FERGUS FALLS, MINN. – Two men were sentenced to federal prison Wednesday afternoon for their roles in a human smuggling network that arranged the passage of a family of four migrants who ultimately froze to death as they became lost in a blizzard trying to illegally cross from Canada into America.
Ringleader Harshkumar Patel was sentenced to 10 years in prison, while Steve Shand was handed 6½ years in prison by Judge John Tunheim .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 U.S. 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.
Federal prosecutors have recommended nearly 20 years in prison for Patel and nearly 11 years for Shand.
Prosecutors argued the defendants put 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. But as temperatures dropped below minus 33 degrees and a blizzard raged, a family died in the snow: Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben, 37; their daughter, Vihangi, 11; and son Dharmik, 3. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police found their bodies just north of the border between Manitoba and Minnesota.
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.
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 said authorities had the wrong man and he wasn’t the same person who was communicating with Shand over the phone about the trips. Shand’s defense counsel described his client as a cabdriver who was an unwitting participant in the scheme and “used” by Patel and others.
