An Indian family had died while illegally immigrating from Canada to the US in the cold weather on January 19, 2022. Jagdish Patel had called Fenil Patel (the agent who facilitated the illegal immigration) to inform him that the weather was extremely cold and that his children wouldn’t be able to handle it.

Fenil offered no help and informed him that since no driver was found to take them to the USA, they would have to return to Canada along with other Indians.

Jagdish Patel, Vaishali Patel, and their two children died just 12 km away from the USA border.

The trial, which started on November 18 in a Minnesota federal court with a jury, saw Rajendra Pal Singh, another agent who had been sentenced to 45 months in jail earlier, called to testify on the second day of the trial. In his testimony, Singh said that Jagdish had called Fenil and sought help. 

Singh admitted in court on Tuesday that he had a role in human trafficking across the international border into British Columbia, but Fenil Patel denied any involvement in the operation once it reached Manitoba. However, Singh’s testimony is considered questionable, as he is only willing to testify on the condition that the government postpones his deportation for a year. When Harsh Kumar Patel’s lawyer, Thomas Plunkett, questioned whether it was true that Singh did not want to go back to jail or be deported to India, Singh replied that he wanted to stay in the US.

Singh also mentioned in his testimony that Fenil had once said that two Jamaican individuals were also involved in the smuggling operation. The court noted that Shand and his wife were Jamaican.

During the trial, testimony from US border patrol agents and other intelligence agencies was also presented.

Agent Daniel Huglo testified that while he was going to rescue other people stuck in the storm, he found a backpack containing children’s clothes and diapers. He realised that more people were likely stuck in the storm.

Another agent, Christopher Alavero, stated that on that day, he saw Shand taking more immigrants in his van. He had suspected a different licence plate in northern Minnesota.

Prosecutors argued that the defendants put financial profit over human life when they attempted to smuggle Indian migrants across the border into Minnesota during a five-week period in December 2021 and January 2022. They claim that Fenil ran part of the smuggling operation and recruited Shand as a driver. Both men have pleaded not guilty to four counts related to human smuggling.

Federal prosecutors say Harshkumar Patel and Steve Shand tried to smuggle migrants across the border as part of a sprawling international smuggling ring. Rajinder Singh, who has already been convicted of human smuggling, was also part of the same smuggling ring as Patel and Shand, they argue. Singh testified on Tuesday that he had shuttled more than 500 Indian migrants across the US-Canada border over four years.

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Man accused of smuggling family that died on Canada-US border nabbed in US