2 men convicted in human smuggling scheme after Indian family dies trying to enter U.S. from Canada

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. —  A jury convicted two men on Friday of charges related to human smuggling for a scheme that led to the deaths of an Indian family of four who froze while trying to cross the U.S.-Canada border during a 2022 blizzard.

Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, an Indian national who prosecutors say went by the alias “Dirty Harry,” and Steve Shand, 50, an American from Florida, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that has been bringing increasing numbers of Indians into the U.S., prosecutors said.

They were each convicted on four counts related to human smuggling, including conspiracy to bring migrants into the country illegally.

“This trial exposed the unthinkable cruelty of human smuggling and of those criminal organizations that value profit and greed over humanity,” said Andy Luger, U.S. attorney for Minnesota.

“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 subzero temperatures on the Minnesota-Canadian border,” Luger added.

The most serious counts carry maximum sentences of up to 20 years in prison, the U.S. Attorney’s Office told the Associated Press before the trial. But federal sentencing guidelines rely on complicated formulas. Luger said Friday that various factors will be considered in determining what sentences prosecutors will recommend.

Federal prosecutors said 39-year-old Jagdish Patel; his wife, Vaishaliben, who was in her mid-30s; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their 3-year-old son, Dharmik, froze to death Jan. 19, 2022, while trying to cross the border into Minnesota in a scheme organized by Patel and Shand. The victims were not related to Harshkumar Patel.

Experts say illegal immigration from India is driven in part by political repression at home and a dysfunctional American immigration system that can take years, if not decades, to navigate legally. Much is rooted in economics and how even low-wage jobs in the West can ignite hopes for a better life.

Before the jury’s conviction on Friday, the federal trial in Fergus Falls, Minn., saw testimony from an alleged participant in the smuggling ring, a survivor of the treacherous journey across the northern border, Border Patrol agents and forensic experts.

Defense attorneys were pitted against each other, with Shand’s team arguing that he was unwittingly roped into the scheme by Patel.

Patel’s lawyers said their client had been misidentified, the Canadian Press news agency reported. They said “Dirty Harry,” the alleged nickname for Patel found in Shand’s phone, is a different person. Bank records and witness testimony from those who encountered Shand near the border don’t tie him to the crime, they added.

Prosecutors said that Patel coordinated the operation and that Shand was a driver. Shand was to pick up 11 Indian migrants on the Minnesota side of the border after they crossed from Canada, prosecutors said. Shand waited for the migrants as the wind chill factor reached minus-36 degrees.

Only seven survived the foot crossing. Canadian authorities found the Patel family later that morning, dead from the cold.

The trial included an inside account of how the international smuggling ring allegedly works and whom it targets.

Rajinder Singh, 51, testified that he made more than $400,000 smuggling over 500 people through the network that included Patel and Shand.

Singh said most of the people he smuggled came from India’s Gujarat state. He said the migrants would often pay smugglers about $100,000 to get them from India to the U.S., where they would work to pay off their debts at low-wage jobs in cities around the country. Singh said the smugglers would run their finances through “hawala,” an informal money transfer system that relies on trust.

The pipeline of illegal immigration from India has long existed, and in recent years has increased sharply along the U.S.-Canada border. The U.S. Border Patrol arrested more than 14,000 Indian nationals on the northern border in the year ending Sept. 30, which amounted to 60% of all arrests along that border and more than 10 times as many as two years ago.

As of 2022, the Pew Research Center estimates, more than 725,000 Indians were living illegally in the U.S., behind only Mexicans and Salvadorans.

Jamie Holt, a special agent with U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, said the case is a stark reminder of the realities faced by victims of human trafficking.

“Human smuggling is a vile crime that preys on the most vulnerable, exploiting their desperation and dreams for a better life,” Holt said. “The suffering endured by this family is unimaginable, and it is our duty to ensure that such atrocities are met with the full force of the law.”

One juror, Kevin Paul of Clearwater, Minn., told reporters after the verdict that it was hard for jury members to see the pictures of the family’s bodies. He said he grew up in North Dakota and is familiar with the kind of conditions that led to their deaths.

“It’s pretty brutal,” Paul said. “I couldn’t imagine having to do what they had to do out there in the middle of nowhere.”

Vancleave and Goldberg write for the Associated Press.