At first glance, the videos look like testimonials for a travel agent. Happy customers speak into the camera and praise the safety and efficiency of their journeys. They thank their guide by name and enthusiastically recommend the service to others.
But these are no ordinary trips.
Human smugglers are advertising their services by posting videos on TikTok of migrants they’ve helped cross illegally from Canada into Vermont. The practice shows the increasingly overt and creative ways smugglers market themselves by promising a seamless and stress-free shot at the American dream.
While they’re targeting potential clients, the videos have also caught the attention of federal agents, who recently formed a multiagency task force to investigate smuggling networks operating in Vermont.
On March 26, a federal grand jury in Burlington indicted a Mexican man who is “believed to be the most prolific human smuggling coordinator” in the state, according to prosecutors. Sergio Gomez Romero, aka Tony, has been linked to at least a dozen incidents in the past year. They involved 41 migrants who were later apprehended and eight drivers tasked with picking them up after they crossed illegally, according to court records.
Gomez Romero allegedly instructed the drivers to make video testimonials of migrants attesting to the ease of their crossing, records show. The videos were posted to a TikTok page called “viajes.tony,” using the Spanish word for “trips.”
The New York City man is also accused of collecting and coordinating payments for smuggling, which often amounted to thousands of dollars per migrant, according to a motion for detention filed by prosecutors.
Gomez Romero is charged with five counts related to smuggling migrants into the U.S. for financial gain. He pleaded not guilty on May 20 in federal court in Burlington and was later released on bond pending trial. A second Mexican man, Marco Antonio Ocampo Francisco, was also indicted in the same case and arrested in New Jersey on July 8. He remains in custody in Vermont.
Gomez Romero’s attorney, David Sleigh, declined to comment on the case.
According to court records, Gomez Romero, who is in his early forties, is undocumented and has lived in the United States for 25 years. He has worked as a chef at the same Brooklyn restaurant for more than a decade and has three young children. He has no criminal history.
The viajes.tony account appears to have been taken down, but similar accounts reviewed by Seven Days feature dozens of videos of migrants walking through the woods carrying backpacks or riding in the back of a car after getting picked up. Some videos show groups of migrants running from wooded areas into a waiting car on a rural road. They include families and small children.
The videos are often overlaid with upbeat Mexican music and feature emojis of the American and Canadian flags. The smugglers advertise trips in both directions across the U.S.-Canada border and offer several methods of getting across, including riding in the sleeper cab of a semitruck — “sin caminar,” or “no walking needed.”
Most videos begin with the migrants stating the day they successfully crossed and the countries they left and entered.
“Today, July 13th, 2026, we are crossing from Montréal to New York, United States,” a man says in Spanish in one video. “Many thanks to 727 and JR for the great service you’ve given us and for keeping us very safe throughout the trip.”
At the end of the video, four men riding in the car give thumbs-up signs.
“Smugglers adapt all the time to the needs of the market,” said Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera, a professor at George Mason University who studies migration and human smuggling. She began to notice TikTok gain momentum as a medium used by smugglers post-pandemic, when migration surged and the social media platform was growing in popularity.
Smugglers adapt all the time to the needs of the market.
Guadalupe Correa-Cabrera
“They use the same platforms people use for communication,” Correa-Cabrera said. “It’s how you sell your service. You have to show how good it is.”
The platform allows smugglers to promote themselves while maintaining a degree of anonymity, Correa-Cabrera added. Interested clients can reach out to be connected to smugglers directly via WhatsApp. If TikTok suspends an account, smugglers can easily make a new one.
Even as President Donald Trump has ramped up border enforcement and the number of apprehensions has dropped significantly, smugglers continue to facilitate illegal crossings.
“People don’t ever stop,” Correa-Cabrera said. “Now the journeys are more clandestine.”
Since December 2025, a task force of federal agencies has been investigating human smuggling in Vermont, according to court records. The joint operation consists of a Burlington-based Homeland Security Investigations team, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Criminal Investigative division of the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Border Patrol Swanton Sector Intelligence Unit in Swanton.
Investigators learned of Gomez Romero after several drivers were apprehended and arrested for transporting migrants who had just walked across the border into Vermont, according to court records.
In one instance in April 2025, agents searched a driver’s phone and found he was in contact with a number linked to Gomez Romero. The night before, the driver received $200 from a “sergio romero.”
In December 2025, a separate driver was arrested and charged with transporting migrants. That person told agents that they had done four or five such trips for payment, all of which were coordinated by a contact they knew only as “viajes.” Records from Gomez Romero’s Zelle account show he paid the driver $1,000 in October 2025 and $1,200 the following month.
About a week later, Border Patrol agents arrested a smuggler transporting two adults and two minors in West Berkshire. The smuggler told investigators he was working for someone named “Tony” and was planning to drive to a gas station in Queens, where Tony would meet them to collect cash from the migrants.
Tony also wanted videos of the migrants praising the safety of the trip to post on TikTok “as a form of advertising,” the smuggler told investigators. In January 2026, the smuggler was convicted for transporting migrants.
After surveilling Gomez Romero for weeks, federal agents raided his home and arrested him in Queens, according to a search warrant.
Investigators seized two cellphones and found “numerous conversations, images, financial transactions, testimonials and more” that are indicative of human smuggling, according to the search warrant. The findings include testimonial videos of migrants.
Though the viajes.tony profile is no longer active, a new one appears to have taken its place. In April, ViajesCarlitos27 started posting videos using the hashtag #viajestony.
The account has dozens of videos already, the most recent posted on August 17.
“New account,” one video caption reads. “We’re at your service.” ➆
The original print version of this article was headlined “Smugglers’ Market | A man who helped people sneak across the border posted their testimonials on TikTok to attract more customers”
This article appears in September 2 • 2026.
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