A windy day along the Detroit River, November 12, 2015. (Photo by Jason Viau)

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A British citizen has been charged after he was caught trying to enter the U.S. from Canada last month by swimming across the Detroit River.

Detroit television station WJBK reported that 56-year-old Christopher Sagajillo donned a wetsuit and swam across the river from Windsor on December 13, 2019, to Zug Island. The station reported that Sagajillo changed out of his wetsuit at some point and ended up near the U.S. Steel plant. Local media first reported the incident on Tuesday.

According to documents posted on Fox 2 Detroit’s website, Sagajillo was arrested on plant property by River Rouge police and cited for criminal trespassing, a misdemeanour. He was then turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol and now faces a charge of illegally entering the U.S.

The documents showed that Sagajillo obtained a three-month visa in 2003 and entered the U.S. from Britain. He overstayed that visa for seven years, having been discovered living in Chicago and deported back to the U.K. in the spring of 2010.

It was not immediately clear how Sagajillo ended up in Windsor-Essex or how long he had been in Canada before his swim across to the U.S.