People smuggler jailed after Indian family freeze to death on US-Canada border

Australia Broadcast Center

4 days ago

A man convicted of leading an international human smuggling plot that resulted in a family of four from India freezing to death while trying to cross the United States border from Canada has been sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Federal prosecutors in the US state of Minnesota had recommended a sentence of almost 20 years for Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, and nearly 11 years for Steve Anthony Shand — the driver who was supposed to pick the family up.
Shand was sentenced on Wednesday at the federal courthouse in the north-western Minnesota city of Fergus Falls to six and a half years, with two years of supervised release.
During a trial conducted in November prosecutors said Patel, an Indian national who they say went by the alias "Dirty Harry", and Shand, a US citizen, were part of a sophisticated illegal operation that brought dozens of people from India to Canada on student visas and then smuggled them across the border.
The victims, 39-year-old Jagdish Patel, his wife Vaishaliben, their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi and three-year-old son Dharmik, froze to death, prosecutors told the court.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found their bodies just north of the border between Manitoba and Minnesota on January 19, 2022.
The trial heard from prosecutor Michael McBride that the father died while trying to shield Dharmik's face from a "blistering wind" with a frozen glove.
Vihangi was wearing "ill-fitting boots and gloves", while their mother "died slumped against a chain-link fence [and] she must have thought salvation lay behind", Mr McBride wrote.
A nearby weather station recorded the wind chill that morning at -38 degrees Celsius.
Seven other members of their group survived the foot crossing, but only two made it to Shand's van, which was stuck in the snow on the Minnesota side.
One woman who survived had to be flown to a hospital with severe frostbite and hypothermia. Another survivor testified he had never seen snow before arriving in Canada.
The family of four was from Dingucha, a village in the western Indian state of Gujarat, as was Harshkumar Patel. Patel is a common Indian surname and the victims were not related to the defendant. The couple were school teachers, according to local news reports.
"The crime in many respects is extraordinary because it did result in the unimaginable death of four individuals, including two children," US District Judge John Tunheim said.
Patel's attorney, Thomas Leinenweber, told the court before sentencing that Patel maintained his innocence and argued he was no more than a "low man on the totem pole".
Mr Leinenweber urged to the court to consider an 18-month jail term, given Patel's time already served behind bars.
The acting US attorney for Minnesota, Lisa Kirkpatrick, said Patel exploited the migrants' hopes for a better life in America.
"We should make no mistake, it was the defendant's greed that set in motion the facts that bring us here today," she said.
Patel, in an orange uniform and handcuffed, declined to address the court. He showed no visible emotion as the sentence was issued.
The judge noted that he was likely to be deported to his native India after completing his sentence. He cooperated as marshals handcuffed him and led him from the courtroom.
Shand, who had been free pending sentencing, also showed no visible reaction to his own sentence. The judge ordered him to report to prison on July 1 and agreed to recommend that he serve his sentence at the Federal Prison Camp in Pensacola, Florida, where he can be near his family.
Ms Kirkpatrick told reporters after the sentencing hearing on Wednesday that as a lifelong Minnesotan, she would not have gone out in the weather endured by the Patel family.
"But the defendants sent into that weather 11 migrants — Indian nationals who were not dressed appropriately — were ill-prepared for the weather they faced that night," she said.
The prosecutor also pointed out that the family died after walking for hours trying to find Shand, who Patel had sent.
"These defendants knew it was cold. In fact, they knew it was life-threatening cold," she said.
"They didn't care.
Harshkumar Patel's attorney said his client would lodge an appeal but declined to speculate on what grounds.
"He had kind of resigned himself to the fact that the sentence would be longer than he had hoped," Mr Leinenweber said.
"And he's not happy with it. But he does wish to appeal and take advantage of his rights."
Shand's attorney, federal defender Aaron Morrison, did not talk to reporters after the sentencing hearing.
Mr Morrison acknowledged in a pre-sentencing filing that Shand had "a level of culpability" but argued that his role was limited because he was just a taxi driver who needed money to support his wife and six children.
"Mr Shand was on the outside of the conspiracy, he did not plan the smuggling operation, he did not have decision making authority, and he did not reap the huge financial benefits as the real conspirators did," Mr Morrison wrote at the time.
A top regional US Customs and Border Protection official told reporters on Wednesday that human smuggling along the border in the area had been "fairly steady," with no sharp increases or decreases.
"We hope that this is a strong message, and especially during the inclement months," Michael Hanson, the acting chief patrol agent for the Grand Forks, North Dakota, sector covering North Dakota and Minnesota, said.
AP