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TORONTO — An elderly Russian man with backwoods skills has been sentenced to three years in prison for helping smuggle a person from Canada into the United States, court records show.

A jury had convicted Nikolay Souslov, 70, of two charges in May, but acquitted him on a third charge that he had profited from his wrongdoing.

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According to court documents, Souslov conspired to move a person illegally into the U.S. The prosecution also argued he was the principal behind smuggling at least seven people into the U.S., a number they said was “undoubtedly conservative.”

According to U.S. authorities, Souslov had flown from Russia to Toronto or Montreal numerous times using various aliases. He was refused entry to the United States on at least one occasion but somehow managed to make his way to New York and obtain American documents. The U.S. deported him in 2004 but he kept returning. Canada also deported him in 2015.