Dirty Harry
Death of Gujarati family while trying to cross US-Canada border: Indian national Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel among 2 convicted
A US jury has convicted two men, including an Indian national, for their roles in a human smuggling venture that resulted in the deaths of four members of an Indian family.
The family, including two children, froze to death when they attempted to cross the US-Canada border in 2022.
According to evidence presented at trial, between Dec 12, 2021, and Jan 19, 2022, Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, also known as Dirty Harry and Harry Patel, and Steve Anthony Shand, 50, conspired to smuggle dozens of migrants across the border of Canada and into the United States.
Patel and Shand were part of a large-scale human-smuggling operation that brought Indian nationals to Canada on student visas and then smuggled them into the United States.
"The defendants’ roles in the smuggling operation included the coordination and transportation of people from Manitoba, Canada, into the United States," read a statement issued by the US Department of Justice.
"Specifically, Patel worked with co-conspirators in Canada to organize the logistics of smuggling trips, while Shand was instructed when and where to pick up migrants just south of the Canadian border in the United States," the statement said.
He then drove them to Chicago.
They were paid for their roles in the conspiracy and disregarded the risks posed by the cold weather at the northern border.
According to evidence presented at trial, on Jan. 19, 2022, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents responded to a request for assistance from the U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) based out of Pembina, North Dakota.
USBP initiated a traffic stop on a white-colored, 15-passenger van that Shand was driving.
The stop occurred less than one mile south of the U.S.-Canadian border in a rural area between the U.S. ports of entry located at Lancaster, Minnesota, and Pembina.
A short while later, law enforcement encountered five Indian nationals approximately a quarter mile south of the Canadian border walking in the direction of where Shand had just been arrested.
They explained that they had walked across the border expecting to be picked up by someone.
The group estimated they had been walking around for over seven hours.
One of the members of the group was in possession of a backpack that did not belong to him.
He told officers that he was carrying the backpack for a family of four Indian nationals that had walked with his group but had become separated during the night.
Temperatures that night had plummeted to 36 degrees below zero. The backpack contained children’s clothes, a diaper, toys, and some children’s medication.
That family was found dead a short time later. As proven at trial, later the same day, USBP received a report from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that four bodies — two adults and two young children — were found frozen just inside the Canadian side of the international border.
As proven at trial, Patel and Shand were paid to smuggle the family into the United States.
Following a five-day trial, the jury found Patel and Shand each guilty of four counts of human smuggling.
The defendants face a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison on the first and second counts and a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison on the third and fourth counts.
A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
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