BANGOR (AP) – Seven people from India were in jail following their weekend arrests after allegedly illegally crossing from Canada into eastern Maine, where they had arranged to be picked up and taken to New York.

The Indian nationals were arrested Sunday in Houlton and questioned through an interpreter, according to court documents. Their clothes were wet and muddy, and none of them spoke English.

Through a translator, Rasik Patel told border patrol agents that he and his wife, Shankuntla Bhen Patel, had flown from India to Canada on Oct. 18. Patel said that he, his wife and the five others had walked across the border at Littleton to meet a Hispanic man who was to pick them up and drive them to the New York area, according to court documents.

It was unclear how the seven were related, but five have the last name Patel, according to court documents. They are being held at Aroostook County Jail.

Border patrol agents then issued a bulletin to other law enforcement agencies in Maine because they suspected that an El Salvador man who was denied entry into Canada on Saturday was linked to the Indian nationals.

Maine State Police on Sunday arrested Carlos Galdamez-Guardado, 26, of Chelsea, Mass., and Casilda Menjivar-Martinez, whose age and address were unknown, driving south on Interstate 95 near Gray.

Galdamez-Guardado said that he had gotten lost and wound up at the Houlton border crossing instead of the prearranged pickup point in Littleton about five miles from Houlton, according to court documents.

Galdamez-Guardado said that he was contacted about two weeks ago by a man he knew only as “Enamo,” also an El Salvadoran national, about transporting the Indian nationals to the New York area, court documents said. He was to be paid $200 per person.

He also told border patrol agents that the crossing point had been moved from Vermont to Maine because border enforcement in Vermont was becoming too strict, according to court documents.

At a U.S. District Court hearing Monday, Galdamez-Guardado was also charged with entering the United States illegally in 2001. A detention hearing is scheduled for Monday in federal court in Bangor.

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