Story Collapses: Evidence Suggests Four Middle Eastern Men Caught Sneaking Into the US Were Not “Hiking”

Court documents indicated the men initially celebrated the crossing on a GoPro before attempting to conceal themselves in roadside vegetation.

Four British nationals were detained last week after allegedly crossing from Canada into the United States.

The men named Ali Mohammed Ali Abdullah, Hameed Mohammed Nagi, Ibrahim Ayyub Khan, and Mohammed Sultan Saleh were arrested in a remote northern part of Somerset County.

Court documents quoted online by Steve Robinson recall the men initially celebrating the achievement on a GoPro.

Robinson said they were then spotted by Maple sugar workers, who reported the group of Middle Eastern men because they were walking “in the wrong direction to be casual hikers.”

The report explained that this was on “a 96-mile, primarily unpaved private logging road in Maine, stretching from Millinocket west to the Quebec border.”

To add, “there’s nothing but trees to see for 95.9 of those miles and no cell service.”

Of note, those who noticed the group said there was also a vehicle involved.

Two ICE agents responded to the Maple workers’ tipoff, who later arrested the four “without incident.”

This is despite the group “attempting to conceal themselves in roadside vegetation,” and stating, when questioned, that they were hiking.

Each individual tried to tell the agents they didn’t know they were in the United States.

Those claims were contradicted by the GoPro evidence.

Further information taken from the men’s phones suggested that their destinations were Boston and New York.

The vehicle, Robinson said, was located without fuel, and carrying two people who “identified themselves as US citizens.”

Agents found a “loaded 9mm handgun,” and subsequently detained the pair as people smuggling suspects.

One of the two, the report added, eventually admitted to authorities that he and another man were there to pick up one of the Middle Eastern men, who they had dropped off in that area last month.

Adding to the concerns of law enforcement, one of the four was known to immigration and had apparently been deported from the United States in May last year.

Evidence points to the man arriving in Canada on a British passport three days before the attempt to re-enter the US.

The two allegedly related events are now before the courts, while investigators figure out the what, why and how.

Of particular interest is why the group of Middle Eastern men were crossing so clandestinely using British passports, and why a man who was booted out of the US last year appeared to be helping them.

Adding to Robinson’s report, Portland’s Press Herald said the two men in the vehicle (a Nissan) who were only 16 kilometres from the group, “were not named in the court documents.”

“It’s unclear whether the two U.S. citizens will face charges,” PH said, adding that “a federal prosecutor declined to answer questions about them Wednesday.”

The group maintains that “they had been hiking, arguing that they weren’t aware they were in the U.S.”

Press Herald backed Robinson’s coverage, stating that the facts did not support the claims.

Alongside the damning GoPro footage, agents, PH said, found footprints revealing that the group had crossed the border a few hundred feet from the St. Zacharie port of entry.

This was supported by GPS records and one of the men’s Google search history, which contained requests for information on how to get to Bangor, Maine.