'Erase these messages': New details emerge from fatal St. Lawrence River human smuggling run

One of the key players allegedly behind a fatal cross-border human smuggling run that ended in the St. Lawrence River drowning deaths last March of nine people — including two young children — is currently facing an extradition request from the U.S. on a nine-count indictment, according to court records. 

Stephanie Square, 51, was arrested by Akwesasne Mohawk Police on the morning of Aug. 22 and remains in custody pending the outcome of the extradition process, which is being handled through Quebec Superior Court in Montreal. 

Square was indicted, along with three others, on June 26 by a U.S. grand jury on alien smuggling charges, including conspiracy to commit alien smuggling, alien smuggling for profit and alien smuggling causing death.

Dakota Montour, 30, and Rahsontanoshtha Delormier, 29, both from Akwesasne and indicted with Square, remain at large. The fourth indicted individual, Janice Terrance, is currently in U.S. custody.

Extradition records filed in Quebec court and obtained by CBC News reveal previously undisclosed details, including text messages and concerns over weather conditions, leading to the fatal March 29, 2023, river crossing. 

The bodies of eight people, four family members from India and four family members from Romania, were recovered by Akwesasne police and the Canadian Coast Guard from the St. Lawrence River on March 30 and 31. The body of the boat driver, Casey Oakes, was later pulled from the river on July 3, about 12 kilometres away.

Human smuggling organizations have historically exploited Akwesasne's territory, which straddles the Canada-U.S. border and includes islands in the St. Lawrence River, to move people north and south across the international boundary.    

Akwesasne, a Haudenesaunee community with a band government on the Canadian side and a tribal government on the U.S. side, sits about 120 kilometres west of Montreal. 

The RCMP announced in June it had charged eight people and dismantled a human smuggling ring allegedly led by a man from Montreal that was also connected with the fatal river crossing. 

One individual charged, Cheyenne Lewis, 51, from Akwesasne, remains at large.

The RCMP investigation ran parallel to the U.S. probe led by Homeland Security Investigations. 

The U.S. probe connected Square with the deaths of the Romanian family — Iorin Iordache, his wife Christina (Monalisa) Zenaida Iordache, their daughter, two-year-old Evelin, and one-year-old son, Elyen.

Square was known in Akwesasne as someone who regularly moved "heads," a term used to describe human smuggling, according to the court records. She moved people north and south across the Canada-U.S. border. On Sept. 14, 2023, Square was connected with the attempted smuggling into Canada of a Colombian who was a convicted felon and deported from the U.S. in 2000. 

The timeline of Square's activities outlined in the court records pick up on March 28, 2023, as she allegedly searched for a boatman to take the Romanian family from Cornwall Island — which sits just across from Cornwall, Ont. — across the St. Lawrence River.