Border agents nab Romanians with organized crime links in Maine

US Border Patrol agents rounded up 20 Romanian nationals who illegally crossed into Maine from Canada on Wednesday — two of whom were flagged as members of a transnational criminal organization.

Agents tracked four vehicles crossing into the state from New Brunswick shortly after 6 a.m. and arrested the occupants before transporting them for processing at Fort Fairfield, the Border Patrol announced in a statement.

“This incident is indicative of an overall rise in apprehensions witnessed here in Houlton Sector,” Acting Patrol Agent in Charge Dennis Harmon said in a statement.

“In the last three Octobers, Houlton Sector encountered a total of 33 individuals. In fiscal year 2024 alone, we’ve encountered 55. While this increase poses challenges to Border Patrol resources, it does not dissuade the great work done by our dedicated agents here in Houlton Sector.”

The “coordinated” effort included 10 juveniles and 10 adults, two of whom “were positive Transnational Criminal Organized Crime matches and were processed for Expedited Removal proceedings,” according to the press release.

Photos released by Fox 23 show a line of black minivans and midsize SUVs lumbering onto a road in the snowy hamlet in the early morning hours.

Hours later, a car exploded and killed its two occupants at a checkpoint on the Rainbow Bridge connecting New York and Ontario at Niagara Falls, prompting an investigation led by the FBI.

Federal law enforcement sources told The Post he vehicle was going up to 100 mph when it hit a barrier near the checkpoint area on the American side of the Rainbow Bridge at around 11:15 a.m. — flying into the air and breaking into several pieces when it landed.

There were conflicting reports about which direction the car was going in, but investigators believe it was heading from Niagara Falls to Ontario when it suddenly made a U-turn and headed back toward the US, according to the sources.

The driver had been waved through past one checkpoint before accelerating and hitting the barrier at the second checkpoint, sources said.  

A US Customs and Border Protection officer was also injured in the blast.

More than 6,100 people from 76 countries have been apprehended illegally crossing into the US from the northeastern border with Canada between October 2022 and September 2023, Border Patrol has announced.

That figure is higher than the number of illegal aliens caught over the past decade, officials say.

Swanton Sector Chief Patrol Agent Robert Garcia issued a memo in February asking for more agents to be deployed to his sector to address an 850% spike in illegal crossings from last year, according to a copy obtained by Fox News.

He mentioned in the memo that “primarily Mexican migrants with no legal documents” were entering, and later shared photos on X of groups coming into the country through the woods.

CBP data show 189,402 total encounters with migrants on the northern US border in fiscal year 2023 — up from 109,535 in 2022 and 27,180 in 2021.

A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request for comment.