Indian Man Arrested Over Death of Family of Four That Froze to Death While Attempting to Enter U.S. From Canada

An Indian man accused of recruiting the driver in a human smuggling operation was arrested in Chicago last week. Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 28 — also known as “Dirty Harry” — was charged in U.S. federal court in the District of Minnesota for transportation of an illegal alien and conspiracy. The charges come two years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to enter the U.S. from Canada. Other aliases he used are Param Singh and Haresh Rameshlal Patel,” according to the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC). 

Jagdish Patel, 35, his wife Vaishali Patel, 33, and their children Vihangi Patel, 12, and Dharmik Patel, 3, died on Jan. 19, 2022, while attempting to cross illegally into Minnesota near Emerson, Manitoba. They belonged to Dingucha village in Kalol in Gandhinagar district in Gujarat. 

Their bodies were found just 12 metres from the U.S. border, after U.S. Border Patrol agents stopped Steve Shand, 47, of Deltona, Florida, on Jan. 19, the CBC  report said. Patel, who managed a gambling establishment in Florida, hired Shand to drive migrants from the Canadian border to the Chicago area. He was driving a 15-passenger van less than one mile south of the Canadian border in a rural area between the official ports of entry at Lancaster, Minnesota and Pembina, North Dakota. Two more Indian nationals were found in his van. 

According to the CBC, “the latest charges” for Harshkumar Patel, contained in a September 2023 arrest warrant and supporting affidavit unsealed on Feb. 22 “reveal new details about the night the Patel family died, including cellphone texts Patel shared with Shand that show how he facilitated the smuggling of the Patel family on the U.S. side of the border.”

His attorney, Michael Leonard, told the AP that so far they have been “provided with nothing more than accusations in the form of a Criminal Complaint that recites hearsay statements, we are not in a position to legitimately evaluate the Government’s allegations.”

An affidavit unsealed on Feb. 22 “reveal new details about the night the Patel family died, including cellphone texts Patel shared with Shand that show how he facilitated the smuggling of the Patel family on the U.S. side of the border.”

Shand was charged on Jan. 22. 2022, with one count of “knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien had come to, entered, or remained in the United States in violation of law, having transported, and moved or having attempted to transport and move such aliens,” according to a DOJ press release. He pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges and awaits trial on March 25.

During a March 9, 2022, interview with a U.S. Homeland Security investigator, Shand “described five total trips he had made to the international border in Minnesota in December 2021 and January 2022 to transport Indian nationals, for which he was paid a total of $25,000,” the Associated Press reported. 

According to court documents detailing Shand’s arrest, U.S. Border Patrol agents found five more Indian citizens, walking in the snow about a quarter-mile south of the Canadian border. They were seen while Shand and his passengers were being taken to a Border Patrol station in North Dakota. The Indian nationals, who spoke Gujarati, according to news reports, told law enforcement officials that were headed to an unstaffed gas plant in St. Vincent, Minnesota, where they were supposed to be picked up by someone, They said that they had been walking for more than 11 hours and had crossed the border from Canada into the U.S.

One of the men was carrying a backpack that had supplies for a small child in it, and told officers it belonged to a family who had become separated from the group overnight. Canadian Mounties began a search and found three bodies together — a man, a woman and a young child — just 33 feet (10 meters) from the border near Emerson, Manitoba, which is on the Red River that separates North Dakota from Minnesota. A second child was found a short distance away. The migrant with the backpack told authorities he had paid the equivalent of $87,000 in U.S. money to an organization in India to set up the move, according to a federal complaint from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Meanwhile, another Indian involved in the deaths is apparently “living a quiet life in a bedroom community outside Toronto,” an investigation by CBC’s The Fifth Estate has revealed. Fenil Patel, who is accused of helping transport the family, is facing charges in Gujarat of culpable homicide and human smuggling for his alleged role in the death of the family. Fenil Patel is alleged to have driven a number of migrants from Toronto to British Columbia and then to Manitoba. There, they met up with the Patel family and were driven to a remote area of the border near Emerson during a severe winter storm on the night of Jan. 18, 2022.

Data compiled by U.S. Customs and Border Protection in October last year reveled that around 42,000 migrants from India have crossed the southern border illegally during the past 12 months, double the number the year before. An additional 1,600 have crossed from the northern border illegally, the data reveals. That number is four times the number who crossed in the last three years combined. 

According to The Wall Street Journal, “the total number of Indians crossing into the U.S. illegally has been above 5,000 only four times since 2007.” Nearly all Indians “turn themselves into Border Patrol, rather than being arrested while evading capture, because they want to ask for asylum in the U.S,” the Journal report said.  “Around 80% of the migrants from India are single adults,” the Journal said, adding that most of them come through Arizona. They take “donkey flights” via  countries that don’t require visas for Indian nationals or that have an easier process for obtaining travel visas. According to the Transatlantic Council on Migration, the term “donkey flights” is “a popular route to the United Kingdom.”