Smugglers sentenced to federal prison after family froze to death on Canadian border

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. – The family of four had hopes for a better life in the United States, federal prosecutors said.

Their pursuit of that dream turned deadly, however, when they ventured into a raging blizzard near the Canadian border and the people who facilitated their passage failed to help, federal prosecutors said.

Two men were sentenced to federal prison Wednesday for their roles in the human smuggling network that helped orchestrate the illegal crossing for the family from India who ultimately froze to death as they became lost in the blizzard.

U.S. District Judge John Tunheim sentenced ringleader Harshkumar Patel to 10 years in prison, while driver Steve Shand was handed 6½ years in prison followed by two years of supervised release. Tunheim noted that Patel is likely to be deported to India, his home country, after serving his sentence. A federal jury convicted Patel and Shand in November of conspiracy to bring noncitizens to the United States, causing serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy; conspiracy to transport aliens causing serious bodily injury and placing lives in jeopardy; attempted transportation of aliens in the United States for purposes of commercial advantage and private financial gain, and aiding and abetting the attempted transportation of aliens in America for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain.

“These were deaths that were clearly avoidable,” Tunheim said.

Federal prosecutors recommended nearly 20 years in prison for Patel and nearly 11 years for Shand.

Acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Lisa Kirkpatrick argued that the defendants exploited the family’s hopes, placing profit over human lives the night of Jan. 19, 2022, when Patel paid Shand to drive to northern Minnesota to pick up 11 migrants from India who would walk over from the Manitoba side. As temperatures dropped to more than 33 degrees below zero and a blizzard raged, the family – Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben, 37; their daughter, Vihangi, 11, and son Dharmik, 3 – died in the snow. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found the bodies just north of the Minnesota border.

That morning, authorities stopped Shand in a van near the border and discovered two migrants inside; soon they came across five more stumbling in from the fields, one with severe frostbite who was airlifted to a hospital. The federal government maintained the family’s deaths may have been prevented if Shand hadn’t denied to authorities that other migrants were with them.

The government asserted that Patel (no relation to the victims) coordinated a series of trips from Florida starting in December 2021, paying fellow Floridian Shand to pick up migrants who had illegally crossed the border and drop them off in Chicago.

While the migrants were “slowly dying in the freezing cold, Steve Shand sat in his warm van and did nothing to help,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael McBride in his closing arguments. “Harshkumar Patel texted from sunny Florida and did nothing to help. For weeks, they knew the cold would kill, but they decided their profit was more important than these human lives.”

Patel’s attorney maintained he was not a leader in the scheme, describing him as a “low man on the totem pole” as he argued for a lesser sentence. Shand’s defense counsel said his client is “not a hardened criminal,” but rather, a cabdriver and father who acted as an unwitting participant. Both men declined to address the court.

Kirkpatrick said the prison terms and case overall illustrate the dangers of illegally crossing the border and the “callous indifference” of human smugglers.

“We can’t bring the family back,” she said. “But with the lengthy sentences imposed today, we can send a strong message, a message that human life does not have a price tag.”

This story contains material from the Associated Press.