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Ahmedabad: Nearly two years after four members of a family from Dingucha village in Gandhinagar district were killed in extreme cold while attempting to cross the border to the United States as illegal immigrants, a federal court in the US on Friday convicted two persons, including a Gujarat-origin man, for their roles in an international human trafficking racket.
A federal jury in the District of Minnesota convicted Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 29, also known as Dirty Harry and Harry Patel, along with Steve Anthony Shand, 50. The jury found both the convicts guilty of four counts of human smuggling. They are facing 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 press release issued by the US Department of Justice's Office of Public Affairs stated that a federal district judge will determine the sentence after considering the US Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. It says, "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."
Their roles included the coordination and transportation of people from Manitoba, Canada, into the United States. The release stated that "Patel worked with co-conspirators in Canada to organise 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. 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."
The trial lasted for five days during which evidence was presented that on January 19, 2022, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents responded to a request for assistance from the US 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, which was barely one mile south of the international border in a rural area between the US ports of entry located at Lancaster, Minnesota, and Pembina.
The 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. The group explained that they had walked across the border expecting to be picked up by someone (Shand). The group estimated they had been walking around for over seven hours, the release said.
One of the members of this group had a backpack which belonged to the family of four Indian nationals that had walked with his group but got 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.
The family was found dead after a short while. During the trial it was proved that the same day, USBP received a report from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) that four bodies — two adults and two children — were found frozen just inside the Canadian side of the international border. As proven during trial, Patel and Shand were paid to smuggle the family into the United States.
The family of the four were identified as Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37, and their two children-Vihangi Patel, 11, and Dharmik Patel, 3. Despite repeated attempts, the family members of the deceased people couldn't be contacted for comments.
Gujarat police investigation
The Detection of Crime Branch (DCB), Ahmedabad filed a chargesheet against three suspected human traffickers, including Bhavesh Patel, 48, a resident of Palsana village, Dashrath Pratap Chaudhary, 45, a resident of Hariom Bungalows, Kudasan in Gandhinagar district and Yogesh Chunilal Patel, 42, a resident of Sangathan Society, Vastrapur in Ahmedabad for smuggling a group of 11 Gujaratis to the United States through Canada border during which four members of the Dingucha family froze to death.
During the investigation, Baldev Patel, father of Jagdish, told investigators that he didn't know that his son was planning to travel to the US illegally. He stated that Jagdish informed him that he was going to Canada on a tourist visa. He also denied having any knowledge of agents who arranged the travel for his son.
However, he revealed that Jagdish while working as an accountant in a company in Ahmedabad sometime in 2018 had tried to obtain a US visa twice but was rejected. The statement said Baldev's three brothers live in the United States with their families, while his nephew, Jaswant, went to the US as recently as in 2022.