Oakville truck driver convicted of smuggling friend’s family into Canada
Published June 23, 2022 at 5:55 pm
Doing a favour for a friend has resulted in a smuggling conviction and fine for an Oakville truck driver.
Andrea Zafirati was convicted Thursday in an Ontario Court of Justice in St. Catharines of a human smuggling-related offence under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act and was fined $5,000.
Zafirati, a commercial truck driver, had been asked to help smuggle a friend’s family into Canada across the Peace Bridge to Fort Erie.
Immigration officials had denied the family entry into Canada previously and then the pandemic followed keeping the Albanian immigrant from his wife and children for two years.
Zafirati, who was also from Albania, agreed and the court was told that in December 2021 he drove his tractor-trailer over the Peace Bridge into Canada.
An officer with the Canada Border Services Agency inspected the truck and found a woman and two children hidden under blankets.
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