Trial begins Monday for 2 men accused of human smuggling after family's deaths at Manitoba-U.S. border

A long-awaited trial in Minnesota is scheduled to begin Monday with jury selection for two men accused of helping smuggle people across the U.S.-Canada border, including four members of an Indian family who froze to death in Manitoba as they tried to make it across in blizzard conditions.

The court proceedings come nearly three years after the bodies of Jagdish Patel, 39, his wife, Vaishali, 37, their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi, and their three-year-old son, Dharmik, were found on Jan. 19, 2022, in a snow-drifted field just 12 metres from the U.S. border.

Autopsies confirmed they all died due to hypothermia, American prosecutors said in a trial brief filed last month. The family was trying to cross the border during a blinding blizzard on a day when the temperature was –23 C, but the wind chill hovered between –35 and –38.

Harshkumar Patel, who is not related to the victims, and Steve Shand were indicted earlier this year by U.S. federal prosecutors in connection with the case.

Shand was arrested on the morning of Jan. 19, 2022, by U.S. border patrol agents as he was in a rented 15-seater passenger van on a snowy highway in Minnesota, just south of the Canadian border near Emerson, Man.

Patel was arrested in Chicago in February 2024.

The men are charged with several counts related to human smuggling. They have pleaded not guilty. 

CBC News will be in Minnesota for the men's trial this coming week, which is scheduled to take approximately five days at the federal courthouse in Fergus Falls, about 80 kilometres southeast of Fargo, N.D. — the closest federal courthouse to where the incident happened.

The proceedings had previously been delayed, including last year, when lawyers asked for an extension in Shand's case, citing its complexity and the desire to avoid multiple trials if more charges were laid.

That came before Patel was indicted in the case earlier this year, at which point Shand was also indicted on additional charges.

The family who died near the border was part of a group of 11 Indian nationals all trying to make the same journey across in January 2022, including one who the trial brief says "was so hypothermic that she was slipping in and out of consciousness and had severe frostbite on her nose and fingers."

Prosecutors say the 11 people were looking for Shand's van, which had gotten stuck.

Harshkumar Patel, who prosecutors say had a number of aliases, including "Dirty Harry," is alleged to have hired and paid Shand to meet and transport the migrants once they crossed the border into the U.S.

Patel and Shand knew each other because they frequented certain casino game rooms and both lived in or around Deltona, Fla., prosecutors say.

Witnesses include Canadians

The prosecution's briefing outlines their case against Patel and Shand, including photos showing how poorly the migrants were prepared for the cold. It also includes selections of text messages and phone logs from the defendants' phones, which prosecutors say showed their awareness of the dangers of the cold and a forecast blizzard.

Between Dec. 12, 2021, and Jan. 19, 2022 — the day the Patel family was found dead — the defendants smuggled dozens of individuals across the Canada-U.S. border as part of a large, systematic human smuggling operation that brought Indian nationals to Canada on student visas and then smuggled them into the U.S., the court document alleges.

Shand and Patel — in co-ordination with co-conspirators in Canada — managed the Manitoba to Minnesota crossings, prosecutors claim. Patel co-ordinated with smugglers in Canada to determine locations, dates and numbers of migrants, the document says.

To date, no one in Canada is facing charges. An RCMP spokesperson said the investigation is ongoing, and no arrests have been made.

U.S. prosecutors say they intend to call several witnesses during the trial, including law enforcement officers who responded to the scene, and those who investigated the smuggling scheme. As well, various expert witnesses are expected to provide information on topics such as phone records and the weather conditions the day the Patel family died.

Two Canadian forensic pathologists are also expected to be called to testify about the Patel family's autopsies.

Prosecutors say other possible witnesses are a man who was part of the larger smuggling conspiracy and sent many of the Jan. 19 migrants to Manitoba to cross into Minnesota, after he was unable to get them across the border between British Columbia and Washington state.

One or more of the migrants who were part of the same group as the Patel family may also be called as witnesses, prosecutors say.