A Somali refugee has been sentenced to four years in prison for twice helping smuggle migrants across the Manitoba border in 2024 for money — the second time while he was out on bail for the first offence.
Abdi Hassan Ali, 33, pleaded guilty Wednesday in provincial court to violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by “organizing, inducing, aiding or abetting people not in possession of a visa or passport.”
Provincial court Judge Rachel Rusen accepted the joint recommendation of four years from the Crown and Ali’s lawyer. The mandatory minimum sentence is three years.
Because of time already spent in custody, Ali has already served the equivalent of 960 days — nearly two-thirds of his sentence — leaving 500 days left to serve.
“Your participation, which was premeditated and deliberate, placed several vulnerable people in real and imminent danger,” Rusen told Ali before handing down the sentence. “The fact that nobody was injured or killed walking hours in cold weather conditions in a foreign land is by luck.”
Court heard Ali was twice arrested in 2024 for transporting foreign nationals who had spent hours crossing the U.S. border on foot into Manitoba during dangerous winter conditions.
Crown prosecutor Colin Gray said the first incident happened on Feb. 22, 2024, when an RCMP officer in the rural municipality of Macdonald pulled over a speeding car on Highway 3. Ali, who was driving, initially said he was taking his passengers to a shelter, then told the officer he was an Uber driver. He was let go with a warning.
A records check revealed it was the third time in months RCMP had encountered Ali, and officers determined there were grounds to detain him for human smuggling, court heard.
A search located Ali’s vehicle later that day on McGillivray Boulevard in Winnipeg, where he was arrested. He was found to have US$2,300 on him, and eight foreign nationals were also found in the vehicle.
“Several of them indicated harrowing travel stories from their country of origin,” Gray told court.
One of the passengers said he travelled alone from Chad to a shelter in New York before making his way to Minneapolis, Minn., where he paid $800 to reach the border. He paid $12,000 in total to ultimately get into Canada, Gray said.
“To traverse the border … the individuals were using maps on their phone and walking for hours,” he said. “This is February, in Manitoba.”
Ali was released after just under two weeks in custody, on conditions that he not leave Winnipeg — “to restrict his ability to coordinate further transports” — and not possess a password-protected phone.
Second smuggling attempt while out on bail
On Dec. 1, 2024, with the temperature at approximately -20 to -25 with the wind chill, RCMP received a report from a farmer who had seen footprints heading into Canada from the U.S. border.
Patrolling RCMP officers came across a couple who said they had picked up a person they’d seen left behind in a ditch, after watching five or six people get into a white pickup truck, Gray said.
RCMP officers located the pickup truck — which Ali had rented using Alberta plates — and pulled it over, at which point five foreign nationals fled, Gray said. Ali was found to have a password-protected cellphone, in breach of his release conditions, and was arrested.
The people who fled the vehicle were later located by Mounties using infrared cameras.
Gray referenced the deaths of an Indian family of four who froze near Emerson, Man., in January 2022 while trying to walk into Minnesota with a group of migrants, saying Ali’s sentence must serve as a deterrent.
The bodies of Jagdish Patel, his wife Vaishaliben, and their two young children were found in a field near the border after they became separated from the group in a blizzard. Two men were later convicted on human-smuggling charges connected to that case.
“This was a situation where it was rather sophisticated, premeditated, planned, for commercial benefit and exceedingly dangerous,” Gray told court. “It enticed individuals — vulnerable individuals — across the border in very serious circumstances and on two different dates.”
‘Desire to help,’ defence lawyer says
Defence lawyer Brett Gladstone said that although Ali was motivated in part by money as he faced financial struggles, he also wanted to help foreign nationals find a safe place in Canada.
Court heard he was a mechanic in Somalia and fled political violence that had endangered his safety, and has a wife and six children. He had no prior criminal record.
“It’s difficult because you can understand from his perspective, having found a safe home, he wanted to help people find a safe home. This was not the right way to go about it,” Gladstone said.
“Mr. Ali made a mistake, but that desire was one that came not from desire to harm, but desire to help.”
Gladstone said there is a “clear path forward” for Ali, who has secured employment when he is released and wants to take care of the people that matter to him.
He is likely to face immigration consequences, including possible deportation, as a result of his conviction.
“You are a man with family, a wife and children ... and a community to support you,” Rusen said. “There is hope for you, and I don’t want you to lose the hope that you have for your future.”
