Federal jury finds human smugglers guilty in death of 4 at Minnesota border

Two people have been convicted by a federal jury on four counts of human smuggling, announced U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger last week, following a trial related to the 2022 freezing deaths of four people at the Minnesota-Canadian border in the dead of winter.

Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, a.k.a. “Dirty Harry” or “Harry Patel,” 29, and Steve Anthony Shand, 50, conspired to smuggle dozens of people across the border of Canada and into the United States between Dec. 12, 2021, and on Jan. 19, 2022, according to evidence presented at trial.

Patel and Shand were part of a large-scale human-smuggling operation that brought Indian nationals to Canada on student visas and then smuggled them into the United States, a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said. The defendants’ roles in the smuggling operation included the coordination and transportation of people from Manitoba into the United States. Specifically, Patel worked with co-conspirators in Canada to organize the logistics of smuggling trips, while Shand was instructed when and where to pick up migrants just south of the Canadian border in the United States. He then drove them to Chicago. They were paid for their roles in the conspiracy and disregarded the risks posed by the cold weather at the northern border.

On Jan. 19, 2022, law enforcement agents with Homeland Security Investigations responded to a request for assistance from U.S. Border Patrol (USBP) based out of Pembina, North Dakota. USBP initiated a traffic stop on a 15-passenger van that Shand was driving. The stop occurred less than one mile south of the U.S./Canadian border in a rural area between the official ports of entry located at Lancaster, Minnesota, and Pembina, North Dakota. A short while later, law enforcement encountered five Indian nationals approximately a quarter mile south of the Canadian border walking in the direction of where Shand had just been arrested. They explained that they had walked across the border expecting to be picked up by someone. The group estimated they had been walking for over seven hours.

One of the members of the group was in possession of a backpack that did not belong to him. He told officers that he was carrying the backpack for a family of four Indian nationals who had walked with his group but had become separated during the night. Temperatures that night had plummeted to -36 degrees. The backpack contained children’s clothes, a diaper, toys, and some children’s medication.

That family was found dead a short time later. Later the same day, Jan. 19, 2022, USBP received a report from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that four bodies—two adults and two young children—were found frozen just inside the Canadian side of the international border. As proven at trial, Patel and Shand were paid to smuggle them into the United States.

Following a five-day trial in U.S. District Court before Judge John R. Tunheim, a federal jury found Patel and Shand each guilty on four counts related to human trafficking of foreign nationals.

“This trial exposed the unthinkable cruelty of human smuggling and the lengths that traffickers will go to maximize profit—putting men, woman [sic] and little children in extraordinary peril, ultimately leading to the tragic deaths of an entire family,” said U.S. Attorney Luger. “Today, we have brought those responsible to justice. For that, I thank the tenacious work of all of the law enforcement officers involved, including the prosecution team from my office and the Department of Justice.”

Sentencing for the pair will be held at a later date.

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Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.

Crime Watch MN

Minnesota Crime Watch & Information publishes news, info and commentary about crime, public safety and livability issues in Minneapolis, the Twin Cities and Greater Minnesota.