2 Men guilty of Human Smuggling after Indian Family froze to Death

Two men have been convicted on charges relating to human smuggling in a trial over an Indian family that froze to death crossing the US-Canada border.

Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel and Steve Shand, an American from Florida, were part of a sophisticated smuggling operation that brought people from Canada into the United States illegally.

Patel orchestrated the deadly crossing in January 2022 and Shand was a driver who was meant to pick up 11 Indian migrants on the Minnesota side of the border.

However, only seven made it across.

The frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, his wife, Vaishaliben, their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi, and three-year-old son Dharmik were found 12 metres from the US border.

Jagdish was discovered holding his young son in a blanket.

Authorities believe they were caught in a blizzard and temperatures as low as -35°C.

Patel and Shand were convicted by a jury in a federal trial in Fergus Falls, Minnesota.

Among the witnesses was Rajinder Pal Singh, a convicted human smuggler who helped move people across the US-Canada border between British Columbia and Washington state.

Singh testified that the Patel family was in touch with another alleged smuggler, Fenil Patel, who lives in Toronto and was charged by Indian police for the family’s death.

He said Fenil Patel (unrelated to the family) had arranged for the family to get Canadian visas so they could illegally cross into the US.

The trial also shed light on the dramatic rise in the number of people illegally entering the United States from Canada in recent years, the majority being Indian nationals.

The US Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indians on the Canadian border, which accounted for some 60% of all arrests.

By 2022, the Pew Research Centre estimates there were more than 725,000 Indians living illegally in the US, behind only Mexicans and El Salvadorans.

Indian officials say migrants find their way to the US by taking advantage of student visas to Canada and crossing from there.

Minnesota US Attorney Andy Luger said:

“This trial exposed the unthinkable cruelty of human smuggling and of those criminal organisations that value profit and greed over humanity.

“To earn a few thousand dollars, these traffickers put men, women and children in extraordinary peril leading to the horrific and tragic deaths of an entire family.

“Because of this unimaginable greed, a father, a mother and two children froze to death in sub-zero temperatures on the Minnesota-Canadian border.”