Border Patrol agents arrested four men in Maine near Canada last week and they are now facing federal charges of illegally entering the country without inspection.
The men, who told federal officers they are from the United Kingdom, were found Friday morning walking down a 96-mile private logging route in Maine known as Golden Road, according to court records.
Ali Mohamed Ali Abdullah, 18; Hameed Mohammed Nagi, 21; Ibrahim Ayyub Khan, 27; and Mohammed Sultan Saleh, 22, were each charged in U.S. District Court in Bangor with entry without inspection.
Defense attorneys for the men either declined to comment or did not immediately respond to requests on Wednesday.
Agents also arrested two U.S. citizens who they believed were attempting to smuggle the men into the U.S., according to an affidavit signed Tuesday by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent Scott Hanton.
The pair, who are not named in court records, were sitting in a car that had run out of gas at the end of a maple sugar shack driveway, about 10 miles from where the four men were found, according to the affidavit. Agents said they found a 9mm handgun under the driver’s seat.
It’s unclear whether the two U.S. citizens will face charges. A federal prosecutor declined to answer questions about them Wednesday.
The passenger told agents that the driver indicated he had brought one of the four arrested men to the same location about a month earlier, according to the affidavit.
Hanton wrote that a couple of maple sugar workers who had crossed the border at a St. Zacharie port of entry that morning had reported seeing the four men walking along Golden Road. Another man called Border Patrol to report a gray car at the end of his driveway near Golden Road and the maple sugar workers told agents the car’s driver and passenger were asking passersby for fuel and WiFi.
The men arrested on Golden Road told agents they had been hiking and weren’t aware they were in the U.S., according to the affidavit. Hanton wrote that a Homeland Security Investigations officer reviewed their cellphones and found “Go-Pro” camera footage of one of the men, Saleh, telling the group several times that they were now on U.S. soil.
Agents said footprints revealed the group had crossed the border a few hundred feet from the St. Zacharie port of entry, Hanton wrote. Cell phone records also showed they had been using GPS, and that one of the men was searching online for information about the nearest port of entry and directions to Bangor.
Comments are not available on this story. Read more about why we allow commenting on some stories and not on others.
We believe it's important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way. It's a form of open discourse that can be useful to our community, public officials, journalists and others.
We do not enable comments on everything — exceptions include most crime stories, and coverage involving personal tragedy or sensitive issues that invite personal attacks instead of thoughtful discussion.
You can read more here about our commenting policy and terms of use. More information is also found on our FAQs.
Show less