Trial sees texts between men accused in migrants’ deaths by Manitoba-Minnesota border

By Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press on November 20, 2024.

A border marker, between the United States and Canada is shown just outside of Emerson, Man., Thursday, Jan. 20, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/John Woods

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. – The trial of two men accused of human smuggling is getting a look at messages the prosecution says prove the pair conspired to sneak people across the Canada-United States border.

Steve Shand and Harshkumar Patel have pleaded not guilty to charges of organizing several illegal crossings of Indian nationals from Manitoba to Minnesota in late 2021 and early 2022.

During one of their alleged operations, a family of four froze to death just north of the border in a blizzard.

The trial was shown text and social media messages sent between two cellphones registered to Shand and a phone number that matches one Patel had submitted when he earlier applied for residency in the U.S.

In one exchange in December 2021, a message from Shand’s phone said it was “cold as hell” followed by, “They going to be alive when they get here?”

The other phone responded that they would send their location.

A criminal analyst with Homeland Security Investigations showed other messages that had been extracted from phone records as well as bank deposits that showed money being put into an account that belonged to Shand and his wife.

Shand’s lawyers have said he was simply a taxi driver who was unaware he was doing anything illegal until the day the family of four died.

Patel’s lawyers have said he has been misidentified as a participant in human smuggling.

On Jan. 19, 2022, U.S. border patrol arrested Shand just south of the border. He was driving a van with two people from India inside. Five other migrants soon emerged from a field, one of them suffering severe hypothermia in temperatures that felt colder than -30 C with the wind.

Hours later, RCMP found the frozen bodies of a family – Jagdish Patel, 39; his wife, Vaishaliben Patel, 37; their 11-year-old daughter, Vihangi; and their three-year-old son, Dharmik. The Patels were not related to one of the accused who has the same last name.

The boy’s body was cradled in his father’s arms.

The trial earlier heard from Rajinder Paul Singh, who said he worked as a human smuggler for eight years, mostly getting people across the border between British Columbia and Washington state, for a man named Fenil Patel, who is also not related to the family who died.

Singh testified that Fenil Patel told him he had received a phone call from the family who died, and the family said it was too cold to continue. Singh said Patel told the family to turn around and he would have someone pick them up where they started, but it was a lie because there was no one to pick them up.

Indian authorities said last year they were working to extradite Fenil Patel and another Canadian to face charges in that country.

Singh’s testimony for the prosecution was challenged by defence lawyers, who suggested he was co-operating in hope of special treatment. Singh told court he has three convictions for smuggling and fraud and is facing deportation.

“What you want is to not go back to prison and to stay (in the United States),” Thomas Plunkett, a lawyer for Harshkumar Patel said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 20, 2024.