A man accused of recruiting the driver in a human smuggling operation has been arrested more than two years after a family of four from India froze to death while trying to enter the U.S. from Canada, authorities said.
Harshkumar Ramanlal Patel, 28, was arrested Wednesday in Chicago on an arrest warrant issued in September charging him with transportation of an illegal alien and conspiracy to bring and attempt to bring an illegal alien into the United States .
Patel allegedly hired Steve Shand of Deltona, Florida, to push migrants from the Canadian border into the Chicago area. Shand, who reportedly told authorities that Patel paid him a total of $25,000 to make five such trips in December 2021 and January 2022, has pleaded not guilty to human smuggling charges and is awaiting trial on March 25.
Patel’s attorney, Michael Leonard, said Monday that he has been told very little about the allegations so far.
“Based on the fact that we have received nothing at this time other than allegations in the form of a criminal complaint reciting hearsay statements, we are not in a position to legitimately assess the government’s allegations,” Leonard said in a statement. statement to Associated Press.
Shand was at the wheel of a van with 15 passengers that was stopped by U.S. Border Patrol on Jan. 19, 2022, in North Dakota, just south of the Canadian border. Authorities spotted five other people nearby in the snow. All the Indian nationals told officers they had walked for more than 11 hours in freezing snowstorms, according to a complaint in Shand’s case.
One of the men was carrying a backpack with items for a small child inside, and told officers it belonged to a family that had been separated from the group overnight. Canadian Mounties began a search and together found three bodies – a man, a woman and a young child – just 10 meters from the border near Emerson, Manitoba, on the Red River that separates North Dakota from Minnesota. A second child was found a short distance away. They all apparently died from exposure.
The migrant with the backpack told authorities he paid the equivalent of $87,000 in U.S. money to an organization in India to set up the move, according to a federal complaint from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Federal prosecutors believe Harshkumar Patel organized the smuggling operation. The victims were identified as Jagdish and Vaishaliben Patel and their children, 11-year-old Vihangi and 3-year-old Dharmik.
It was not immediately clear whether the family was related to Harshkumar Patel, a common name in India.
Federal authorities believe Patel himself entered the U.S. illegally in 2018 after being denied a U.S. visa at least five times, the complaint said. Shand told investigators that Patel operates a gambling business in Orange City, Florida, and that he knew him because he gambled there and operated a taxi company that took people there.
The complaint cited cell phone records showing hundreds of communications between Shand and Patel to work out logistics for illegal trafficking. A text message from Shand to Patel on January 19, 2022 read: “Make sure everyone is dressed for snowstorms.”