Human smuggler sentenced to 6 1/2 years in case of frozen family

A view of the landscape outside the hamlet of St. Vincent, Minn., looking north towards the Canada-U.S. border, is shown on Tuesday, Jan. 25, 2022, not far from where RCMP officers recovered the bodies of four Indian nationals. THE CANADIAN PRESS/James McCarten

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, an Indian national living in the U.S. who was convicted of organizing the logistics of smuggling trips from Canada, was given 10 years.

Steve Shand, a longtime taxi driver from Florida who picked up migrants on the U.S. side in rented vehicles, was handed 6 1/2 years.

“The crime in many respects is extraordinarily serious,” U.S. District Judge John Tunheim said in his decision in Fergus Falls, Minn.

“These were deaths that were clearly avoidable. It came as a result of pushing to get people across the border as quickly as possible.”

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, 11 migrants were dropped off on the Canadian side and told to walk in an overnight blizzard on the open prairie until they came to a van on the American side, where Shand was waiting.

The temperature was -23 C and the wind chill had dipped below -35. There were no buildings or trees to provide shelter. The trial was told smugglers had given the migrants jeans, thin jackets and hats and mitts designed for warmer weather.

The group got separated in the blowing snow. Some made it to the van after walking for hours, including one woman whose hypothermia was so bad she was flown to Minneapolis for treatment.

A family of four from India didn’t make it. 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 still 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 others to try to find help at the only building in sight.

Patel is a common name in India, and the family was not related to Harshkumar Patel.

Hours before the bodies were found, the van had become stuck in snow. A border patrol agent found Shand along with a few migrants in the van. The agent asked Shand whether any more people were still wandering in the cold, but he lied and said no, court was told.

“With the lengthy sentences imposed today, we can send a strong message, a message that human life does not have a price tag, that human smugglers are callous and indifferent and have no regard for the safety of the people in their care,” Lisa Kirkpatrick, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Minnesota, told reporters outside court.

Special agent Jamie Holt with Homeland Security said the victims had hopes of a better life.

“This was not just a case of smuggling. This was a case of profound human suffering,” Holt said.

“An entire family perished in sub-zero temperatures trying to reach what they thought would be safety. Instead, they were betrayed by individuals motivated by profit.”

During the trial, lawyers for Patel argued he had been misidentified and there was no evidence he was near the border. The jury rejected defence assertions that a cellphone linked to Patel by prosecutors belonged to someone else.

He continues to maintain his innocence, lawyer Thomas Leinenweber said after the sentencing, adding there would be an appeal of his Patel’s conviction and prison term.

“He had kind of resigned himself to the fact that the sentence would be longer than he had hoped ... but he does wish to appeal,” Leinenweber said.

Shand’s lawyers had argued the taxi driver had done other errands for Patel and succumbed to the draw of money in order to take care of his family.

“This is not a hardened criminal,” Aaron Morrison told the sentencing hearing. “This is a good man who made a horrible lapse of judgment.”

Patel and Shand both declined to address court before being sentenced. Patel, already in custody, was led away in handcuffs and an orange prisoner’s outfit.

He will likely be deported after serving his sentence, the judge said.

Shand, wearing a blue dress shirt, walked out of court and was told to report to prison by July 1. His lawyer is aiming to have him serve time in Florida to be close to his family.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2025.