A man who once fled to Winnipeg as a Somalian refugee will spend the next 500 days behind bars after admitting to making money smuggling immigrants across the Canada-U.S. border.

Provincial court Judge Rachel Rusen accepted a joint recommendation from the Crown and Ali's lawyer and sentenced Abdi Hassan Ali to four years in Winnipeg on Wednesday. With time served, Ali's sentence going forward is another 500 days in custody.

"Your participation, which was premeditated and deliberate, placed several vulnerable people in real and imminent danger," Rusen told Ali, who was accompanied by a Somali translator in court.

"The fact that nobody was injured or killed walking hours in cold weather conditions in a foreign land is by luck."

Ali, 33, pleaded guilty Wednesday to violating the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act by "organizing, inducing, aiding or abetting people not in possession of a VISA or passport," court heard.

He was twice arrested in connection with that offence in 2024 for helping to transport multiple foreign nationals who crossed the border by foot from the U.S. into Manitoba during harsh winter conditions. Manitoba RCMP arrested Ali the first time on Feb. 22, 2024. RCMP pulled him over during a traffic stop in the rural municipality of Macdonald with multiple passengers in the vehicle. He claimed he was an Uber driver and was let go. Mounties then checked his name in their database and found that was the third time in months they had encountered Ali, and there were grounds to detain him for human smuggling, court heard.

Police found the vehicle again that day in Winnipeg and arrested Ali, who was found with $2,300 US on him, court heard. Eight foreign nationals were also found in the vehicle, including seven men and one woman.

"Several of them indicated harrowing travel stories from their country of origin," Crown prosecutor Colin Gray told court.

"Several of them indicate that it cost hundreds of dollars to get to the American border and thousands of dollars for their total trip."

That included one man who told investigators he spent $12,000 total to make it to Canada illegally.

The man travelled alone from Chad to New York, then made his way to Minneapolis and paid $800 to get to the border. After that, he used a map on his phone and walked for hours through the snow to get over the border. "This is February, in Manitoba," Gray said.

Ali was released in March on the condition he not leave Winnipeg and not use a password-protected cellphone.

2nd smuggling incident

After dark on the evening of Dec. 1, 2024 — when the temperature was between –20 and –25, with wind chill — RCMP received a report from a farmer who found footprints in a snowy field leading from the border into Canada. Patrolling RCMP came across a couple who said they had picked up a person they saw get left behind after witnessing five or six people get into a white pickup truck, court heard.

RCMP found Ali driving that truck, which was a rental vehicle with Alberta plates. He also had a password-protected cellphone. Five foreign nationals fled the vehicle, but RCMP located them using infrared cameras in the dark, court heard.

Ali has been in custody since his arrest in December 2024. The human smuggling offence Ali pleaded guilty to Wednesday comes with a mandatory minimum of three years in prison in Canada.

'Exceedingly dangerous': Crown

Gray pointed to the death of the Patels, a family of four from India that froze to death crossing the border on foot in the winter, in describing the severity of the offence and potential risks of human smuggling. "This was a situation where it was rather sophisticated, premeditated, planned for commercial benefit and exceedingly dangerous," he said.

"The Crown wants to emphasize both to the public and Mr. Ali that further conduct like this will garner substantial penitentiary sentences."

Ali's defence lawyer Brett Gladstone said his client understands what he did was wrong and that he could face deportation for it.

'Desire to help': defence

Court heard Ali was a mechanic in Somalia who was forced to repair vehicles for perpetrators of political violence and wasn't prepared to keep doing that.

"His offence before the court in Canada is to help other people get to Canada and achieve that safety ... this was not the right way to go about it," Gladstone said.

"Mr. Ali made a mistake but that mistake was one that came not from a desire to harm, but desire to help."

Court heard Ali has family and friends in Winnipeg, and a job lined up after he is released, Gladstone said. Rusen suggested Ali's prospects for rehabilitation are good, in part because he has a wife and children.

"You are a man with family, a wife and children ... and a community of people to support you," she said, with nine of Ali's supporters listening in the gallery.

"There is hope for you, and I don't want you to lose the hope that you have for your future."

Winnipeg man who once fled Somalia as refugee sentenced to 4 years for human smuggling