NY woman charged with smuggling individuals from India into US

New York, Dec 6 (PTI) A 42-year-old woman has been charged for her role in an international smuggling conspiracy under which individuals primarily from India were brought illegally to the US across the border from Canada.

Stacey Taylor of Plattsburgh, New York, appeared for an arraignment this week after a federal grand jury in Albany returned an indictment in October charging her for her role in the smuggling conspiracy, according to an official statement on Friday.

Court records show that US Border Patrol agents interdicted Taylor’s vehicle near Churubusco, New York, near the Quebec border in the early morning hours in January, and found four foreign nationals inside her vehicle.

The four men - three Indian nationals and one Canadian national - had crossed the US-Canadian border illegally, without inspection.  When law enforcement later examined Taylor’s cellphone, they observed text messages that indicated that she had been involved in multiple other smuggling ventures in the days prior.

Since her January 2025 arrest, she was implicated in a smuggling conspiracy as recently as September this year.

According to the indictment, Taylor is charged with conspiring with others to engage in alien smuggling and four counts of alien smuggling for profit, with three counts being second or subsequent offences.

If convicted, she faces a mandatory minimum penalty of five years in prison per count of alien smuggling for profit, and additional time for second and subsequent offences, Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division Matthew Galeotti said in the statement. PTI YAS GRS GRS