A federal trial involving two men accused of smuggling Indian migrants to their deaths into the U.S. began today in Minnesota, InForum reports.
Authorities discovered the scheme after a migrant family — including two children — was found dead near the Canada-U.S. border during a snowstorm in January 2022.
29-year-old Ramanlal Patel and 50-year-old Steve Shand from Florida are accused of running the international smuggling scheme that stretches from India to Canada to the United States.
U.S. Border Patrol apprehended Shand after allegedly finding him driving two Indian migrants just below the border. They also found five others close by on foot.
According to authorities, the operation, based in Gujarat, India, used fraudulent student visas to smuggle migrants from India into Canada then into the U.S. mostly through Washington or Minnesota, as reported by Arab News. From there, the migrants were taken to Chicago to work in a restaurant chain. But Gujarat police suspect the chain owner organized the scheme to employ workers for sub-standard wages, according to InForum.
Prosecutors say Patel led the operation and recruited Shand to drive a vehicle full of migrants to the Windy City.
The Minnesota Star Tribune reported that starting in December 2021, Shand communicated with Patel about the risk of smuggling migrants through the freezing temperatures of the Canadian border. But the operation nonetheless continued with four additional illegal transportations.
Jagdish Patel, 39, and his wife, Vaishaliben, 37, froze to death alongside their two children, 11-year-old Vihangi and 3-year-old Dharmik — who was found in his father’s arms. Canadian authorities, who discovered the family, believe they walked in a blizzard for hours in an attempt to cross the border.
U.S. Border Patrol reported 198,929 cases of migrants crossing the Canada-U.S. border in the past year. The Tribune stated this is an 81% increase since the deaths of the Patel family, who had no familial relation to Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, over two years ago.
Both Patel and Shand pleaded not guilty, and the trial is expected to go on for five days.
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