Mexican caught in Morden headed to prison for human smuggling

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This article was published 10/10/2025 (253 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A Mexican man arrested in Morden last year as he tried to smuggle five Mexican nationals into the United States has been sentenced to three years in prison.

“The gravity of this offence is very significant,” provincial court Judge Wanda Garreck told 35-year-old Jose Hilario-Pimentel at a sentencing hearing Wednesday, saying a “clear message” must be sent to other would-be human smugglers that their actions won’t be tolerated by the court.

Hilario-Pimentel was arrested March 8, 2024, after Morden police pulled over a van he was driving that had five passengers. The van had Ontario licence plates and was registered in another person’s name.

“The gravity of this offence is very significant.”

The five passengers, all of whom had Mexican passports, provided conflicting answers when asked where they came from and where they were going, said Crown attorney Colin Gray.

The passengers were all wearing “multiple layers” of clothing and each had a backpack.

Hilario-Pimentel had been identified as a “person of interest” in April 2023 after 10 Mexican nationals were arrested walking into the U.S. from Sprague, Man., Gray said.

Questioned by police, the five passengers in Hilario-Pimentel’s van said he had driven them from Ontario to Manitoba, and that they were to pay him up to $2,000 each to get them across the border.

Hilario-Pimentel provided a police statement in which he admitted he had smuggled people across the border “on multiple occasions.”

Data later extracted from his cellphone revealed numerous text messages co-ordinating plans for Mexican nationals to fly to Ontario where they would be picked up and smuggled across the U.S. border.

“A sampling of the messages display an ongoing organized operation for the transport of Mexican nationals from Canada over the international border… for commercial profit,” Gray said.

“These text messages display ordinary salesmanship, commerciality… and a clear understanding of what (Hilario-Pimentel) was trying to do,” he said.

Gray said Manitoba’s vast, largely unsupervised border makes it a prime location for smugglers to ply their trade, sometimes at the cost of human life.

“In this province, we have not lost the memory of the Patel family, that attempted to cross the border in January of 2022,” Gray said.

The Indian family of four, including two young children, froze to death in a blizzard on a Manitoba field as they tried to cross into North Dakota near Emerson, Man.

Court heard Hilario-Pimentel, a married father of two, went to London, Ont., three years ago after an acquaintance assured him he would have no trouble finding work.

“This fellow made all kinds of promises about helping Mr. Hilario-Pimentel when he came to Canada,” said defence lawyer Brett Gladstone.

“The work was not all that it was cracked up to be” and soon “dried up,” Gladstone said.

“These text messages display ordinary salesmanship, commerciality… and a clear understanding of what (Hilario-Pimentel) was trying to do.”

The acquaintance was later arrested in the U.S., at which point Hilario-Pimentel was contacted by people claiming the man owed them money and he was now responsible for the debt, Gladstone said.

Hilario-Pimentel was sent pictures of his family in Mexico, suggesting they would be harmed if he didn’t pay off the debt.

“His choice was to work it off illegally or risk his family’s safety,” Gladstone said.

“He knows he did not make the right decision, but there were no good decisions to be made,” he said.

Garreck disagreed, saying Hilario-Pimentel “didn’t make the good choice at the right time.”

“The strong message this sentence has to send is that before anyone immigrates to Canada, it can’t be on a wing and a prayer and a dream,” Garreck said. “It has to be well-thought out and planned.”

Hilario-Pimentel has no legal status in Canada and will face certain deportation upon completing his sentence.

“I just want to go home,” he told court through an interpreter. “My family needs me.”

He received credit for time served, which reduced his remaining sentence to just under eight months.

dean.pritchard@freepress.mb.ca