A Bangladeshi national was sentenced to 46 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release for his role in a scheme to smuggle Bangladeshis from Mexico into the USA.

The convict, Moktar Hossain, admitted that from March 2017 to August 2018, he trafficked Bangladeshi nationals to the US at the Texas border in exchange for payments.

Moktar operated out of Monterrey, Mexico, where he maintained a hotel that housed migrantson their way to the US. He paid drivers to transport them to the US border, and gave the migrants instructions on how to cross the Rio Grande River, said the US Embassy in a statement yesterday referring to US Department of Justice.

"The defendant was a key player in an organised smuggling network that operated for profit and preyed on Bangladeshi nationals who wanted to enter the United States illegally," said Acting Assistant Attorney General David P Burns of the US justice department's criminal division.

"This sentence serves as a clear deterrent to participants of such transnational criminal organisations who seek to undermine the security of our borders by illegally facilitating the travel of foreigners into the United States for financial gain."

"Border security and national security are one and the same," said Ryan K Patrick, US attorney for the Southern District of Texas.

"We must know who is coming into the country, and we cannot allow unfiltered access. My office continues to work with all our partners in executing this mission."

The investigation was conducted under the Extraterritorial Criminal Travel Strike Force (ECT) programme, a joint partnership between the justice department's criminal division and HSI.

This case was prosecuted by Trial Attorneys James Hepburn and Erin Cox of the criminal division's human rights and special prosecutions section with assistance from the US Attorney's Office for the Southern District of Texas.