A jury has found two men guilty of human smuggling after an Indian family froze to death while trying to cross the Canada-U.S. border.
After a short deliberation Friday, a jury in Fergus Falls, Minn., found Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, an Indian man who used the pseudonym “Dirty Harry,” and Steve Shand, 50, an American from Florida. handed down a verdict in a lawsuit against Prosecutors allege the two were part of a broader criminal organization that helped immigrants enter the United States from Canada.
During the five-day trial, the court heard details of the tragic attempted crossing by Vaishaliben Patel, 37, in January 2022. her husband, Jagdish Patel (39); My 11 year old daughter Vihangi. And their 3-year-old son Dalmik had to fend for himself in the snowstorm.
When border officials received a tip from the snow plow driver who helped rescue Shand’s van from the ditch that day, when temperatures dropped to -23 degrees Celsius and harsh winds blew through the grasslands, they first knew something was wrong. I doubted it. Shand had been spotted multiple times in the area over the past few days.
Officers stopped Mr. Shand as he tried to cross the border in North Dakota. His story that he was bound for Winnipeg confused investigators, given that he was driving on a rural road far from the route to Manitoba’s capital. They found Shand and two other Indian nationals inside the van. Five more people were then found wandering the field, disoriented and frozen.
Border Force officer Christopher Oliver told the court that one woman had lost consciousness from hypothermia and that her hands “looked like chicken breasts that had just been taken out of the freezer”.
He realized that more people could be caught in the terrible storm. He asked Shand if there were any others.
“If you don’t tell us the truth, people will die,” he told Mr. Shand. Shand said there was no one else.
US Border Patrol agent Daniel Huguely told the court that his “heart sank” when he looked inside the backpack one of the migrants was carrying.
“The first thing I saw was… those diapers.” All of those intercepted were adults.
Hours later, police found the bodies of Jagdish and Vaishaliben Patel and their two children, Vihangi and Dalmik, just meters from the border. Jagdish still held Dharmik in his arms.
Lured by the promise of a better life, the four left India on January 10 and arrived in Toronto two days later. Patel called her father and cousins at home to let them know it was cold but everyone was fine and staying at a hotel.
Six days later, the young family arrived in Emerson, Manitoba, wearing brand new coats and gloves. Perhaps they believed they were preparing for what the locals knew was a dangerous journey in the middle of winter.
Immediately after the body was discovered, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called it a “shocking tragedy.”
Yash Patel, one of the migrants who paid the smugglers to enter the border, told the court that the group was told to get out of the van and walk in a straight line until they found a van on the American side.
Patel, who was not related to the families who died in the cold, walked with the group for just a few minutes before being separated from other families by the bright snow and dim light. It was nearly six hours later that Shand’s van was found, stuck in the snow.
Defense lawyers were at odds with each other, with Shand’s team claiming that Shand had been unknowingly drawn into the scheme by Patel. Patel’s lawyer said his client had been misidentified, The Canadian Press reported. Patel’s nickname, “Dirty Harry,” which was found on Shand’s cell phone, is said to be a different person. Bank records and eyewitness accounts from people who encountered Shand near the border do not link him to the crime, they added.
Prosecutors said Mr Patel was the coordinator of the operation and Mr Shand was the driver. Prosecutors said Shand was planning to pick up 11 Indian immigrants on the Minnesota side of the Canadian border. Only seven people survived the crossing on foot. Later that morning, Canadian authorities found the parents and young children dead from the cold.
