FERGUS FALLS — A jury deliberated for about an hour Friday before convicting two men on human smuggling charges in a case where a family from India froze to death in Manitoba while trying to walk across the Canada-U.S. border.
Steve Shand of Florida and Harshkumar Patel, an Indian national arrested in Chicago, were each found guilty on all four counts they faced related to bringing unauthorized people into the U.S., transporting them and profiting from it.
"This trial exposed the unthinkable cruelty of human smuggling and of those criminal organizations that value profit and greed over humanity," said U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger.
"To earn a few thousand dollars, these traffickers put men, women and children in extraordinary peril ... a father, mother and two children froze to death in sub-zero temperatures on the Minnesota-Canadian border.
"The words 'immoral depravity' are the best that I have to describe the conduct that led to this terrible, terrible result."
Possible sentencing dates were suggested for March. Some of the offences carry a maximum 10 years in prison.
The prosecution had argued Shand and Patel were part of an international smuggling ring that brought people from India to Canada on student visas, then sent them on foot across the border to the U.S.
They were accused of carrying out smuggling trips between Manitoba and Minnesota on several occasions in December 2021 and January 2022.
Patel was alleged to have organized the logistics and paid Shand for picking up the migrants on the U.S. side in rented vehicles, then driving them to the Chicago area.
Shand was arrested while driving a van on a remote road just south of the border on Jan. 19, 2022, when the temperature was below -20 C and strong winds made it feel even colder. There were also two adult migrants in the van and several others on foot nearby.
A U.S. border patrol agent testified that when he opened a backpack from the group and found a diaper, his heart sank because he knew there were others missing.
Hours later, the frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their three-year-old son, Dharmik, were found in a field in Manitoba just metres from the border. They were dressed in jeans and light jackets, and the boy's body was cradled in his father's arms.
Patel is a common name in India, and the family was not related to the accused.
"Those men have been convicted in America ... they can never tell me why they took my children in the cold. They can never tell me why they did what they did," Jagdish Patel's father, Baldev Patel, told The Canadian Press in a phone interview after the verdicts.
"It's up to God to bring peace and justice."
Speaking in Hindi from his home in Dingucha, a village in the Gujarat state of western India, he said he's still numb from losing his son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren.
He has said his son held different jobs, including teaching, farming and selling kites, but nothing worked out in India. His son reached out when the family got to Canada and was happy about going to the U.S.
The trial, which began Monday in Fergus Falls, Minn., saw records of dozens of calls and texts between phones allegedly belonging to Shand, Harshkumar Patel and others.
The texts discussed the prices for carrying people, rental vehicles, the dangerous cold and specific locations in a remote section of the border.
The jury also saw flight and car rental records that showed Shand travelling from his home in Florida to the border in Minnesota.
One migrant who survived the Jan. 19, 2022 crossing testified that he flew from India to Toronto on a student visa and was flown to Vancouver, back to Toronto, then driven to Winnipeg.
From there, he said he and other Indian nationals were driven to an area in Manitoba near the border and told to walk in a straight line in the dark, cold night to a van in the U.S.
Court heard another migrant picked up by border agents was suffering from severe hypothermia, fading in and out of consciousness. She was flown to Minneapolis for medical care.
Shand's lawyers said he was simply a taxi driver, who was offered money by Patel to pick people up in different locations and was unaware he was doing anything wrong until the day of his arrest.
Patel's lawyers said their client was misidentified. Patel was only arrested earlier this year, and his lawyers said that, unlike Shand, there is no evidence he was near the border.
Patel's lawyers also said the prosecution was wrong to allege a contact named Dirty Harry in Shand's phone, with whom the messages and phone calls were shared, was Patel. The prosecution provided evidence that the number used by Dirty Harry had previously been used by Patel on a government document.
One of Patel's lawyers, Thomas Leinenweber, said outside court that he was disappointed by the verdict.
"It was a very tragic case, and he'll be looking at his options," he said.
RCMP have not made any arrests in the case in Canada. Police in India have said three men face related charges there and officials were working to extradite two men from Canada to face charges.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 22, 2024.
— With files from Hina Alam in Fredericton
Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press
