U.S. Attorney Teal Luthy Miller.
According to court records, the group was connected to two smuggling episodes involving eight different citizens of India in November and December 2023.
On Nov 27, 2023, a motion-activated camera caught multiple people jumping a fence near the Boundary Village Apartments in Blaine, Washington. The fence is a quarter mile east of Peace Arch Park. Border Patrol agents near the apartments saw five people run to a white minivan. The vehicle was stopped by Border Patrol.
Five citizens of India were in the van with California resident Bobby Joe Green, 68, as the driver. When questioned, three of them told U.S. Border Patrol agents that they saw Kumar at Peace Arch Park prior to crossing the border illegally and identified him in 6-pack photo lineups.
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Two others stated that they communicated with Kumar via WhatsApp prior to Nov. 27, 2023. One of them stated that Kumar instructed him to jump over a specific fence, and that he sent a screenshot of his live location near the fence.
The investigation revealed that Kumar and 26-year-old Rajat Rajat directed the Indians on where and how to cross the border. Rajat paid Green to transport them from the border. Rajat asked for monetary payments from the Indians for being smuggled into the U.S.
Similarly, in December 2023, Rajat met three Indians in Peace Arch Park and allegedly directed them how to cross through the park and get into a car driven by Sneha. The car was stopped, and the Indians were interviewed. They indicated they had promised to make monetary payments to be smuggled into the U.S. Rajat was picked up near the border after Sneha and the three Indian nationals taken into custody.
Three of the four defendants have pleaded guilty. Rajat Rajat, will be sentenced on Apr. 23, 2025. Bobby Joe Green will be sentenced on Mar. 13, 2025. The fourth defendant Sneha, 20, a citizen of India who is in the U.S. on a student visa and goes by just her last name, is scheduled to go to trial on a superseding indictment on May 12, 2025. Sneha was arrested in Renton and released on an appearance bond.
At the sentencing hearing U.S. District Judge Tana Lin noted that those smuggled into the country are vulnerable. “That they wanted to be in the country doesn’t mean they were not exploited. Each was charged $5,000 to $10,000 which is months or years of their salary in the country from which they were coming… Human smuggling undermines our country’s ability to regulate the border at a real cost,” Lin said.