The United States has convicted two individuals, including an Indian national, for their roles in a human smuggling operation tied to the tragic deaths of an Indian migrant family at the Canada-US border during a blizzard in 2022. A Minnesota jury found Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel-also referred to as “Dirty Harry”-and Florida resident Steve Shand guilty of most charges that were filed against them in regard to human trafficking.
Patel, 29, and Shand, 50, each was found guilty on four counts, including conspiracy to bring in migrants into the United States in violation of law. The most serious charges carry sentencing terms of up to 20 years in prison. However, federal sentencing guidelines consider various factors in determining the final sentences.
Their bodies—Jagdish Patel, his wife Vaishaliben, their 11-year-old daughter Vihangi, and three-year-old son Dharmik—were found frozen near Emerson, Manitoba, on January 19, 2022. The family had been trying to cross into Minnesota as part of a scheme organized by Patel and Shand. The Patels, from Gujarat, were schoolteachers, part of a group of 11 undocumented Indian migrants who hired smugglers for their dangerous journey.
The guilty verdict was delivered by the jury after a five-day federal trial, at which US Attorney Andy Luger slammed the smuggling operation, warning of the paramount severity in the consequences of the smugglers’ actions. During the trial, their attorneys offered conflicting messages: lawyers for Shand described his client’s involvement as unwitting, while those for Patel said he had been misidentified. Survivors’ testimonies showed the hazardous conditions the migrants were under, and how disastrous the outcome of the operation had been, highlighting the dangerousness of human smuggling across borders.
