WASHINGTON — Prosecutors have charged the leader of an international human smuggling ring who conspired to illegally bring dozens of migrants across the northern border to New York City and other locations in the US, according to unsealed court filings.
Francisco Antonio Luna Rosado, a 27-year-old migrant from the Dominican Republic, ran a roughly 70-member trafficking group that sought to bring at least 48 illegal immigrants — including young children — from Central and South America from Canada into northern Vermont, the filings stated.
From there, filings in Vermont district court Wednesday also alleged, Jesus Hernandez Ortiz, 37, of Puerto Rico and other members in 70-person encrypted chat messaging platform would drive to pick up the migrants to “New York City and beyond.”
The migrants were flown into southern Canada before linking up with Luna Rosado using cellular location data on the messaging app…