The U.S. Department of Justice said Friday it had extradited a woman from Canada on a human smuggling charge that resulted in the deaths of a family of four. File Photo by Mike Theiler/UPI | License Photo
The U.S. Department of Justice Friday announced it had extradited a woman from Canada on a human smuggling charge that resulted in the deaths of a family of four and a boat captain on the St. Lawrence River in 2023.
Stephanie Square, 52, of the Akwesasne Mohawk Indian Reservation was indicted in federal court in the Northern District of New York in June 2024 for conspiring to engage in alien smuggling, four counts of alien smuggling for profit and four counts of alien smuggling resulting in death, a DOJ press release said.
Square, who is a dual U.S. and Canadian citizen, was allegedly the leader of a ring that helped smuggle a Romanian family of four across the St. Lawrence River during bad weather, and all four members of the family and the boat’s captain drowned, according to the Cornwall (Ontario) Standard-Freeholder. Four others died in the same operation.
The boat allegedly used to take the family across the river was headed to Cornwall Island, but didn’t make it.
The four Romanians were: Florin Iordache; his wife, Cristina (Monalisa) Zenaida Iordache; their daughter Evelin, 2; and son Elyen, 1. The captain, Casey Oakes, of Akwesasne, N.Y., also drowned, along with a family from Gujarat, India: Praveenbhai Chaudhari, 50; his wife, Dakshaben, 45; son Meet, 20; and daughter Vidhi, 23.
The Indian family was not part of Square’s smuggling operation, the Standard-Freeholder reported.
Square allegedly bought the boat for the operation.
Between 10 and 10:30 p.m. in March 2023, residents of Cornwall Island called for help, saying they heard screams for help from the river. Square and an alleged co-conspirator Dakota Montour, 31, searched the banks to find the family. At 3:36 a.m., Square told Montour to delete all their messages, the press release said.
Over the next two days, searchers found the bodies of the family. Oakes’ body was found eight months later, the Standard-Freeholder reported.
Square was arrested in Canada in August 2024 at the request of the U.S. government. Co-conspirator Timothy Oakes, 34, from the AMIR, was arrested on June 15 and remains in custody pending trial. U.S.-based co-conspirators Montour and Kawisiiostha Celecia Sharrow, 43, both of Akwesasne, N.Y., and Janet Terrance, 45, of Hogansburg, N.Y., pleaded guilty earlier this year.
“She was in regular communication between the person hired to drive the family to the boat, the driver of the boat and the person who would pick the family up after they crossed the river and would have driven the family to the U.S.,” a Canadian judge said summarizing the evidence, the Standard-Freeholder reported.
“We know that the Romanian family drowned in bad weather.”
