Two men found guilty in smuggling deaths of family at US-Canada border

A Minnesota jury has found two men guilty of helping smuggle an Indian family from Canada to the US in January 2022, leading to their deaths.

Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel and Steve Anthony Shand were found guilty on all counts of human trafficking, criminal conspiracy and culpable homicide not amounting to murder.

Both had pleaded not guilty to the charges in relation to the death of the Patel family, whose bodies were found frozen in a Manitoba field by Canadian authorities 12m (39ft) from the US border.

The trial has shed light on human smuggling operations that help foreign nationals move to North America unlawfully.

The jury presented the verdict in a Minnesota court on Friday after a few hours of deliberation.

The two men will be sentenced at a later date. They each face as long as 55 years in prison.

The trial, which began on Monday, included testimony from another convicted migrant smuggler and a survivor from the same group that the Patel family was traveling with.

The jurors were also shown text messages sent between the two accused in the weeks leading up to the day the Patel family died. They discussed travel logistics for the migrants, as well as the freezing temperatures on the day of the fatal trip.

The bodies of Vaishaliben Patel, her husband Jagdish and their two young children, 11-year-old Vihangi and three-year-old Dharmik, were found by Canadian police in January 2022.

Authorities believe that the family - who had travelled on visitor visas from their home village in western India to Toronto, Canada - were trying to cross into the US when they were caught in the blinding blizzard and temperatures as low as -35C (-31F).

Prosecutors said they had become separated from a larger group of people being smuggled across the border.

Authorities said Patel (the accused, who is not related to the deceased family) was a key organizer of the operation, while Shand was arrested for planning to pick up the family and other migrants once they crossed into the US.

In closing arguments, assistant US attorney Michael McBride argued that while the Patels were "slowly dying in the freezing cold, Steve Shand sat in his warm van and did nothing to help".

Meanwhile, Mr McBride said "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," he told the court.

Lawyers for Shand argued that he was recruited by Patel and was "an unknowing participant" in the smuggling enterprise, and said that their client "did not agree to participate in any crime."

The defence also urged the jury to be critical of testimony they heard from witnesses, and to factor in whether others were culpable and to what degree in the Patels' death.

The trial exposed the workings of a complex, international network that sought to illegally funnel immigrants into the United States through Canada at great risk to would-be migrants and great profit to smugglers.

Among the witnesses was Rajinder Pal Singh, a convicted human smuggler who helped move people across the US-Canada border between British Columbia and Washington state.

Singh testified that the Patel family was in touch with another alleged smuggler, Fenil Patel, who lives in Toronto and was charged by Indian police for the family's death.

He said Fenil Patel (unrelated to the family) had arranged for the family to get Canadian visas so they could illegally cross into the US.

Another witness was 23-year-old Yash Patel (also unrelated to the deceased family), who was was travelling with the Patel family to the US.

He testified he and the other migrants were dropped off in the middle of a blizzard in Manitoba and had to walk until they saw another car.

He said it did not take long before the group got separated.

"I was very scared," Yash Patel told the Minnesota court. "I wanted to have help from somebody, but there was no one who could come and help me."