FERGUS FALLS – A judge in Minnesota sentenced two men to prison Wednesday for their roles in a human smuggling operation that saw a family freeze to death in southern Manitoba near the Canada-U.S. border.
Harshkumar Patel, who was convicted of organizing the logistics of smuggling trips from Canada into the United states, was given 10 years.
Steve Shand, who picked up migrants on the U.S. side in rented vehicles, was handed 6 1/2 years.
In his sentencing decision, Judge John Tunheim described the crimes as “extraordinarily serious.”
A jury found the two men guilty last fall on four charges related to the smuggling operation.
The trial heard Patel and Shand were involved in several smuggling trips between Manitoba and Minnesota in December 2021 and January 2022, in which people from India were brought to Canada on student visas then sent on foot across the border to the U.S.
During one trip in 2022, a couple from India and their two children were sent walking towards the border in Manitoba in an overnight blizzard. Their bodies were later found in a field.
The temperature was -23 C and the wind chill had dipped below -35.
One migrant testified he and others in a group were driven to an area in Manitoba near the border and told to walk in a straight line in the dark until they came to a van on the U.S. side. They were dressed in hats, jackets, gloves and boots designed for mild weather.
The group got separated in blowing snow. Some made it to the van after walking for hours, including one whose hypothermia was so bad she was flown to Minneapolis for treatment.
The frozen bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife Vaishaliben Patel, 37; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their three-year-old son, Dharmik, were found metres from the border.
The boy was in his father’s arms. Vaishaliben Patel was found away from her family, up against a chain-link fence near an unmanned natural gas facility. Prosecutors said it appears she left the other to try to find help at the only building in sight that night.
After the verdict, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger said the case was one of “unthinkable cruelty” in which the men valued money more than people’s lives.
Patel is a common name in India, but the family was not related to Harshkumar Patel.
A lawyer representing Patel, Thomas Leinenweber, said he would be appealing the conviction.
During the trial, Patel’s lawyers argued he had been misidentified and there was no evidence he was near the border.
Shand’s lawyers said he was simply a taxi driver who was offered money by Patel to pick people up in different locations and was unaware he was doing anything wrong until the day of his arrest.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.
